Once we pointed Pair of Jokers south and started down the rivers, everything changed. This stretch of the Great Loop comes with its own personality: big barges, low bridges, big locks, long waits, and miles of absolutely nothing to look at except trees, water, and more trees.
Barge School — Day One
The first real challenge was learning how to pass or make way for barges. These aren’t the little river barges you see on postcards. Down here they can be three wide and six long, and each barge can weigh up to 3,000 tons. Passing one is like passing 900 tractor‑trailers tied together and pushed by a towboat captain who has been doing this longer than we’ve been alive.
Calling them on the radio was its own adventure. I had to break out my Speak Southern Dictionary just to understand which side they wanted us on. Barges have right‑of‑way, and they get priority at the locks, so staying polite and staying out of their way is the name of the game.
Lock Life
We shared a few locks with barges or just the tug. Our longest wait was almost four hours. At one lock we had to raft up with another Looper boat. Our new friends Bill and Mindy let us tie up to them. When we were about three feet away, Vikki told Bill, “We’ve never done this before.” The look on Bill’s face was priceless. But we got tied off, stayed steady, and learned something new.
Bridge Limbo — The Famous 19.8‑Footer
Then came the railroad bridges — timing them, watching them, hoping they’d lift. And of course the famous one listed at 19.8 feet. Pair of Jokers is listed at 19.2, but I dropped the light and got us down to 18.7 just to be safe. The river was a little high that day, and here’s the truth:
If you don’t fit under that bridge, it’s no longer the Great Loop — it’s the Great Turnaround. There’s no alternate route. You either clear it, or you go back the way you came.
The Tenn‑Tom Deadline — The Biggest Challenge of All
The real pressure on this section wasn’t the barges or the bridges — it was the Tenn‑Tom lock closure. One of the locks was scheduled to shut down on September 8th for 30 days. If we didn’t make it through before that date, we’d be stuck somewhere for a full month, plus we’d be behind a long line of barges once it reopened.
Most Loopers cruise at 7 knots. Fortunately, Pair of Jokers can cruise at 17 knots, and we used every bit of that speed whenever the river allowed it. We pushed hard, ran fast, and made the lock with three days to spare.
That was the moment we knew we were safely southbound — no 30‑day layover, no barge backlog, and no Great Turnaround.
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