Gunkholing along the Tenn River

Since leaving Pebble Isle 6 days ago we have been cruising at Turtle speed, travelling on average 7.5 mph and covering as few miles as possible stopping at all anchorages along the way that we can.  This is the first time we have had the opportunity to travel this way, and it has been great fun and very relaxing.  Since the only schedule we have right now is to get to Joe Wheeler in AL by the 21st, we have lots of time to travel a short distance.  Our buddy boat is NautiNell and Mike and Twyla like to anchor out as much as possible so now is a great time for us to hone in on our anchoring skills, we are getting much more comfortable with it and its really nice to just drop the hook rather than having to travel a certain distance to get to the next marina. 
The Tenn River is so beautiful and we have had the most wonderful anchorages and the BEST company!  The leaves are changing color the weather has been perfect and the scenery is picturesque. 
Below are some photos................. Click on them to enlarge for a better look.

Once on the hook Mike and Jim took the dinks to shore to gather wood for and Fire, this was the night of our 1 year anniversery on the boat.  We had the crew of 3 other boats to help us celebrate.

      They managed to find plenty of wood for the fire.

One of the many beautiful sunsets that we have had the pleasure to enjoy the last week.

 It was a fun night on the island there were 12 in attendance.  Mike broke out his Party Time flag.

At one of our anchorages there were goats on the island as well as deer.

Since most of the mornings have been cool there has been fog in the mornings.

                                       The end of another great day.

                           Full Moon on the Tennessee River

            Our final anchorage before Grand Harbor Marina.

We had been seeing lots of deer on the islands when anchoring out but these were the largest.

                        Mike's offering to the fair weather God

1 Year anniversary OnBoard SweetPea

It is almost impossible to believe that it has been a year since we pulled away from our homeport of Westport Ma.  Last year in a 10 day period we had sold our camper our 17'Bass boat and Jim's beloved Pickup truck.  It was at that point, that we knew we were actually going to do this, but it didn't really hit home till the morning of Oct 9th we dropped our dock lines and left port to places unknown.  We really were in total disbelief!  After all, we had just purchased SweetPea 3 months earlier and our only boating experience was that little 17' basstracker with its 25 hp engine we had owned for 20 years. 
The plan if we had one, was, go south to somewhere warm for the winter.  At that time we naively thought, if we go to say, South Carolina surely it would be warm, but no, there was frost on the docks each morning so we head further south, OK Florida it is, Jacksonville was just as cold and frosty as SC it was not until we reached Stuart FL that the temps were in the high 70's mid 80's.  We really had not planned to travel that far south and now we will have to retrace our path back north to begin the loop.  So, Stuart was the start of the loop for us.  We now call the trip south our shake down cruise, as we, (Jim) was able to really get a good handle on the boat and what we needed to add to it as far as navigational and safety equipment to do the trip.  So, on March 1st we began our trip north on the Great American Loop with a pit stop back in Jacksonville to get canvas made for the upper helm and new bottom paint for SweetPea.
We have been to so many incredible places and met so many wonderful people so far to numerous to mention.  I would like to send a big hello to 3 boaters we met when we first began the trip south Bob and Denise on Liberty who left their state of RI one day before us heading to the Keys,  Pete and Jerri who we first met in Melbourne Fl on their boat 5 o'clock and Scott and Lane on Esperanza out of Canada who spent a month in our homeport before heading south, we did some traveling with all of them at different times along the way south and look forward to catching up with them again in the future.  I can't believe its been a year!

A few days before we left Westport Ma. Jim installed a new chartplotter so all the travel info is actual,
as of today we have traveled a total of 5559 miles,  and the 3857miles are how many miles since we left Stuart FL, which is the start of the loop. 
The 22.1 mph is the fastest we have traveled, and the 9.1 mph is the average speed,  we have really learned to slow down which helps considerably with fuel consumption.  We estimate that when the loop is complete, it will be well over 6000 miles for the loop and total miles once we are back in New England will be over 10,000 miles.

Tonight we are anchored behind an island on the Tennessee River with our friends Mike and Twyla on NautiNell.  This is our view,  however this morning we woke up to another cool morning with heavy fog and only the sound of the fog horns in the distance.  Life is Good.

For those of you who have been following our blog, thank you for your comments, questions and e-mails, with almost 15,000 page views we hope to meet some of our followers and those of you in the background in the up coming months. Or maybe we will see you at Joe Wheeler State Park at the rendezvous, in a couple of weeks.

Kentucky Sugar Bay

 Today we all continued on Kentucky Lake the scenery is beautiful and the weather very nice.  We arrived at our anchorage (Sugar Bay) the shortest travel day so far all of 8 miles from Kentucky Dam Marina.

