Tennessee River

Green Turtle Bay Resort and Marina was a great place to stop for a while, and we ended up staying for nine days. Located in Grand Rivers, Kentucky, which calls itself, “The Village Between the Lakes,” it is well situated for cruisers wanting to spend some time exploring Lake Barkley and the Cumberland River, or to cross over into Kentucky Lake and the Tennessee River, which was our intention.

But first, we took advantage of our time there and rented a car to visit nearby Paducah, KY, an interesting waterfront city we had passed at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers on our way to Green Turtle Bay. Paducah has a rich history, some of which is graphically depicted by colorful murals painted on the walls lining the Riverfront Park.

The highlight of our visit to the small town of Grand Rivers, just a mile from our marina, was a fabulous German Oktoberfest meal we enjoyed with our friends, Joe and Pat from “Glory Days,” at a tiny restaurant/bakery called Sugar & Spice. For $22 each, we feasted on combination platters including generous portions of each menu item: Sauerbraten, Rouladen, Lamb Shank, Weinerschnitzel, and Chicken Paprikash. Also included was an appetizer plate, an assortment of hot fresh baked rolls, plus accompaniments of Paprikash Potatoes, Spaetzle, Sweet-Sour Red Cabbage, and Bavarian Kraut. I couldn’t believe that somehow we managed to make room for Apple Strudel for dessert.

Many Looper boats arriving at Green Turtle Bay are also in need of various repairs, which this “full service marina” is able to take care of. For us, it was a dinghy motor carburetor which needed to be cleaned out to keep it from stalling out.

Finally, on October 5^th, we were on our way again, headed for the canal which connects Lake Barkley with Kentucky Lake. Just a few minutes into the trip, however, our port engine overheated and shut down. So, we turned around and headed back to the marina on one engine. By the time we got back just a short time later, we thought we had the problem figured out. Sure enough, a quick examination in the engine room revealed that we had failed to reopen the sea cock valve to the port engine after cleaning out the sea strainer. So, no water was going to that engine to cool it. Unfortunately, this also meant that the rubber impeller inside that engine’s water pump was now history and needed to be replaced with a new one.

But first, the mechanic had to find all of the little pieces, called fins, which had broken off and traveled through the system of hoses, hoping they had not made it from the water pump to the heat exchanger.

After that repair was completed, we headed out again, this time making it through the canal and into Kentucky Lake.

Our destination that day was an anchorage in Sugar Bay, just a short distance away in the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. This scenic spot had been highly recommended, not only in various cruising guides, but by locals and former Loopers as well. In fact, as we entered the bay, we were contacted on VHF radio by another boater just leaving, who said, “Welcome to my favorite spot.” Following his advice, we passed by the turn-off for the public access area and continued on further into the bay before anchoring in 12-15 ft. depths, along with our buddy boat, “Glory Days.”

Indeed, it was a beautiful spot, and as the sun sank lower in the sky, it only became lovelier.

We hesitated to break the peaceful silence by starting our generator, but finally gave in so we could cook our dinner. Shortly after placing the casserole in the oven, we looked out the window and saw smoke billowing out of the generator exhaust. A quick look at the temperature gauge confirmed that it was indeed overheating, so we shut it down. No hot dinner for us that night, plus the worry about what was wrong with our generator, dampened our spirit a bit, but we resolved to just make the best of it for now, until we could have a mechanic look at it.

Early morning mist rising off the water greeted us when we awoke the next day, eager to pull up anchor and continue our journey.

But what should have been a simple routine task turned into another nightmare. Our anchor was stuck, and no matter how hard we tried, we could not coax it out from under whatever it had somehow grabbed hold of. So, after an abortive attempt by “Glory Days” to try to free it up by attaching a line to our anchor chain and pulling with their boat, we broke down and called, TowBoat US to come and rescue us.

Using the same tow line attached to their boat, and all the might of their huge Honda engines, they finally pulled us free of the lake bottom, but not from what our anchor was hooked around, an enormous tree stump.

By now we were drifting into shallow water, so we had to start the engines and move into deeper water, with the stump hanging from our bow, still entangled in our anchor and chain, and, unbeknown to us, the 50 ft. tow line (which the TowBoat US guys had now dropped) trailing in the water. What happens when a 50 ft. line trails under a 47 ft. boat? It wraps itself around one of the props, of course. So now, not only did we have a giant tree stump hanging from our bow, but it was also connected to our starboard engine’s propeller. Are we having fun yet?

