My Ohio River adventure began at The Point, where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers join together as one. During my previous Ohio River trip by kayak, I traveled a little over thirty miles each day. On this trip I’ll be sailing and using a 2.3 horsepower outboard motor on a “pocket cruiser” to hopefully double my milage. My daily milage will also be impacted by the time it takes to pass through each lock and the time I spend visiting communities along the way. 

  The trip got underway as planned on July 14th of 2020, but five minutes into the second day the outboard motor quit working (I describe the situation in Day 2 of the blog). After returning home for several days and with the help of an excellent outboard mechanic, the problem was resolved. I restarted the morning of July 20th, but this time I began at a boat ramp close to my home (Indiana/Ohio state line). Over the next nine days I traveled roughly five hundred miles to the end of the river at Cairo, Illinois, arriving on July 29th. 

  So, last year (2020) I covered the first fifty and last five hundred miles of the river. This summer (2021) I’m returning to Chester, West Virginia where I had my mechanical problems on day 2. On on June 20th I will attempt to pick up the four hundred and fifty miles of the upper river that I missed last year.