Friday, September 15, 2000
Well, today was the day for Leg Two of the sailing trip across Kentucky. Today's plan was to sail from the known boat ramp at Prestonsburg to the reported boat ramp in Louisa.
The logistics for this trip will get more complicated the farther I get away from Pikeville. Today's journey started 27 miles away and ended 68 miles away by road. Of course, the distances are a LOT further by the river, which winds around and doubles back over and again. Today's plan called for me to leave the house while it was still dark, and drive my boat and myself to the Prestonsburg River Park WITH boat ramp, which I joyfully discovered at the conclusion of my last journey. Then I would put the boat in and leave the car. Later that day, after work, Sarah would drive her car to Prestonsburg, pick up my car with boat trailer and come to Louisa to pick me up. I'm not sure just how we will handle those logistics when I am starting at Cincinnati and ending at Louisville. Sarah may have to spend a couple of days in a motel in the Cincinnati area waiting for me to complete my day's journey.
I pushed the boat out into the Big Sandy and immediately had to face my first rapids. I had scouted this one from the park and knew the best route was on the far side. Perched on the pointed front of the boat, I paddled it like a canoe going backward to the other side and successfully avoided the boat-eating rocks on the near side. The motor started on the second pull, as it almost always does, and I was off. But then I had to kill it twice more and run rapids before I was out of the city limits of Prestonsburg. That was a sign.
For the next seven hours, I would be killing the motor, spinning the boat and paddling through rapids. Some of the rapids were short - only 50 or 100 yards. But some of them were a mile long with water as shallow as one foot and gigantic boulders lurking just beneath the surface. About noon, as I was beginning to brag on my white water expertise, I crashed the boat into my first big rock and then another. Before the day was over, I managed to hit rocks about six or seven times. Sometimes the water is so shallow and the rocks so many that it is impossible to avoid them all.
The wind came up about 8:30. The forecast was for 10-15 mph winds from the Northwest, generally the direction I was headed. So when the wind could find its way between the mountains, it hit me in the face or tried to blow my boat sideways. Finally, I put down the swing-keel to keep the front of the boat from blowing sideways. But at the next rapids, I spun the boat around and forgot about the swing-keel sticking down about a foot below the bottom. I crashed it directly into a submerged rock that jolted the whole boat and knocked the keel-board off its hinges, leaving another repair job to be accomplished before the next leg.
I chased the same Blue Heron down the river for at least two hours. As I neared, he would take to the air and fly down the river avoiding my noisy little motor and me. But then I would round a bend, and scare him up again.
There were lots and lots of ducks on this leg of the trip. Many of them were about half-grown, just learning to fly. One had not quite learned to fly, so he skimmed along the water flapping and running, but not quite taking to the air. I enjoyed watching them closely through my binoculars. Toward the end of the day, I enjoyed chasing four solid white geese down the river.
The binoculars were also very useful for reading the river, which is an art form in itself. Around every bend, I would scour the water ahead for telltale signs of boulders just beneath the surface. And I would scout the rapids to determine the safest passage through. After a while, I learned the kind of wave patterns that indicated very shallow water and the kind that marked deep but fast water.
By 10, the boat had begun to leak. I think it just took a while for the water to fill one of the inner cavities and make its way into the boat. But once it started, it seemed to leak faster and faster. About every ten minutes for the rest of the day, I had to bail with my little tin can. The boat wasn't in danger of sinking. But when the water got more than 3/4 inch deep, it got my feet wet. And the day was just cool enough (upper forties) to make wet feet uncomfortable. So I bailed trying to keep my feet as dry as possible.
At 10:30, I arrived in Paintsville, about one-third of the way to Louisa. Since it happened to be in one of the few areas where my cell phone reported service, I called Sarah and optimistically reported that I should be in Louisa by 6 p.m.
But as soon as I left Paintsville, I ran into a series of rapids and shallow water that slowed me down dramatically. I hardly had time to spin the boat around and start the motor before I came upon another rapids.
For two hours, I faced a deflating routine. Kill the motor. Run the rapids. Start the motor. Kill the motor. Shear a pin. Drag the motor into the boat. Remove the cotter key with pliers. Replace the pin. Replace the cotter key. Remount the motor. Start the motor. Kill the motor. Run the rapids. Bang the bottom of the boat on a big rock. Start the motor.
This stretch of the river made me seriously wonder if it was such a good idea floating the river. And I concluded that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. At times, I was so busy that I didn't have time to check the map. Of course, I knew I couldn't really get lost because I would always be on the river. But it was really helpful to know where I was and how much further I was to go. I had a hand compass sitting in the boat so that I could orient my map with the compass and tell very easily on which bend of the river I was.
As the time flew and the miles drug by, I feared that I would not be able to make Louisa by dark. In the deep water, I ran the little three-horsepower motor faster. At full tilt, it can make maybe 5 mph., not much faster than a brisk walk. I tried to make the transitions as quickly as possible. Once I replaced a sheared pin in only six minutes. But another time, I had difficulty with the cotter pin and had to refill the gas tank, leaving me dead calm for 15 minutes.
I must have sheared a pin five or six times. The river is filled with boulders fallen from the mountainsides. Most of the time, I can spot the boulders by the way the current ripples over them. But sometimes they are just deep enough or the current is just slow enough that there is no evidence. And BANG! The motor lurches and then races, and the process starts again.
I passed another water-pumping barge like the near-decapitating one of last week. I frantically searched the water straining my eyes to see the dangerous cables, but this time they were run overhead about 15 feet in the air.
The natural beauty of the river is highly repeatable. Looks about the same at this bend as it does at the next bend. The natural view is only interrupted by the occasional boat or bit of human trash. I must have seen ten homemade wooden boats made from a 2X6X12, a twelve-foot boat six inches deep. I saw a couple of metal boats and five or six wrecked boats in various stages of decomposition. The only bona fide motorboat was a party barge parked at a pier behind a nice home about 1/2 mile from the boat ramp in Louisa. I never saw any fishermen. In fact, I only saw three people all day - one man sweeping the deck behind his house about 75 yards up the bank and two women walking across a suspension bridge at a community called River.
At 5 p.m., I saw the first good camping site on the Big Sandy. It was a nice level sandbar on the left side, the first sandbar I had seen that wasn't covered with boulders and deep weeds. Fortunately, I was close enough to Louisa that I knew I would not need it. I don't really cherish the idea of spending the night on the river. I much prefer the warm comforts of home.
Once I left Johnson County and entered Lawrence County, the number of rapids began to decline quickly. And finally about 3 p.m., the river noticeably deepened, and there were only occasional areas with swirling water. I usually ran the motor very slowly as I eased through them. I have a six-foot stick in the boat, a keepsake from a hiking trip to the Breaks, which I plunge over the side to test the depth of the water. When it nears two feet, I have to kill the motor and paddle.
Without the shallows, I was able to run the motor almost constantly, making up for lost time in Johnson County. The last ten miles were covered in record time, putting me at the boat ramp in Louisa about 6:30 p.m. As I pulled up, I could see Sarah getting out of the car. It was a welcome sight to end a long day on the river.