Hello everyone, meet Lorelei IV, a 50 ft Hatteras built in 1965, hull #9.
We are Rob and Naomi, her current proud owners. This is our first blog post. We purchased Lorelei IV two years ago and have been getting acquainted since then. We would eventually like to move aboard and cruise in warmer climates, but at this point, we still need to work, save, and plan. She was on Lake Barkley when we bought her, which is a very beautiful area with lots of easy places to cruise and anchor, so we stayed there in Green Turtle Bay Marina for our first 2 boating seasons. This spring we decided to move her to the St. Louis area, which is only 2 hours away instead of 6. This is exactly what we did this past week.
The stats- 4days, 46 hours underway, 300 miles, 5 locks, 4 rivers.
The first lock was the Kentucky Dam lock on the Tennessee River. We actually had an Asian Carp jump into our dingy! They put on quite a show while the water dropped.
Sasha is our on board trainer - she continually wants to play catch or tug-a-war. Due to the 4-6 knot current going up the Mississippi, which made deploying our dingy quite challenging, we went for a stretch of 49 hours without going to shore for nature calls! But she did great and didn't complain about using a door mat for her potty needs.
We made it to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial ( Gateway Arch), but still had 2 locks to go. We still needed to make our way up the Chain of Rocks canal (Lock #27) and then finally through the Mel Price lock( Lock #26) at Alton, IL. Well, this last lock was the trouble maker due to the main lock being shutdown for repairs, so we spent 3-4 hours waiting to lock through since the auxiliary lock was smaller.
Due to this delay, we had a few miles to go after nightfall. This was a very scary since there was a large amount of debris in the water.
Finally our new view from our new slip! Sasha is excited about future trips to the sand beach for long walks and Frisbee sessions!
Coming up in our next post will be our want/need to do list.
Greetings to the Lorelei IV!
ReplyDeleteMy nephew sent me the link to your blog via e-mail today.
My parents were prior proud owners of your beautiful ship in the 1980's & 90's. She was known as the C Odyssey then and was kept on Lake Barkley, too. They had many happy & content days on her boating around Lake Barkley and going on cruises down the Tennessee River & even the Mississippi. I can empathize with your fear travelling at night. I took a trip with them to Nashville, TN one year with my sister, 2 friends & my oldest nephew. When we arrived there were no dock spaces, so we had to go back up river to find a spot to anchor. The 5 of us were at the bow with a large flashlight while my mom used the spotlight to watch for debris. It was nerve-racking to say the least.
May you enjoy many years of happy boating on the Lorelei IV! Glad to see she has new loving owners & another dog on board.
Connie Carlson in Culver City, CA