Green Turtle Bay is on Lake Barkley and the Cumberland River, but only a mile from Kentucky Lake on the Tennessee River. On the right in the picture below is Lake Barkley, on the left is Kentucky Lake. You can also see the short, one mile canal, that connects them.
We entrered Kentucky Lake at mile 25 on the Tennessee River, which is navigable for 650 miles to the beginning of the river just east of Knoxville, TN. The Cumberland and the Tennessee Rivers are two of only a few in the US that run from south to north. The course of the Tennessee is the most unique. From Knoxville it flows generally southwest, where just south of Chattanooga, TN it turns and flows west across the entire northern part of Alabama. At this point it turns to the northwest and cuts across the far northeastern corner of Mississippi and then back into Tennessee where it continues north across Tennessee and Kentucky and into the Ohio River at Paducah, KY.
With two days left of Mike and Pat's trip, I had rolled the upper helm bimini back. Being fully exposed to the sun raises the temperature significantly on cool days.
Ron had expressed concern prior to getting back on the boat about the weather and was worried he wouldn't get enough sun.
I warned him that this could be dangerous, but he felt safe with his number 4 sun block and tanning lotion.
To our east was the 170,000 acre national recreation area, Land Between the Lakes, which came about in 1963.
The bridges are few and far between all through Kentucy and the northern part of Tennessee. Not all have survived, like this former Louisville and Nashville railroad bridge.
A car ferry operates here.
Just past the bridge is this old grain shipping terminal. The story goes that there were attempts to destroy the building, but it was too well built and the attempts were given up.
The cruise down Kentucky Lake was uneventful with plenty of room to navigate around the few tows we encountered. Covering 80 miles, we found a good spot to anchor near New Johnsonville, TN, home to a Dupont titanium dioxide plant and a large power plant.
The anchorage was just past these bridges. It was hard to tell that there was a railroad bridge and a road bridge side by side until we were very close.
While we had a nice warm day, the night was pretty cool and that carried on for the first couple of hours on day two.
It was a little windy, which created a bit of chop on the water as we headed due east for a few miles. The line in the water ahead in the picture below is from the very shallow Duck River, which flows from near Nashville.
Soon we turned south and gradually Kentucky Lake gave way to just the Tennessee River. For the rest of the day we had the wind at our back. This is were I40 crosses the river.
This part of Tennessee is sparsley populated, but there were spots where there were vacation homes and several riverside camp grounds.
One of the few towns right on the river is Savannah, TN.
We anchored just past this town. A nice salad and pasta with a marinara sauce that Ron whipped up.
There is still a fair amount of commercial traffic in this part of the river.
The river took us past Shiloh National Military Park, where a fierce two day Civil War battle occurred in 1862. There wasn't much to see from the river, however.
At mile 215 is the Pickwick Lock and Dam. The locks are getting bigger, with this one being about a 60 foot lift. With floating bollards to tie to, its fairly easy.
On the other side of the dam is Pickwick Lake, an obvious spot for nice vacation homes.
To this point since Ron re-joined me, we had not seen a cloud. When Ron saw this one he started to panic.
Within just a few minutes of taking this picture, the cloud had disappeared and calm was restored.
The lake is in the corner between Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. Our trip through Mississippi was all of about 7 miles. But I will be back here in a few weeks as from here, the continuation on the Tennessee River is an up and back trip. The Tenn-Tom Waterway exits Pickwick Lake at mile 217 and continues south for a ways in Mississippi, before winding back into Alabama where it continues to Mobile, AL and Mobile Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.
Our destination for this Saturday was Florence, AL where I had located a marina with a courtesy car and in a large enough city where I figured we could find a sports bar. Saturday night was the big Wisconsin - Nebraska football game and of course there was the Packers on Sunday.
We had to be nice though on Saturday night because Alabama was playing Florida in a big SEC game and that was on all of the tvs. We did find a place that changed one tv to the game we wanted to watch. As it turns out, we only stayed until half time because the Badgers had turned it into a blow out.
Sunday was a day off and we found a Buffalo Wild Wings, where every NFL game was on. For over 10 hours we watched football, including the Packers blow out win against Denver.
Florence, AL is where WC Handy, the musician who is known as the "father of the blues" was born. Unfortunately, the museum and library was closed on Sundays.
That's Ron hiding behid the post.
While at Buffalo Wild Wings, Ron was talking to another patron, who suggested we also stop by the Muscle Shoals Music studios. I knew that Muscle Shoals, AL was just across the river from Florence, but didn't know anything about its place in music history, but Ron certainly did. Until now though, he did not know Muscle Shoals was so close.
So on Monday morning, we took the courtesy car across the river and found one of the famous studios.
We were here just to get a few pictures and didn't know it was still an operating studio. Within a few minutes, the owner, Noel Webster showed up and invited us in. It is still a full blown studio and most of the equipment is original and in use, because it produces a certain sound.
I had no idea how famous this place was. Many rythum and blues artists recorded here in the 60's. Aretha Franklin, Wilson Picket and the Staples Sisters among them. Maybe it became even more famous when the likes of The Rolling Stones, Dylan, Paul Simon and Bob Seger recorded here. The Stones recorded Brown Sugar here and the story Noel told us was that Mick Jagger wrote Wild Horses in this bathroom.
