Are you paying attention?

Happy Birthday Kevennie!
We left the transient dock at Aqua Yacht Harbor at quarter after seven this morning.  Twenty minutes later we were on the Tennessee River.  A half hour after that we were back in the state of Alabama.
We knew from checking the U.S. Coast Guard Notice to Mariners that Wilson Lock was under scheduled repairs and that the auxiliary lock would be used.  We did not know exactly what that would mean with wait time.  Around 1:00 p.m. before we even reached the city of Florence we saw a tow with 15 barges just sitting on the side of the river.  We knew this couldn't be good.  We went ahead and called the lock on the telephone to find out how long of a wait it would be, that way we would know if we should just pull into Florence Harbor.  The nice gentleman on the phone, Keenan, said that this might be my lucky day because they were just about to move things around and maybe we could get right in.  I knew I couldn't have that good of luck.  We were still an hour or so away from the lock, I was just calling to find out about the wait time.  He explained that once we were at the arrival point to call them again and we would be put on the list.  At that point they would have to get us in within three hours. 
So we kept on motoring, passing three more tows along the way, "Lexington", "Joseph M. Hamilton" and "Dixie Express".  We dropped the anchor at the arrival point at 2:15 p.m. and called Keenan back.  We were on the list, so we would be called into the lock no later than 5:15 p.m.  There was a better place for us to wait though.  We could tie off to the Army Corps of Engineers work barge or anchor right by it, so we moved up and anchored there instead.  This gave us a first hand look at both the construction on the main lock and the procedure in the auxiliary lock.
Wilson Lock is the tallest lock east of the Rockies.  It is normally about a 93 foot lift.  The main lock is 600 feet long by 110 feet wide.  The auxiliary lock is a flight of two locks in tandem that are 300 feet long and 60 feet wide each.  Barges are roughly 200 feet long and 35 feet wide.  If you're paying attention you can see that nine barges can fit in the main lock at one time, but only one barge can fit in the auxiliary lock.  Yes, we sat there for three hours watching a tow at the top of the lock push a barge in and a tow at the bottom pull the barge out at a rate of one hour per barge.
We got the call to come in at exactly 5:15 p.m.  Ten minutes later we were tied in the first chamber.  Once we were at the top of that lock, another lock master came out and talked to us.  He told us that in the auxiliary lock it took about 22 to 24 hours to lock the tows with 15 barges.  Again if you are paying attention, we were with "Joseph M. Hamilton" and "Dixie Express" two days ago.  They have been waiting for days here at the lock to get through.  Three hours didn't seem so bad.  We didn't get out of the second chamber until 6:10 p.m.  About an hour later we finally anchored for the night in Carter Branch, an anchorage we've never tried before, but it was too late and we were too tired and hungry to explore.