Tennessee, Mississippi, now Alabama.....
Twins is currently attending the Fall Rendezvoux of AGLCA at the Joe Wheeler State Park on Wheeler Lake off the Tennessee River. There are about 100 loopers here and about 40 Looper boats. We were late comers as we decided to bring the boat down here from our winter berth at Aqua Harbor at the start of the Tenn Tom waterway.
We arrived at Aqua Harbor last week and spent three days there before we decided to come to Wheeler. We spent a day coming up here and went through two locks including the largest lock west of the Mississippi, the Wilson lock with a rise of about 95 feet. We had a lot of turbulence in the lock and scratched our rub rails a couple of times against the wall on the way up.
Our trip up the Tennessee was fun. We anchored at Birdsong Creek by ourselves for a night and then were joined by 5 other Loopers at Double Island Anchorage before arriving at Aqua Harbor. We used a courtesy car to go to Corinth which has a Civil War Interpretive Center. We will go to the Shilo Battlefield next week when we are back at Aqua.
It's been a good ride so far. We've now crossed the 1000 mile mark.
We will spend the winter at Aqua and keep the boat on the Tennessee River system next year before we move down the Tenn Tom to Florida next fall.
All plans subject to change....such is life!
We arrived at Aqua Harbor last week and spent three days there before we decided to come to Wheeler. We spent a day coming up here and went through two locks including the largest lock west of the Mississippi, the Wilson lock with a rise of about 95 feet. We had a lot of turbulence in the lock and scratched our rub rails a couple of times against the wall on the way up.
Our trip up the Tennessee was fun. We anchored at Birdsong Creek by ourselves for a night and then were joined by 5 other Loopers at Double Island Anchorage before arriving at Aqua Harbor. We used a courtesy car to go to Corinth which has a Civil War Interpretive Center. We will go to the Shilo Battlefield next week when we are back at Aqua.
It's been a good ride so far. We've now crossed the 1000 mile mark.
We will spend the winter at Aqua and keep the boat on the Tennessee River system next year before we move down the Tenn Tom to Florida next fall.
All plans subject to change....such is life!
Leaving LBL and crossing into Tennessee today
Clay Bay turned out to be a very nice anchorage. Plenty of water way back into the bay, anchored in 12 feet. Almost hit the shoal at entrance...keeping further away from the green buoys there on the way out.
It's an east west bay so the sun sets in the middle of the bay and comes up again on the other side! Lots of pictures taken....gotta love digital. The south side of the anchorage is a large hill so there's good wind protection. Scenic shoreline with lots of rock outcrops. Waxing moon. The usual bass fishermen.
We had a pair of bald eagles join us in the evening. They have a nest near the top of the tree line. Magnificent birds.
I made us a couple of walking staffs out of some American Hornbeam, othewise know as Ironwood...amazingly hard wood to cut! I stripped off all the bark thinking about Tom and Huck or even Friar Tuck! Life on the river...resources aplenty. Also found an old medicine bottle that had floated high up during the spring floods...it was a castoria bottle but had another name on it....Chas. H. Fletcher...my grandfather's name! just as I've seen it spelled many times.
A BIG day for us yesterday....we put in 18 miles, the most in over a month! We are going to break that record again today.
We've really enjoyed this LBL area and look forward to coming back again.
On up the Tennessee
It's an east west bay so the sun sets in the middle of the bay and comes up again on the other side! Lots of pictures taken....gotta love digital. The south side of the anchorage is a large hill so there's good wind protection. Scenic shoreline with lots of rock outcrops. Waxing moon. The usual bass fishermen.
We had a pair of bald eagles join us in the evening. They have a nest near the top of the tree line. Magnificent birds.
I made us a couple of walking staffs out of some American Hornbeam, othewise know as Ironwood...amazingly hard wood to cut! I stripped off all the bark thinking about Tom and Huck or even Friar Tuck! Life on the river...resources aplenty. Also found an old medicine bottle that had floated high up during the spring floods...it was a castoria bottle but had another name on it....Chas. H. Fletcher...my grandfather's name! just as I've seen it spelled many times.
A BIG day for us yesterday....we put in 18 miles, the most in over a month! We are going to break that record again today.
We've really enjoyed this LBL area and look forward to coming back again.
On up the Tennessee
THE CASE OF THE MISSING KAYAKS
One morning,
I woke up …
and I knew you were gone….
Yes, no kayaks swimming from our stern. As has been our practice, we often launch the dingy and kayaks at anchorages. We keep the dingy tied using it’s painter and our kayaks are tethered to a longer floating line and stainless spring hook. I’ll also use a bungee on the dingy to temporarily sinch is up to the swim platform. We had two neighbors anchored with us in the Newby Cemetary Bay as well.
