October 08 – 13, 2019
We awoke to clear blue skies and calm blue waters. Took the furry mates for a walk ashore and enjoyed the beautiful fall weather and colorful foliage at Paris Landing State Park.
Departed 10am headed to Cuba Landing about 49 miles further up the Tennessee River. We cruise at 8.7 knots or 10 mph so about a 5 hour trip, but we are going against the river current and it takes a little time to get out of the slip, through the ‘no wake’ zone and into the main channel. We also had to wait for a tow to clear a bridge so our arrival to Cuba Landing was 3:45pm, secured to our slip.
A ‘Tow’ typically consists of a large push boat and a series of barges tied together. In the photo above there are 12 barges, 4 long x 3 wide and one push boat. They are not the most maneuverable creatures on water so we always call the tow captain on VHF and ask him how he wants us to set up for a pass.
There is not much to Cuba Landing. A small marina frequented by local fishermen. There are only a couple transient docks, when we arrived one other boat was there; Sean & Natalie with Peaches their golden doodle aboard ‘Alegria’.
We discussed leaving Cuba Landing with Alegria tomorrow morning early and ‘buddy boat’ with them to our next destination, Clifton Marina and further to Pickwick Lake. Well, that was the plan but as we are beginning to learn, God has other plans that take precedence over our measly ideas. We awoke the next morning at 6am to find ourselves engulfed in dense fog. So we wait. The sun burned the fog off and we departed 8:30am. (#14 God acts on behalf of those who wait for Him).
Once the fog lifted and we got into the river, we had a beautiful fall day run to Clifton,TN. We had a few tows to deal with, on-coming tows in a straight were easy one whistle pass, we encountered one tow headed the same direction as us but a much slower pace so we asked for a pass and the captain came back with ‘on the one’, meaning we put him on our port (left). However, by the time we caught up to him, we were entering a turn in the river and the captain said it would be better to pass him on the two, our starboard or right side. We were following Alegria and I realized we needed to both speed up or we would have the front barge on our back porch. It was close but we finally pulled away from the tow.
We arrived Clifton Marina at 1:30pm, secured to the dock, we went for a long walk to see what’s here. Not much but we are kind of in the middle of nowhere.
The marina is under new ownership who are doing an excellent job of upgrading, accommodating and a whole lot of good ole down home country hospitality. We had a wonderful home cooked meal from the marina kitchen, dined outside with other Loopers and as is becoming the custom, headed to bed at ‘Looper midnight’, that is 9pm.
The next morning we needed an early start, no fog, as we not only had a long distance, we also had to transit our first lock at Pickwick Lake. Other loopers joined us and Alegria as we made our way up-bound on the Tennessee River.
This would be our first passage through a lock. The Pickwick Lock has a vertical lift of 58′ from the Tennessee River up to Pickwick Lake. Maggie was at total peace about this but I was in constant conversation with the Holy Spirit about divine guidance.
Our lead boat had been in contact with the lock master who kept us informed of status. We arrived at the lock around noon and had to wait about 1 hour as a tow was in the lock at the time. Once the tow cleared, we got the green light and we all filed in, in orderly fashion. I got Serenity Blue nice and close to the wall and where Maggie could reach the floating bollard onto which she secured our line. Oh, this is a blessing. Now we waited as several stragglers made their way to the lock. Thirty minutes later, we were all in and secure, the doors began to close and the water began to bubble up from the bottom of the lock as it filled the chamber and lifted us to the top.
We exited the lock and headed to Aqua Yacht Harbor. As we looked back at the lock experience, we knew all we had to do was Trust God.
Originally we planned to spend the night at Grand Harbor Marina but with our unresolved generator issue we changed our reservations to Aqua Yacht Harbor as they have a full maintenance service available on site. We arrived at Aqua at 4:15pm, stopped at the fuel dock and topped off our tanks. They assigned us a covered slip, not normal for a transient like us, but we were pleased to have it.
As we motored down the fairway to our slip it seemed they appeared too short for Serenity Blue to fit under the roof. So, a quick call to the harbor master and he assured us they are 19′-8″ vertical clear; oh joy, we are 19′-6″ tall. Eased into the slip nice and slow, the adjoining slip person said she could see we had a good 2″ of clearance.
Our arrival to Aqua was October 10, met mechanic TJ the next morning who immediately diagnosed the gen problem as a vapor lock in the coolant line. Hmmm, funny thing, we had the coolant changed by the mechanic back at Green Turtle Bay, I guess he forgot to clear the line. Once he realized the problem, he could not fix it just then as the engine was too hot. He promised to return the next day, Oct. 12, and he did as promised. We like TJ.
Our friends and dock neighbors from Green Turtle Bay, Dave and Wendy aboard ‘Hey Coach’ arrived Saturday afternoon. We had dinner together at the Marina restaurant. This is cat fish country so one must indulge in the local cuisine. It was very good indeed.