The [lake] was angry that day

Captain's Log - Day 20

Another day afloat!

Pretty uneventful day. We're still making our way south through Kentucky Lake.

Check out these floating patches of red stuff. They were out in the middle of the lake and some extended for as long as 50 yards. I put Plan C in neutral and climbed down to investigate only to discover that they're dead minnows! There were literally tens of thousands! Why so many? Why in the middle of the lake?

Speaking of floating dead things ... when we started Huck Finn 2010, I really expected that I would see a dead body floating down the river. My stomach is weak, so I wasn't looking forward to it, but I was preparing myself mentally. Almost three weeks later, and still no dead bodies. Don't worry though, I'll let you know if I see one.

Around 6pm, we were hit by another five minute squall. Off on the horizon, we spotted dark clouds pouring down rain. By this time, we knew that it was only a matter of about ten minutes before we would be inundated. We closed all the windows and put everything inside that couldn't get soaked.

Before a storm hits there's an eerie calm (seems fairly obvious, right?). Then everything - the water, the air, the clouds - turn a deeper shade of blue and the wind picks up big time. Today the wind was especially bad. It transformed a fairly placid lake into a heaving landscape of four foot white-capped waves.

We contemplated waiting it out, but these waves were serious. I was honestly afraid that if we got turned sideways one of the bigger waves might roll us. We set a gradual course for a cove on our port side and maneuvered behind a protective beach, barely missing (we found out after the storm had passed) a sandbar!

The storm blew over a few minutes later and we were on our way.

Did I ever tell you about the mystery of Lock 23? Didn't think so. As we cruised down the upper Mississippi, we passed through Lock 22 and then came upon Lock 24. After double checking our river charts to make sure I wasn't crazy, I asked one of the lock attendants what happened to Lock 23.

He said that after the locks had been planned out, the powers that be decided Lock 23 wasn't needed. He also said that Lock 23 is in Pennsylvania now ... which makes no sense! Why would it still be called Lock 23? They didn't move it. But then again, they didn't bother to renumber the rest of the locks, which seems like a really obvious and simple thing to do, so maybe he's on point. He went on to say that the tug operators are having shirts and hats made that have the Army Corps of Engineers Logo and have "Lock 23" printed on them as a joke. Wonder if I could snag one of those?

For cruising tunes, lately I've been liking Pheonix's Wolfgang Amadeus Pheonix, Ok Go's Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, and Good Old War's Only Way to Be Alone. Good Old War seems especially appropriate for river cruising - very blue grassy.

We stopped early tonight because it was very overcast and another storm was on the horizon. We're on the hook somewhere on Kentucky Lake. This storm is nuts! We have no visibility and there's lots of thunder and lightning. Hopefully it'll blow over soon so we can open the windows and get some air!