It was one of the more unique experiences of the trip so far.
The plan was to still cruise that Monday afternoon. It was only 220 miles to Chattanooga and we had four days, with a great weather forecast. What wasn't anticipated was that the Wilson Lock, just 3 miles up river from the marina was closed until 4 PM for maintenance. It was scheduled for closure from 7 AM until 4 PM for the next three days. I found that out when I hailed them on the radio before undocking from the marina.
This created a bit of a dilemma. If we didn't get through this lock on Monday, we'd have to be there ready to go by 7 AM on Tuesday and its dark until after 6:30. Not only that, there could be backed up commercial traffic that would have priority. So, I made the decision to go at 4 and called the lock again to see if they knew of waiting traffic. The lockmaster told me he thought I could go through with a working tug with no barges and to be there and waiting at 4. When we got there we were informed we would be able to go through as soon as the divers were finished and the first half of a tow headed down stream came out.
We anchored and waited until about 4:45 when the tug came by and helped get the barges out of the lock.
The tug untied and moved into the lock ahead of us.
This is the Wilson Lock, at 95 feet, I think the highest on the entire trip.
It filled as fast as some of the locks I've been in that were much smaller. The water was really coming in fast.
On the other side, the rest of the tow was waiting to enter and we had a fairly small space to get by him.
The next lock was 15 miles and it was after 5 PM. With sunset at about 6:40, we thought we might still have some light for a few minutes later than sunset and decided to push for the the Wheeler Lock and Dam. The biggest problem was that there wasn't a noted anchorage anywhere close to the lock. Even by pushing up the RPM's, it was dark when we got there. While it was kind of cool to see and do this lock at night, this could have turned out badly and I won't try it again.
I had planned to stop at a marina on the other side of the lock and we did make it, but it was pretty nerve racking as I crept along in the dark, while my spot light spewed out about 1 % of its supposed 4 million candle power light. After getting docked in the dark, we wandered around looking for the restaurant that we thought existed. All we found was a lodge, but convinced the young man at the front desk to turn on Monday night football for us. When we asked about bringing in beer he told us we'd have to have it in cups, because this was a dry county. We went back to the boat, grilled some bratwurst and stuffed our pockets with beer. He gave us styrofoam cups and we watched Monday night football in the lodge lobby.
Starting back at the Pickwick Lock, the Tennessee River is a series of lakes created from hydroelectric dams. There will be seven in all as I make my way to Knoxville, TN. Wheeler Lake is just the third and is a bit smaller than the rest.
In 1974, the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant began operation and at the time was the world's largest.
The marked channel goes right through a spot where a powerful water outlet comes into the river.
This was Decatur, AL. Its been a while since I needed a bridge opened, but here was a railroad bridge that was under 10 feet in the down position.
Decatur would be a good place to live if you had a lot of cats.
We were headed towards Huntsville, AL and the landscape was changing.
As Wheeler Lake ended and we were back in the river, I had to increase RPM's again to maintain an acceptable speed. We had another lock to make before dark and there was no way I was going to do this one in the dark.
We got through the Guntersville Lock just before dark and immediately headed into this anchorage.
It was grilled chicken on the menu.
After Guntersville Lake, we had a 20 mile river stretch where again we were fighting a strong current and had to push the RPMs up from normal. We came across the abandoned Pittsburg Landing ferry boat. It became obsolete with the buliding of the South Pittsburg highway bridge.
At 730 feet of horizontal clearance, this is the longest span on the Tennessee river. It is along here that we leave Alabama and re-enter Tennessee.
For the third day in a row, we ended the day by passing through a lock. This is the Nickajack Lock.
Again it was close to dark when we cleared the lock, but the anchorage was just around the corner.
Our last day of cruising before heading home was across the rather small Nickajack Lake and then along the river as it winds its way to and through Chattanooga, TN. A very scenic part of the river.
Water front properties vary widely.
Somewhere between these river front homes runs the line for the eastern and midwestern time zones. The exact mile marker was noted in the chart book, but there were no signs along the water. In any case, we entered the eastern time zone.
At 2000 feet above the river, Lookout Mountain stands out.
It seemed more dramatic from far away than when we were up close.
Our marina is actually north of downtown Chattanooga, so we cruised through the city.
This is the Tennessee Aquarium
There was one final lock before the marina. Approaching the Chickamauga Lock it was a little confusing trying to spot the actual lock entrance.
Eventually, I found it and we went through with this little barge.
We docked in time for showers and a taxi ride to downtown, where we watched the final game of the final Yankee - Detroit series. We ran into a guy watching the game that bought us drinks when Ron told him he was rooting for the Tigers. He bought more when the Tigers won.
Friday morning there was just enough time to put the mooring cover on the boat, tidy up a bit and depart for the airport. I'm home until Oct 18 when Ron returns with me for another week on the Tennessee River. If all goes as planned, we will continue up the Tennessee to the head waters at Knoxville and then return to Chattanooga.
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