15 November 2010 Grand Harbor Marina on Lake Pickwick 34. 59’ .472N 88. 12’.970W
We pushed hard today making another 57.7 miles with one lock. Our first lock, and wow what an experience.
Today was our latest start, we started at 0715L, had to wait out the fog, that had socked the river in, and prevented us from leaving at 0600L. We departed and start steaming for Pickwick, moving through fog and then rain starting at 1030L. This rain stuck with us the rest of the day till we stopped.
Highlights of the day, where passing a dredge that was operating, not much of a hazard, they were on one side only. We then passed two moving tows and passed the Edwin L Kennedy for the 3rd time in three days, He was tied up waiting to lock through Pickwick lock. We continued on to the lock…
As we approached at 1300, I fired up the generator and heated up some hot food for our bellies, it’s been a long cold day. That hit the spot. However as we approached the lock the tension started to mount, with Jim first, he was having a week stomach, but as always he was the man on the spot getting things done. Dependable guy Jim is. 1336 we move to the lock I am fine, then we got to the lock I was little nervous, but once again my army experience came in handy and I just dealt with it, but then we motored into the lock, little worse, kind of like my first live fire calflex when I was in charge of my tank and platoon. Once again make it through, things are going smoothly. We get the bowline over the bollard, and get set. I call the lock master and let him know we are secure. He starts filling the lock, we are moving up, this is cool, then he bow starts pushing into the wall, Jim calls, he’s pushing but can’t move us away, we move a little, then suddenly we are slammed into the wall, it’s insane, I rush forward and try and push, no luck, I try running the motor hoping I can use prop wash to push us off, no luck, we move but even closer to wall, grinding the mast into lock wall. I am desperate to get the mast and bow off the wall, I grab another dock line, and throw it over the bollard, missing, missing, missing, finally I make it, I run the line to the stern clean and heave on the line, rally and heave, stamp and go, stamp and go, finally I get the stern to move in and get and the mast and bow moved out. I keep it off the rest of the ride up, I was glad to see the top of the lock. As we are motoring out the lock master comes and says he was sorry he had opened a valve right under our boat and soon as he saw the problems he shut it down, Thank God he did. We made it out of our first lock. Learned a lot, we are now prepared for the next 12 locks. We have stopped at Grand Harbor Marina for the night and bought two very large round fenders they will keep the boat at least a foot and half of the wall, and we are adding an additional line to the stern cleat. The rest should be much easier as going down is less turbulent than going up.
This leaves on the night of 15 November 2010 on Pickwick Lake at Grand Harbor Marina, tired but happy with another interesting day and more to look forward to. It appears we will have one more day of poor weather, and then it’s looking good till next Sunday, sunny at least and warmer. Time to call it night and enjoy dinner and slow evening. Till next time. Capt. Bear signing off.
Wow - sounds like a little more excitement in the lock than you needed. Hope not too much damage to your gear...
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