As if that wasn’t enough, while Gordon (from TowBoat US) was leaning over the transom of his boat trying to free our anchor and chain from the stump, all of a sudden he took a header right over that mess and into the water, losing his glasses in the process.

After a few expletives deleted, however, he did manage to complete the task. Then, since he was wet already, he put on a face mask and dove under our boat to cut the line free from our propeller. All’s well that ends well, I guess. No one was hurt, and we were now free. Speaking of which, since we have TowBoat US membership, we were not charged a penny for this $1,200+ service.

The lesson to be learned from this tale of woe is to remember that when rivers are dammed up to form lakes, trees and buildings from old farms, etc., may be lurking just below the surface of the water. By using the sonar function on the GPS, one can detect them and save a lot of trouble of the sort we had just experienced.

Later that day, we gratefully tied up at Paris Landing State Park Marina, catching up to Joe and Pat on “Glory Days,” who had gone on ahead of us and secured us a slip. A little while later, I noticed a boat we had not seen before, but flying a Looper flag like ours, approaching the dock. So, I ran over to catch a line and introduce myself. It turned out to be Charlie and Kathy on “Resolute,” just completing the very first day of their Great Loop adventure, and filled with enthusiasm for the journey ahead. This new infusion of excitement for the trip was just what we needed.

The next morning a mechanic arrived to check out our generator. Believe it or not, the impellor on that engine had failed also, once again throwing off pieces (fins) into the hoses to be retrieved by the mechanic. This time, however, it was not something stupid that we did that caused the problem. In fact, back in August we had requested and paid for “annual maintenance” on our generator while we were having other maintenance done on the boat in Grand Haven, MI. Although this should have included replacing the impeller, a closer look at the invoice revealed no new impeller on the list of parts. Another lesson learned: never assume anything.

As mentioned earlier, Kentucky Lake was formed by damming up the Tennessee River. So, we were now traveling up the Tennessee River, the Kentucky Lake portion of it. An interesting fact, however, is that while we were heading upriver, we were actually traveling south, first through Kentucky and then Tennessee. From time to time we passed reminders that there had once been homes and towns where water now flows.

We still had to be on the lookout for tows as we emerged from marina channels, but they were not as numerous as on the Illinois, Mississippi, and Ohio Rivers. 

But, we were more likely to encounter local fishermen in small bass boats, and even some odd homemade vessels, such as this one.

One boat we passed along this stretch even provided musical entertainment with its built in pipe organ.

Cruising up the Tennessee River we adjusted to a new slower pace, enjoying the scenery along the way and arriving early in the day at small, low key marinas, first at Pebble Isle and then at Cuba Landing. Now we were three boats traveling together and sharing experiences.

We soaked up the beauty of our surroundings, from mist on the water in the early morning light, to dramatic sunsets at the end of the day.

Although we were continuing to head south, we were beginning to see some fall colors in the trees along the shoreline.

On Monday, October 10^th, we arrived at Clifton, TN, and decided to stay two days. This was the first time since Paducah, KY, that we had seen a town right on the river, so we stopped to see it.

Clifton’s claim to fame is that it was the home of Tennessee’s first Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, T.S. Stribling. What was once his house is now a library/museum in his memory.

This small town of 800 people, like so many others, has fallen on hard times, but it does still have one block near the waterfront housing a few businesses, such as a café, a bank, and a pharmacy.

From there, it was on to the Pickwick Lock, the last one for us on the Tennessee River.

After locking through, we entered Pickwick Lake. We had heard about some beautiful anchorages in several coves on the north shore, but noticed that houses now lined most of them.

Our destination, Grand Harbor Marina, was just a short distance away, on Yellow Creek where we would leave the Tennessee River to head south on the Tenn-Tom Waterway toward Mobile, Alabama, still 450 miles away.

Good Riddance, Mississippi River

At dawn (if you could call it that) on September 25^th, after an almost sleepless night, we didn’t have any really good options.  The overnight rain had now changed to thunderstorms, which were predicted to last throughout the day.  If we sat where we were anchored in Little Diversion Channel, we ran the strong risk of encountering flash floods and possible disaster.  If we left our anchorage and moved on down the Mississippi River, we would have to deal with poor visibility in a channel with lots of barge and tow traffic, as well as being a moving target for possible lightning strikes.

