It was cold and damp when we awoke – but not actually raining. We walked up to the marina building and had a very filling pancake breakfast as well as a nice conversation with the owner. Maureen traded three novels at the marina’s book exchange and Gale picked up a couple of magazines for later enjoyment. After filling the water tanks, we left the slip at 10:15 am ready to find warmer weather!
Along the way, we passed Adele aboard Rosebud. There wasn’t very much wind this morning so we were motorsailing with the headsail. Adele was determined to sail all day. She said that she hadn’t made much progress yet; in fact, she was even falling backwards for awhile. She was hoping to make it to Paris Landing by 8 pm. We took a few photos of her piloting her vessel (notice the pink decks) and promised to email the photos to her when we had an internet connection. Several other “Loopers” passed us along the way – it seemed as though everyone was trying to get out of the cold and wet.
We noticed the current was becoming stronger. Our friends, Don and Ally, from Ally’s Cat, had called the other day to let us know that they were at Pickwick Lake and warned us of the increasing current. Don gave Gale a couple of marina locations to make sure we had plenty of fuel on board to fight our way upstream.
Late in the afternoon we passed a couple of interesting landmarks. At mile 78.2 was the Louisville and Nashville RR Bridge with a couple of spans removed. It looked like a bridge to nowhere. Even spookier, was the abandoned dock at mile 78.5. Back in the 1940’s, the Tennessee Valley Authority purchased many acres of land in preparation of forming Kentucky Lake. In 1944 the dam on the Tennessee River was completed to create Kentucky Lake. The area was flooded and towns disappeared. Lake Barkley was created in the early 1960’s when a dam was constructed on the Cumberland River, only a couple of miles from Kentucky Dam. When the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers were impounded to create the two lakes, an inland peninsula was formed. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy designated the peninsula as Land Between the Lakes National Recreation area. The Land Between the Lakes region has 215,000 acres of water, 300 miles of undeveloped shoreline and 170,000 acres of public land.
Just before 6 pm we dropped our anchor at mile 83.8, Little Crooked Creek, in 10 feet of water. We had some difficulty finding the spot mentioned in our guide and determined later that one of the buoys we were using as a reference was now in the wrong place. We avoided any trouble, but did pass over an area that showed a depth of less than 3 feet on our gauge.
After settling in, we used the oven for the first time and made tuna casserole. Not only was our dinner wonderful, the oven helped to heat up the cabin. As we were eating, we noticed large flying insects that looked a lot like huge mosquitoes or sand flies invading the cockpit area and trying to get inside the cabin. We chased most of them out and killed a few more inside before going to bed.
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