Well, yesterday there were no kayaks there….just a cut line hanging out of the water at the swim platform. After a few minutes of shock, I told Vaughn to file a police report and I went fishing (looking for kayaks). It didn’t take too long before I spotted the orange/yellow and blue white tubes along the shore in a small bay at the end of the cove….one more point over and they would have been on down the Tennessee River a few more miles!
Interestingly enough after our Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes training we had a mystery on our hands…..The rope had been cut cleanly at the swim platform above the water….knife! The painter for the dingy had been slashed too….two zip ties cut and some cuts on the painter line….maybe too tough to cut through or did the auxiliary bungee foil the attempt to abscond with the dingy too? Or were the kayaks the second attempt?
The kayak line had a number of cuts on it that looked like a propeller had hit the line. Spaced equally and progressively deeper. This end cut was shredded. We later found the third piece of line floating….again, some propeller cuts and a severely shredded end….
So the theory goes……stolen kayaks but the line gets caught in the getaway vehicle. They have to cut the line out of their prop and either lose the kayaks or abandon the theft in the process. We are lucky to have them back……and yes they’re again swimming off the back of the boat, albeit it with a shortened line and a few more sharpie marks!
Maybe we’ve been hanging around this area too long!
I woke up …
and I knew you were gone….
Yes, no kayaks swimming from our stern. As has been our practice, we often launch the dingy and kayaks at anchorages. We keep the dingy tied using it’s painter and our kayaks are tethered to a longer floating line and stainless spring hook. I’ll also use a bungee on the dingy to temporarily sinch is up to the swim platform. We had two neighbors anchored with us in the Newby Cemetary Bay as well.
Well, yesterday there were no kayaks there….just a cut line hanging out of the water at the swim platform. After a few minutes of shock, I told Vaughn to file a police report and I went fishing (looking for kayaks). It didn’t take too long before I spotted the orange/yellow and blue white tubes along the shore in a small bay at the end of the cove….one more point over and they would have been on down the Tennessee River a few more miles!
Interestingly enough after our Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes training we had a mystery on our hands…..The rope had been cut cleanly at the swim platform above the water….knife! The painter for the dingy had been slashed too….two zip ties cut and some cuts on the painter line….maybe too tough to cut through or did the auxiliary bungee foil the attempt to abscond with the dingy too? Or were the kayaks the second attempt?
The kayak line had a number of cuts on it that looked like a propeller had hit the line. Spaced equally and progressively deeper. This end cut was shredded. We later found the third piece of line floating….again, some propeller cuts and a severely shredded end….
So the theory goes……stolen kayaks but the line gets caught in the getaway vehicle. They have to cut the line out of their prop and either lose the kayaks or abandon the theft in the process. We are lucky to have them back……and yes they’re again swimming off the back of the boat, albeit it with a shortened line and a few more sharpie marks!
Maybe we’ve been hanging around this area too long!
Back to KY Lake and on up the Tennessee River
We’re back on Kentucky Lake after a couple of days at GTB marina. We checked in after 16 days at anchor to take care of business and get a satellite TV system installed. We went with a Tracvision M3 and subscription to the Dish Network…now we have too many channels to choose from. Our first night at anchor with real TV changes the experience a bit. We had also upgraded our inverter batteries, so hopefully we can maintain good 110 power.
We also took out the trash after 16 days! The trash compactor has worked great and we were really surprised that we could fit two weeks trash into the compactor bin and still lift the bag!
We reprovisioned with a trip to Paducah, did laundry, defrosted the fridge, washed the boat, cleaned behind our ears…..We also had a nice bike ride at the Livingston county trail system. It’s north of GTB about 5 miles and had a trail that led down to the TN river next to the Kentucky Lock. We popped out just as a tow loaded with coal was entering the lock and passing another tow with empty barges tied up to the federal mooring cell. This bike trail also included the Sanders archeological area, a 1000 year old Mississippian settlement and graveyard.
We’ll hang around a few of these anchorages on Kentucky Lake before we push on up the Tenn River toward our winter home in Mississippi.
We also took out the trash after 16 days! The trash compactor has worked great and we were really surprised that we could fit two weeks trash into the compactor bin and still lift the bag!
We reprovisioned with a trip to Paducah, did laundry, defrosted the fridge, washed the boat, cleaned behind our ears…..We also had a nice bike ride at the Livingston county trail system. It’s north of GTB about 5 miles and had a trail that led down to the TN river next to the Kentucky Lock. We popped out just as a tow loaded with coal was entering the lock and passing another tow with empty barges tied up to the federal mooring cell. This bike trail also included the Sanders archeological area, a 1000 year old Mississippian settlement and graveyard.
We’ll hang around a few of these anchorages on Kentucky Lake before we push on up the Tenn River toward our winter home in Mississippi.
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