Today we traveled 73.3 miles to Green Turtle Bay at
Grand Rivers, KY. We will be there for at
least two nights, but most importantly we have mail waiting for us! That gets a big "Yeah!" from the Admiral, and a (softly said) "Big deal" from me.
Before we left the Pebble Isle Marina this morning we filled up the tanks with diesel
fuel. It is 50 cents a gallon cheaper here
than at Green Turtle Bay, which is our final marina until we leave and go down the Ohio River and then up the Mississippi River to Grafton, Illinois which is 316.2 miles. There are two possible fuel stops along that route, but we plan on not needing to get fuel. This distance is of great concern to a lot of Loopers because gasoline is only available at one of those locations, and they would have to go about 250 miles without a fuel stop. Hard to believe, but many Loopers have gasoline powered boats that either must get bad mileage or have limited tank capacity. We will probably
top off again when we get to Green Turtle Bay just to be sure.
We did not get away from
Pebble Isle Marina until 8:15 am after taking on 362.372 gallons of
diesel, which is about 60% of our total fuel capacity. The weather forecast for today included a 50% chance of rain for most of the day, but thunderstorms with possible severe weather are predicted for tomorrow. We really do not mind travelling in the rain so today it was... Granted we could have waited here a few days, but we have been checking both the long term weather forecasts and the predicted river levels on the Mississippi River. There is an excellent window opening in about 4 days that looks ideal for our 4 day trip up the Mississippi River. If this all sounds complicated and confusing, then you are right because it is like a big juggling act.
After departing, we immediately ran into thunderstorms so we had a wet and cool several hours. By noon we were North of the system and only had to deal with cooler temps (high was around 57 degrees). The photo above shows my view out through the window at a steady rain. The rain had been predicted, but there wer also a couple of thunderstorms that passed over us that were not predicted. The Admiral and I were both uneasy about the lightning, but when you are out in the lake miles from any shelter on land we decided to keep on going. Returning to the marina would have taken over an hour, and then we would be even more exposed tying lines, etc. Sure enough, the lightning ended after a half hour and we continued for several more hours in the rain. The photo at left shows our "friend" on the flybridge today. Yes, it is an electric space heater, which although it required running the generator, was well worth it in the damp 57F weather...
The scenery today on Kentucky Lake, which is the name for this segment of the Tennessee River, was not great partly due to the weather and partly due to going down the middle of the fairly wide lake. However, one oddity that we passed was this houseboat. It appeared to actually be powered by the paddle wheel as opposed to many paddle wheels the are strictly for show. I particularly liked the big TV antenna that is a real nice 19th century touch...
Another oddity is this railroad bridge to nowhere. The railroad bridge on the left does indeed just end... There is also an old railroad station on the right that would have been for a different track along the edge of the pre-lake river. If you want to see decent pictures of this, you could go back to the October 2014 blog when we came through here in good weather. Otherwise, this photo serves to reinforce the lousy weather that we had today.
On the wildlife side we saw this flock of white pelicans (photo at right) that looked like they were preening their feathers presumably after a successful hunt this morning. They are probably migrating back North for the summer after wintering along the Gulf coast. White Pelicans are herders that work in shallow water often along the shore and herd small fish into the middle of a circle.
We arrived at Green Turtle Bay Marina about 3:45pm, and we were put on the transient dock adjacent to the office, which is just out of view to the right. This is the Columbia Yacht Club (photo at left) at the head of the sailboat dock. The other docks have a mix of covered and uncovered docks for power boats. Unfortunately, we arrived on a Monday, and both the Yacht Club and the separate waterfront restaurant are closed on Monday and Tuesday in the off season. The good news is that we will be here at least three nights so that we can enjoy dinner here on Wednesday evening.
To review I said above that we will be here at least three nights. Two of the things that we have been monitoring more and more closely as we approached Green Turtle Bay are the water levels on the Mississippi River and the long term weather predictions. When we leave here we will go out via Lake Barkley and the Barkley Lock on the Cumberland River to the Ohio River. We will go down the Ohio and turn up the Mississippi River to a anchorage about 8 miles up river. This day will cover about 100 miles and will go fairly fast since it is all down stream until the Mississippi River. Then we will have at least 4 days going 211 miles up river against the current until we reach the Illinois River at Grafton, Illinois. The four days on the Mississippi River are crucial because of the strong current and the total lack of safe marinas to wait out bad weather or flooding. Thus, the combination of a long weather window and lack of significant flooding on the Mississippi River are crucial to our whole trip. If we cannot find a safe window of 5 suitable days in a row, then ultimately we would have to turn around and possibly cruise some of the river system before heading back home...
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