Rumblefish - Our Great Loop Adventure

Rumblefish - Our Great Loop Adventure Join us as we travel over 6000 miles around the Eastern US on our 41’ Maxum.

Cape Girardeau, MO to Bean Branch Creek (Ohio River, KY)Highlights of the day…✅ Finished the Mississippi ✅ Added Kentuck...
10/10/2026

Cape Girardeau, MO to Bean Branch Creek (Ohio River, KY)

Highlights of the day…
✅ Finished the Mississippi
✅ Added Kentucky to our list of States
✅ Wrote a poem

Our beautiful anchorage in Little River Diversion Creek turned out to be such a cool place to spend the night. Clear cool night skies, no wake from passing rowboats, and surrounded by a dozen other Loop boats!

Our plan today included a long run down the Mississippi until we reached the confluence of the Ohio River. Making the turn north, we left the muddy waters of the Mississippi. We traded the strong river currents helping us travel faster for the counter-currents as we pushed up the Ohio River. Today, we only had to run the counter-current for about ten miles. Tomorrow we’ll have to continue for another twenty miles before we start heading downhill again.

A Poem…

I miss the churning water.
I miss the mud.
I miss the logs and debris.
I miss the tows.
I miss the submerged ATONs.
I miss issippi!

A poem - by Scott 🧐

10/09/2026

RumbleFish and a flotilla of Loopers clear the Ohlmstead Lock on the Ohio River.

Kaskaskia Lock wall to Little River Diversion Channel, Cape Girardeau, MO7 am departures are the best! When there’s a lo...
10/09/2026

Kaskaskia Lock wall to Little River Diversion Channel, Cape Girardeau, MO

7 am departures are the best! When there’s a lot of miles to travel on a busy, fast-running river, it’s great to get a sunrise start to the day. I didn’t get the complete count of boats on the Kaskaskia wall, but we filled the entire length, including a couple of rafted boats. It looked like a formula race start with almost everyone getting an early start to the day.

The Mighty Mississippi was running hot! Lots of rain run-off had the water running around three knots. Along with the currents, there was debris everywhere. We made good time, and arrived at a small side channel around 1pm. With about fourteen boats coming in to anchor, we all did a different kind of anchoring, where one boat dropped anchor upstream, and a buddy boat dropped anchor downstream, and then the two boats backed up to each other and tied off side-by-side. This gave a very compact anchorage with no anchor swing.

10/09/2026

Transitioning from the Mississippi to the Ohio with a fleet of 7 Loopers. We lose about 6 knots, as we are now going upstream, but have cleaner waters and less debris.

Sunrise on the Mississippi.
10/09/2026

Sunrise on the Mississippi.

10/08/2026

Busy day on the Mississippi.

Confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Kaskaskia Lock wall, ILSt Louis mayhem!A peaceful night at anchor o...
10/08/2026

Confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Kaskaskia Lock wall, IL

St Louis mayhem!

A peaceful night at anchor on a bend of the Mississippi, a 7 am departure as the sun peeked over the shoreline trees, and a favorable current gave us a perfect start to our day.

Almost immediately we had to make a crucial navigation move. Continue straight down the river and end up stranded on the Chain of Rocks, or take the bypass canal and avoid running aground. Two years ago a sailboat missed the bypass canal - total loss to the boat as they went over the Chain of Rocks! Needless to say, we took the bypass!

St Louis Port is busy! Tows and barges moving with no apparent pattern. Huge currents of muddy water. And three 40’ boats trying to get in position for a picture in front of the Gateway Arch. With a strong current, we were able to make a steady 11-12kts. Normally we travel at 8kts.

We made quick time down the river, where we caught up with a dozen other looper boats at the Kaskaskia Lock wall.

10/07/2026

Fast currents, muddy waters, logs, deadheads, and debris, and tows everywhere! OMG!

10/07/2026

Life on the Mississippi

Grafton, IL to the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi RiversToday’s cruising buddies are brought to you by Brent...
10/07/2026

Grafton, IL to the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers

Today’s cruising buddies are brought to you by Brent and Vonni on Hook&Ladder, and Kent and Ann on Lechuza.

Yesterday evening we had docktails with about twenty other Loopers at Grafton Marina. We quickly realized that there would be a crowd of boats heading down the river today, and the few places to stop for the night were going to become crowded very quickly! So we broke off a splinter group, found a small, out of the way anchorage at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and made our plans for a relaxing day on the water.

Well, apparently the Mighty Mississippi had other plans for us! Floating debris, logs, furniture, and other unmentionables made our track down the river look like Heinlein’s drunkard’s walk. (Yes, it’s a thing. Look it up!) After waiting for a tow to pass through the Melvin Price Lock at Alton, IL, we got our turn in the lock with four other pleasure boats, and got to drop eight inches before spitting us out the other end of the lock.

Approaching our anchorage for the evening, we made the turn to go a couple hundred yards up the Missouri River and dropped anchor in a spot that had dozens of five star reviews. Apparently, none of those reviews included massive rains last week/Missouri River at flood stage/huge debris field racing down the river! After about five minutes on anchor, we started searching for alternatives. Luckily, we found a little curve back on the Mississippi that was off the traffic channel and didn’t have old farmhouses floating down the river!

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