Day 10 - Locks and Current

Stats - Today 52 miles, 4 locks,  6.5 hours - Total - 525 miles 17 locks.

Stressful day today.  Lots of pictures of the locks we had to go through, so sorry if this does not interest you. We talked about staying another day in Pittsburgh or to start back down river.  More rain was predicted tonight, so staying 1 day longer would not help us much.  In fact, the river might even be getting worse.  We decided to head out and go back to Holiday Yacht Club.  I did call and verify that the wall we were moored to on the way up was not under water.  The Allegheny River was roaring, with at least a 5 mph current.  We made it though the 1st lock without much trouble.  You can see the lock on the left, but not the dam going across.  Little nervous with the current.

Just a couple of quick pictures as we entered the Ohio River at Pittsburgh.  The green color in the river did not last long.  

Did get a shot of the Incline that we went up on Tuesday.

We made it to the 2nd lock (Emsworth), the 1st lock on the Ohio.  We had to wait about an hour as they were locking through 2 barges.  Once we got inside, we got our first downpour of the day.  Figures!  To top it off, as we were in the lock, sirens started going off.  Needless to say our hearts were skipping a couple of beats.  Lock Master asked if we were in distress or made a call.  We told him "no, we were fine".  Turns out a factory on the island saw us waiting for the lock for the last hour and thought we were in trouble and called fire and rescue.  Better safe than sorry I guess.  They did not know Dave Witherby.

Yes there is a lot of debris in the lock.

Next lock was only 5 miles down the river.  Current running, so at idle speed I was 10 mph on the Allegheny and 8.5 mph on the Ohio.  Had to work our way through some debris as we went through this lock also.

I was able to get the boat up to speed after the 3rd lock.  Still a lot of debris in the river, so had to keep a sharp eye out.  When we go to the 4th lock, the Lock Master said that there was some debris in the small chamber, and we could lock through the big chamber after the barges, in 3 hours.   I thought that it can't be worse than the last lock so we said we would lock through.  I was wrong.  Worst debris I had to go through in 30 years of boating.  We did get a few knocks as logs got trapped under the boat, but I was good about getting them out without damage.

 Thought we made it through the worst of it until they opened the doors.

I did pick up one big log as we where leaving.  Didn't think it was going to come out, but after some alternating power and a small kick in reverse, a 12 foot long 1 foot diameter log came out.  Not much else to see today.  Most of the cruising was slow, at 13mph.  I was able to run for about 12 miles and when I did, it was at 25mph.  

Got tied up to the wall at the marina and covered everything up.  Rain came, cooked dinner, rain came, raining now, rain predicted tonight.  Another wet, slow day for tomorrow on the Willy Wonka Chocolate river.

Hoping for dryer weather and a lower river.

Oh yeah - daily cat pic.