After careful consideration of our situation, we pulled up anchor a little after 8:00 a.m. and followed “Sonata,” the one boat in our group of ten which was now doing the Loop for the second time around. Throughout this long, miserable day, I struggled to keep her in sight and to follow her lead, while Ken spent his time mopping up the rain water that was leaking through the zippers on our strataglass windows (a total of over 5 gallons of water!) and periodically opening them briefly to wipe them off in hopes of increasing visibility during the downpours we were experiencing along the way.

Moving downriver with the current we were making good time, and by noon we had traveled almost 50 miles to the junction with the Ohio River where we turned upstream, negotiating our way around a large tow which was getting ready to turn into the Mississippi. Now our speed dropped dramatically, but not so the rain. If anything, it increased in strength, with even more thunder and lightning.  The radar overlay on our GPS screen confirmed our feeling that we were right in the center of storm after storm as we struggled up the Ohio River, mile after torturous mile.

We had heard that some boats had anchored the night before just out of the shipping channel near Lock 53, the first of two locks we would encounter on the Ohio River, less than 20 miles upriver from the junction, so this was our plan as well.  However, during high water caused by rain, this dam (and others like it, called “wicket dams”) is lowered so boats can pass right over it. Not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to avoid a lock altogether, we decided to continue on.  Finally, at 5:30 p.m., 9.5 hours and 92 miles after beginning this day’s journey, we moved out of the shipping channel and dropped our anchor in the Ohio River, within sight of Lock 52, which we planned to tackle early the next morning.

After another sleepless night, spent hoping that the combination of current and wind would not cause our anchor to drag, and that no wayward towboat would run us down, we continued our Ohio River journey, headed for the junction with the Cumberland River.  This day, however, which just happened to be Ken’s 65^th birthday, was beginning to show some promise, as the sun struggled to break through the overhanging clouds.

Continuing to follow close behind “Sonata,” we approached the entrance to the Cumberland River, anxious to bid farewell to the Ohio. 

 Almost immediately, the sky brightened, as we left the Ohio River behind us, but this part of the Cumberland is a working river as well, so the ever present tows were still with us.

 Here, however, the barges were being filled with rocks from quarries, rather than the grain and coal barge loads we had become used to seeing along the other rivers. 

As we observed the scenery more closely along the Cumberland’s shores, we saw the reason why.

Before we knew it, we were entering the Barkley Lock, and preparing to exit into Lake Barkley, created when the Cumberland River was dammed as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) hydroelectric project.

Just a short distance along the western shore, we approached the entrance to Green Turtle Bay Resort and Marina, a popular hangout for Loopers, after their arduous trip from Lake Michigan.

And here we stopped, to celebrate Ken’s birthday, to rest up, recoup our energy, and just enjoy this wonderful destination.

Hello, Mississippi River

As if as an omen of things to come, thick fog greeted us when we awoke on September 20^th, the day we were to enter the mighty Mississippi River.

The day before, when we completed our trip down the Illinois River and pulled in to Grafton Harbor, we could actually see the confluence of the two rivers from our slip. But now, we could see only as far as the fuel dock, just a few feet away from us.

Luckily, our destination that day was only 15 miles away, so we just waited until the fog lifted around 10:00 a.m., said farewell to Grafton, and were on our way.

Just ahead of us, through the slight mist still rising from the water, we could clearly see the buoy marking the junction with the Mississippi River.

As we approached it, we weren’t exactly sure what to expect, since this river is infamous for its strong current, averaging around 4 mph.  But, I think we actually thought we would be swept away downriver immediately upon entering the channel.  This did not happen; rather, it was a more gradual change in our speed that registered on our speedometer.

What we did notice, however, was the change of scenery as soon as we entered the Mississippi.  We were now cruising along a national scenic byway called “The Great River Road,” with beautiful high bluffs flanking the Illinois side of the river.

Our other expectation was that, as soon as we entered the Mississippi, we would have to deal with numerous towboats pushing massive loads of up to 35 barges.  On this, our first short day traveling on the Mississippi, we encountered only a few smaller ones, which presented no serious navigation issues.

By noon, as we passed the huge and garish-looking Argosy Casino, we knew we had arrived at Alton, IL, and were approaching our destination, Alton Marina.

