Commerce Anchorage to Bean Branch Creek 9/26/17

We really enjoyed our new found anchorage last night between two wing dams on the Mississippi.  There was virtually no wake from passing tows and we slept well.  We awoke to another beautiful day although a little hot for my liking not wanting to swim in the Mississippi or Ohio rivers.  I made Debbie the rest of that special bacon from Mariano's for breakfast with eggs and toast and then we headed off to finish our stretch on the Mississippi and start upriver on the Ohio river this afternoon. The last stretch of the river we hit over 14 knots at our normal cruising speed, due to the strong current.  That's almost 5 knots of current. When we turned up the Ohio we were down to 8 knots in about 1 1/2 knots of head current.  We passed lines of barges and tows waiting to get in line for the next locks and we had a feeling it was going to be a long wait.  There are two locks almost right away and as I write this we have been waiting for about 3 hours to get through the second lock.  I have seen worse and arrived with the attitude it was going to be a long wait and it has been quicker than I expected.  They are building a new lock to replace this one and you can see some of the construction pictures we took today.
We met a guy on a solar powered boat that has absolutely no fuel on-board and he is trying to be the first to do the Great Loop with no fuel consumed at all.  They don't even have propane and cook with an electric induction cooktop.
Abby was able to go for a walk when we tied up to wait for the lock she was happy as she didn't get a walk this morning.

This is the junction of the Mississippi and the Ohio, looking up the Ohio

The new Olmstead Lock still under construction. Note the huge overhead crane on two barges

An up-bound tow passed us pushing 4 barges wide by 7 long for a total of 28 barges.  The standing wake behind him from his prop wash was 6 feet high!

14.3 knots down river  with the current

Heading up the Ohio

That's a 5028 ton overhead crane at the top of the hill and a slide to get the assembled pieces down the hill to the river bank where they have another huge overhead crane on big barges to carry it out to the new locks.  They even had barges with cement mixers on them  4 mixers to a barge and three barges of mixers.  Must have poured a lot of concrete!

Well we finally got through the lock  and it was dark when we exited.  The Anchorage we had in mind was about 3 miles further north on the Ohio and we proceeded along with the help of the chart plotters and radar to find the unlit marks on a very dark night.  The radar made it easy to see where the marks were and if in fact they were there because some of the marks on the charts are not there anymore and there are some that are added but not on the charts. We along with Bucket List and Midas Touch made it to the anchorage at about 8:30 and we settled in for the night.  Luckily there were no tows downbound and we made it safely.  Now for a late dinner and then some TV.

As the sunsets we are finally going through the lock

A little nighttime navigation