Another gorgeous sunny day, up early and on our way. We reached the Coffeyville Lock around 13:25 and we were told there was a delay because they were dredging. We were told to go back up river and anchor and he' call us when we could enter the lock. We anchored in 30' of water and tied the stern to a tree near shore. We were told not to expect to go before 18:00. We were kind of settling in when we got the call at 16:00 telling us and two other powerboats to come now or not today. All three of us quickly hauled up our anchors and headed to the chamber. We dropped about 30' which brought us to sealevel! The Lock doors opened and there was a large dredge boat filling the exit. He radioed that we were to pass closely alongside the dredge because he had a large cable attached to the lock wall that he was letting go slack for us to pass. I radioed that we draw 5.5' and confirmed we would be OK. We got permission to come by and off we went. After having a comfortable night last night anchoring just out of the channel we decided to do the same. We chose a straight stretch where the tows would be able to see us and anchored, again in 7' of water inside the red can buoys.
We could see that there were two tows coming opposite direction from each other so we waited until they passed us. We were well away from them and out of the channel.