Alton is famous for being the site of the final Lincoln-Douglas Debate in 1858. We lost no time in walking downtown to the corner of Broadway and Market to see the lifelike statues depicting this important event in our country’s history. (Who is that guy mugging for the camera, anyway?)

When we awoke on the morning of September 22^nd, it was cloudy and threatening rain, but we were anxious to be on our way because the forecast for the next few days didn’t look any better.  So, we called the Mel Price Lock, visible from our marina, to make sure they were ready for us, and off we went, destination: Hoppie’s Marina, about 45 miles away.  For those of us cruising down this portion of the Upper Mississippi River, headed for the junction with the Ohio River, there are precious few places for pleasure craft to stop along the way.  Hoppie’s Marina was the one and only choice available for our next stop, and it would be the last available marina for the next 228 miles after that. But before we started worrying about that, we had to get to Hoppie’s first.

Just a few miles after the Mel Price Lock, the Missouri River joined the Mississippi, kicking up our speed a bit more and adding some turbulence, especially as we approached the Chain of Rocks Canal, a passage which allows boats to avoid rapids on the main river channel. Just one more lock, and we were back in the river again, approaching St. Louis.

Unfortunately, there is no place where pleasure craft can stop in St. Louis, so we had to just take in the sights quickly as we passed by, the strong downriver current allowing only a brief moment’s glimpse of the famous arch.

By now, it was beginning to drizzle.  Then the temperature dropped and the light drizzle turned to rain. As the visibility ahead decreased, the amount of floating debris, including tree branches, increased, so we didn’t dare close our strataglass windows on the flying bridge, for fear that we would hit a log.  As a result, we were cold, wet, and miserable as we finally approached Hoppie’s Marina around noon.  Following instructions provided by Fern Hopkins over the VHF radio, we swung the boat around and headed up into the current to ease into the dock, where both Fern and her husband, Hoppie, both 80 somethings, braved the downpour to catch and secure our lines.  Never were we so glad to see a marina in our entire cruising lives, even this ugly duckling consisting of three 100 foot barges tied together with cables.

Fern is famous among the Looper community, and true to form, at 4:30 sharp she conducted her daily briefing for all of us tied to her docks overnight, sharing her wealth of knowledge about cruising conditions on the route ahead, providing extremely helpful and important tips about where we could anchor safely, and even more importantly, unsafe spots to avoid. That evening as the sun set and we pondered the information we had gleaned from Fern, we took note of the beautiful sunset and sincerely hoped that the old sailor’s proverb would hold true:  “Red at night, sailor’s delight!”

And indeed, the following day, after early morning fog lifted, turned out to be fine for cruising. So, off we went, peeling off from the dock into the current, then swinging around and allowing the Mississippi to take us downriver again.

Following Fern’s advice, we, along with nine other Looper boats, traveled 41 miles to the junction with the Kaskaskia River and tied up for the night on the outside of the Kaskaskia Lock wall, first calling the lock tender to ask for permission. Not only did he grant our request, but he also graciously came down to the wall to catch our lines and help us tie up.

With no place to go and nothing to do, we decided to sponsor a group happy hour on the lock wall, so we set up a table and some chairs, and everyone brought drinks and snacks to share. This, of course, prompted the rain gods to interfere once again, and we had to quickly move everything and everybody aboard the Docker’s Inn to keep dry.  No matter, a good time was had by all, and we went to bed that night feeling quite satisfied.

Another dawn on the Mississippi brought more fog, but by 8:30 it had lifted, and we were on our way again, part of a convoy of ten boats:  Docker’s Inn, Sonata, Oceanus, Salty Paws, Rock Chalk, Visitor, Last Chance, Last Dance, Confetti, and Erika Lin. This time we were headed for an anchorage 68 miles away at Little Diversion Channel, hoping that we would all be able to squeeze in, because there really wasn’t anywhere else to go within a reasonable day’s cruise.  Although the entry to this channel was very tricky, forcing us to first pass it, then swing up into the current, speed up and crab our way sideways toward it, once we were in and anchored, it was a beautiful spot.

The scary part, however, was that rain was predicted for overnight, and this channel was prone to flash floods after heavy rain. Although it did rain most of the night, we were spared any flash floods or strong currents. However, by morning thunderstorms had developed, and the weather forecast called for more storms throughout the day, so we knew we couldn’t risk staying there.

Thus began one very long, very miserable day of cruising.