                      
                                                    Sugar Bay
                                           OokPik, NautiNell and SweetPea
                                  

 Everyone took the dinghy's down to explore the area,  We had not used ours since Canada so it took a bit to get it going.

Karen and Twyla checking out the scenery and the guys at work

After we got rafted they thought maybe we should at least drop another anchor.

                                            
                                          Jim fishing.............

                                          Mike catching!

Kentucky Dam Marina and Paducah KY

 We have landed in Kentucky and are at the Kentucky Dam Marina,  we will be here for a few days before heading back out on the River.  The first night here we called Patti's and they sent a van on out to pick us all up at the marina, there were 9 of us in our group.  Patti's Restaurant is known for there 2 inch pork chops.  And Jim and some of the others gave it a try, man it looked bigger than 2" to me and only one person ate the whole thing. The other thing they are known for are their homemade pies, 17 to choose from, most everyone got a piece to share with their partners of course Jim needed his own.  I shared mine with someone and that was more than I could handle.  We all left stuffed and most left with a doggy bag.

The next day Jim and I took the courtesy van to Paducah to pick up groceries beer and some other necessities. Beer and wine was the most important as we will be spending a good amount of time in some DRY counties. When we were in CVS a women struck up a conversation with Jim,  she instantly new he wasn't from around theses parts and mentioned a few places we needed to visit, the river front in Paducah was one and we were pretty close so we made a side trip.

Some of the sites on the waterfront, this is the Iron Horse Memorial

This explains it ...........pictures below are just some of the Portraits, you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them

While we were looking at the murals we saw this man taking a coffee break as it turned out he is one of the 5 artists who has done some of the painting, his name is Hank Roe

We found this in a nearby park its a memorial to Lewis and Clark.

Tomorrow we plan to head on out and will be doing some anchoring for the next few day so there may not be any posts.

Ohio River to Cumberland River

Today will be our last day on the Mississippi River as we move on to the Ohio River a short ways.  We will have traveled 221 miles on the Mississippi and about 58 miles on the Ohio River that will lead us to the Cumberland River of which we will also stay on for just about 36 miles, the Cumberland runs us to the Barkley Lake and the Kentucky Lake.

Friday 9-23- We anchored on the Ohio River (mile 966) on the Kentucky side there, we dropped anchor and then an hour later there were 7 of us rafted together. Oh, and a canoe! here is the crew of Passport and Southern Belle.

 This is the canoe they were paddling by and asked if we knew of a grassy spot for them to pitch their tent. Hmm after talking to them Passport offered their upper helm to them for the night.  Ben and Jon are on an adventure and are sponsored by a few business, churches and others to raise money for orphans,  Sugar2salt.com for more info.  they are planning to take that canoe down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, they started in Ohio.  And we thought this was an adventure?

This paddle boat also is heading for the Mississippi.

 Saturday 9-24 another anchorage at the Cumberland Island Towhead again 7 of us rafted together.

Sunset at the Cumberland Island Towhead

Life is Good!  ey? Mike

This is a great picture of all of us rafted at the Cumberland Towhead it was taken before NautiNell got there.

2nd and 3rd day on the Big Muddy

We left hoppies on Tuesday 9-20 and headed back out onto the Big Muddy next stop Kaskaskia Lock  It is very nice for the lock master to allow us all to tie up to this lock as there are NO marinas on the Mississippi River.  We were the 2nd boat in for the night but 7 more were to follow.  As I understand it, it depends whether the on duty lock master will allow you to get off your boat or not, we were lucky enough to get the one that would let us leave our boats.  So, once everyone was in it was Happy hour on the wall.

9 boats rafted on the wall

We noticed that the foliage is beginning to change on the river, glad to be heading south as the temperatures are cooling down, especially in the evening.

The scenery is getting prettier as we head downbound on the river.

It is wise to radio the barges as to direction on what side they would prefer you to pass,  there sure is alot of heavy metal there, the law of tonnage applies here.  Some of these barges are 5 wide by 6 long, most we have encountered are 5 by 5.

After you get by them its the backwash that can really throw you around,  alot of power there for sure,  each engine is 5000 horse.

Yes that looks like the route we are taking.

On the 3rd night we anchored out in Little Diversion Channel, Skipper Bob said that there was 10' of water and room for several boats, more if rafted.  We did have 7' of water under our keel and on our raft was 5 boats.  However, the book also said, do not anchor here if heavy rains are forecasted as the channel will flash flood resulting in lots of debris and strong current.  Well of course it did rain during the night, I am happy to report no flash flooding occurred.  Getting into this channel was quite the challenge as you need to go past the channel, turn around, and come up river against the current of 5 knots or more to enter the narrow channel.   

Looking up the Channel was a raft of 4 and another raft of 2 and 1 boat anchored alone next to us down at the bridge.  In the morning we will be anchoring out again but this time we will be on the Ohio River.