We've Landed

We left Grand Harbor marina in the morning.

We are now at our "dirt" home and will head back in October if the oil spill cleanup goes as planned. An estimated 117,000 gallons were pumped out the spill. The barge was removed and now the lock walls are being cleaned. The wall cleanup is estimated to take a couple of weeks but the timing will be better estimated as it progresses.

When we return (~October 12th), we will be traveling on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway which is a 234-mile man-made waterway that will deliver us to Demopolis.  It was under construction for 12 years by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was completed 1984. The total cost was nearly $2 billion and its construction was controversial at the time. We will go through 10 locks in this section.

 

We have had a great time on our trip and have met the nicest people. Special thanks to Jack and Jeanie for the transportation home and to you for following our journey to date. Hope to see you back when we return in October.

Down Time

Today was a fun, relaxing day. We took the boat out onto Pickwick Lake with Jack and Jeanie. We put the official American Great Cruise Loop burgee (AGCLA flag) on our boat. While we are not "officially" on the Loop, we have to date completed a big part of it (Chicago to the Tombigbee Waterway). We spotted a waterfall and found a great cove (Dry Creek) to anchor in.

 

 

 

We cruised by Goat Island.

 

 

These goats inhabit the island and are quite friendly to visitors who come ashore.

 

  

 

 

Our covered slip was open upon our return. Alan prepared a delicious dinner. Overall, a great day!

 

 

Tomorrow we head back home for a few weeks to wait out the oil spillage cleanup in Whitten Lock.  

Wolf Creek Anchorage to Grand Harbor Marina

Today we had to travel only 30 miles and go through one lock. We left Wolf Creek Island shortly after daybreak.

 

 

 

We followed one of the looper boats "Here's an Idea" and shared a lock with them at Pickwick Dam. Pickwick lock rises 55 feet and opens up into Pickwick Lake, another beautiful lake.

 

 

 

 



Here's an Idea would complete the Great Loop just 3 miles past the dam.



 

Grand Harbor Marina is quite nice. The first day we were parked by a fuel dock but will be moving to a covered slip tomorrow.

 

 

 

Grand Harbor Marina is located at the crossroads of three states (Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi). The dotted lines below show state boundaries.

 

 

Jack and Jeanie arrived late afternoon and we went out to dinner at a neighboring marina restaurant. Looking forward to having a fun and relaxing day with them tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Pebble Isle Marina to Wolf Creek Anchorage on Tennessee River

We woke up before dawn and the moon was still beautiful.

 

As soon as we had some light, we headed back out onto the Tennessee River.

 

It was a Saturday and we saw quite a few pleasure boats. This slowed us down a bit as we need to back off the engines when passing fishing boats or small pleasure craft floating in the river to avoid rocking them too much with our wake.

 

The barge below is loaded with giant rocks. So incredible what these tows can haul.

 

 

As we went further along the Tennessee, we began to see quite a few beautiful homes.

 





And a big surprise! I spotted an interesting bird along the waterfront. We didn't get to the camera quickly enough so the pics aren't great but it is a bald eagle!

 

 

 

 

The river was quite deep in some places. The temperature continued to be H-O-T! Check out the depth and sea temp on our gauge.

 

We slipped behind an island on Wolf Creek to anchor for the night and had a swim.

 

 

 

There was a couple of other Loopers anchored there as well.

 

 

 

Another beautiful moon.

 



We traveled 97 miles today and did not go through any locks. Tomorrow we will go through Pickwick Lock and then on to Grand Harbor marina where the boat will stay for 3-4 weeks.

The Tennessee River

We woke up at Green Turtle Bay Marina to an absolutely gorgeous sunrise.

We headed out early and crossed over from Barkley Lake to Kentucky Lake. This area is better known as Land Between the Lakes. Yesterday, we came in from the Cumberland River, through the Barkley Dam to Grand Rivers on Barkley Lake. This morning we crossed through the canal (also known as "the cut") that I have circled in red from Barkley Lake into Kentucky Lake which then leads to the Tennessee River. Kentucky Lake was formed in 1944 by the Tennessee Valley Authority when they built the Kentucky Dam creating the largest artificial lake by surface area in the U.S.

