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 5th, 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 10th, 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.
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.
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