 Below is how the cut looks on our navigation chart.

 

And on the Nebo app

 

I was amazed at the size of Kentucky lake.

 

 

 

We passed a few turtles along the way.

 

 

And an abandoned grain elevator

 

We spent the night at Pebble Isle Marina at mm 96 on the Tennessee River. We fueled up ($3.09/gal). It was a really nice place to stay. They provided a courtesy car so we made a quick trip to the local Walmart.

 

We had a great dinner (fried catfish) at the marina restaurant and Katie Joe was a sweetheart.

 

 

 

We saw our first moonrise that night. It was pretty amazing to watch.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow, we will continue down the Tennessee River to an anchorage short of the Pickwick Lock and Dam. Then head to our temporary holding marina early on Sunday.

 

We averaged about 9.2 mph and 5 gallons fuel/hour on the Ohio. Heading upstream we are averaging about 9 mph and burning 6 gallons/hour.

 

Hoping for a cooler day tomorrow. Thanks for coming along with us!

 

Testing Our Mettle

So the day started off well. MacGyver did "fix" the coffee carafe so coffee was flowing and all was good in our world. We left our anchorage behind Rondeau Island before the sun came up.

There you are!

At Ohio River mile marker 922, we left the Ohio and turned into the Cumberland.

  

Goodbye Ohio River!



Hello Cumberland River!

You will notice that the Cumberland River is much narrower than the Ohio River. An important point to make here is that normally most of the barges would enter the Tennessee River off the Ohio vs. the Cumberland. Unfortunately, the lock (Kentucky Lock & Dam) in the Tennessee River is down for repairs the so the barges are using the Cumberland River, locking through the Barkley Dam. When we want to pass a barge, it is important to call the captain on the radio and ask his preference for your passing. In the case below, he asked Alan to pass him on the "two" which means we pass starboard to starboard (starboard is the right side of the boat facing forward, port is the left).

So just when we thought we were settled in on the Cumberland River, we lost our radar and depth finder. The depth piece was the really unsettling part. We knew depths were good in the Cumberland but once past Barkley Dam, who knows? So after a little detective work we saw that the battery was low on our VHF marine radio which was strange. We turned on the generator and the electronics came back to life. Whew. Alan discovered that a breaker had tripped, so electronics had been pulling too much power from the house battery. Still working to better understand why the breaker tripped but we were running a lot off the inverter and the batteries may have just been getting too low. All good now, we will watch how things go tomorrow. Have the generator as a back up if we need to turn it on tomorrow. We have been trying not to run it while we are underway. But the salon gets crazy hot and I'm sure the inverter is in high gear keeping the fridge and freezer working.

So now the race was on to get past another large barge and get to Barkley Dam to lock through before he does. Commercial barges have priority so if he got there first, we could be waiting for hours.

The lockmaster was just ready to call us in when we heard that barge radio in for a lock through. The good news is we still got to lock through. The bad news is that we had to share the lock with the monster barge! Joe and Kim, the tow was from Houston so we are never too far from you guys.

Here he comes, approaching the lock

The barge went in first. They are very nervous about the recent oil spill in Whitten Lock on the Tombigbee River so didn't want us in there first. Once they got tied up to the wall, we came alongside them.

As we came out of the lock, we were on beautiful Barkley Lake. We pulled into Green Turtle Bay Marina, did some laundry, took a swim at the pool and had a nice catfish dinner at the Thirsty Turtle Restaurant (no, the catfish were not caught locally). We also firmed up our plans for leaving the boat. We will travel down the Tennessee River and leave the boat near the ill-fated lock with the oil spill at a very nice marina. Friends (Jack and Jeannie) will visit for a couple days and bring us back to Cincy. Then we will pick up our journey to Demopolis in mid-October.

We traveled about 54 miles today and went through two locks (Smithland and Barkley). The heat was so oppressive. I don't remember ever being this hot!

Tomorrow morning we will take the short canal over to the Tennessee River. See you then!