Kentucky Lake Pebble Island Marina

Pebble Island Marina

Kentucky Lake/ Tennessee River (Part 2)

September 27 2012

We spent a quiet evening at Haimin Bay at anchor. There were cottages on the shore and I was able to update my blog, smooching wifi from one of them.

I had been feeling yucky for the past couple of days so while I had a nap, Gary dingied over to SV Flying Free for a visit.

September 28, 2012

We woke up to more rain and it fell in earnest as Gary pulled up the anchor. Just as we got everything up, we noticed SV Flying Free had ran aground as they were leaving the anchorage. Gary dropped the anchor and headed over to give them a push off using the dingy‘s motor.

Pulled up half a tree with the anchor

Soon we were all on our way. Gary and I tried to fine tune the auto helm which has been acting up lately.

Abandorned dock from before the dam was built

A few hours later we arrived at Pebble Island Marina. After we got the boats tied up, laundry started and cats locked up, we used their courtesy vehicle to go into town to stock up liquor and fresh food.

The evening we dined at the Blue Heron restaurant at the marina. We ate catfish, slaw and fries. We also had white beans with ham and hush puppies with our meals. I just HAD to try the local favourite snack: boiled peanuts; in a word - YUK!!!

Henning, Joann, Me, Gary and Erik

Pebble Island Marina is well known for giving boaters free cinnamon buns and coffee in the morning, however, they only do it on weekdays. As we were here on a weekend, I pouted and the owner ordered the chef to bake cinnamon buns especially for us. J We enjoyed the breakfast; all you can eat buffet and our specially made cinnamon buns, very much.

Feeding fish:
Only caught glimpses of the elusive catfish
as all the treats were getting gobbled up by the greedy Blue Gills

At breakfast I tried grits, which is just a corn-type porridge similar to what we eat in South Africa. This was just grittier (hence the name, Grits?) Also served were Southern Biscuits and sausage gravy.  A biscuit is what we call scones in SA.

We took advantage of their hospitality and stayed a little later than regular check out time so Gary could grease all the steering gear and basically do some maintenance on the steering components. Of course, then we found the Starboard engine's raw water pump needs replacing too. Oy vey!

You know what B.O.A.T. stands for? Bring On Another Thousand.

 …………………………..TO BE CONTINUED

Kentucky Lake (Part 1)

Kentucky Lake/ Tennessee River

22 Sept 2012

We were so happy to catch up with our friends on MV Wild Goose, SV Flying Free and MV Next to Me. However the visit was short as we left Green Turtle Bay the following morning. Our friends on MV Next to Me are heading all the way up the Tennessee River to Chattanooga, the folks on MV Wild Goose are going home to Florida take care of some business. We were sad that we had missed our Brazilians friends on SV Teasa who were heading back to Brazil as their US visa is almost expired.

The Barkley Canal that links Barkley and Kentucky Lakes

So we headed out with our Canadian friends on SV Flying Free through the Barkley Canal to the Tennessee River and our first stop; a whole 5 miles away at an anchorage called Pisgah Bay.

Pisgah Bay is located next to an old stone quarry. The rock from the quarry was used to build the Kentucky Dam. The dam was built in the 40s and flooded a town called Birmingham. Several boats have been damaged as a result of hitting foundations and remains of old buildings.

Boys and their toys - Pisgah Bay

The old rock quarry has been a spot for graffiti artist for many years. I was surprised to notice that there was (even in this day and age) no profanity and pictures drawn in bad taste, on the walls. Some drawings were actually very artistic.


Some examples of the graffiti , some dating back to the 60s

Gary spotted this lizard when we were out for a walk

It was nice to quiet down and enjoy a peaceful couple of days on the hook. We enjoyed a long walk in the woods with the gang from SV Flying Free. 

After a long walk in the woods

25 Sept 2012

Onwards to the next peaceful stop and anchorage. The Tennessee River and Kentucky Lake is world famous for all the beautiful and peaceful places to anchor. Some boaters come here and stay for the whole summer. There are over 160 000 coves, beaches and embankments to visit. Kentucky Lake is one of the world’s largest man-made lakes with over 2,400 miles of shoreline.

We were told to be on the look-out for mussel divers. The meat of the mussel is used for bait and the shells get exported to Japan for jewelry.

Our first stop was at Duncan Bay, a waterfowl and eagle refuge. We are having a pizza cook off between Gary and Joanne.

Just as we were taking the pizzas out of the oven we looked up and saw our friends on SV Teasa motoring into the anchorage!! We were so happy to see them!!! They joined us for pizza and we all decided to stay the rest of the day to visit, rather than move on to Sugar Bay.

We had such a good time that we stayed for another day. We had a “goodbye” breakfast on SV Teasa and then spent the rest of the day exploring the bays around the anchorage.

Happy Boaters

After our breakfast on SV Teasa

The seasons are changing but
it is still very warm here in Kentucky

Fossils

How many people does it take to build an Inukshuk?
3 Canadians, I south African, 1 Dane and 2 Brazilians

Our cocktail hour was cut short by lightning and thunder and the rain that soon followed. The rained all night and into the morning, the weather remains unsettled but we decided it is time to move on.

Sept 27, 2012

We anchored in Fort Heiman Bay and the first thing I was a huge water moccasin swimming past the boat. No swimming for me here, that is for sure!!

 …………………………..TO BE CONTINUED

Nashville

Nashville Tennessee

Music City.

Home of the Grand Ole’ Opry,

Country Music Capitol

Ahhhh, Nashville J

On the way here I was seriously concerned that we had made the wrong decision to come all the way up the Cumberland, fight a lot of current and debris in the water, to get to Nashville. Besides I don’t even like country music!!

The first thing we saw was a huge boat docked at the water front. It was a boat they used on D Day in the 2^nd WW to deploy troops and vehicles.  (More about it later)

The second thing we saw were the homeless people camped, mere feet from where we had booked and paid to park our boat. Interesting.

City docks Nashville,
no power or waterhook ups but the town is worth a visit
especially for the music and honkytonk bars

Anyhow, we figured we were here; best thing to do was to find the tourist information office and figure out what was worth seeing.

Nashville  (Party  town)

Well, we walked up Broadway Street and we started off with the best intentions but the sounds coming out of the bars stopped us in our tracks. It was just after 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon and we were hearing some of the best live music we had ever heard. Then Gary asked me the fatal question: Do you want to go in and have a beer?

They do like to wear those here

Thank you, thank you very much....

I have no idea why he is huging a horse

A few beers later we finally made it to the information area but by then we had figured out Nashville all by ourselves. It was party central and even non country music fans (like myself) could have a BALL here.

We stopped in at Famous Jack’s for BBQ and oh my, I like Southern cooking!!

In the South mac and cheese and potato salad count as veggies!!

Like a kid in a candy store??

We had a great night sleep, the homeless people never bothered us and we were told that they leave the boaters alone (usually) if you leave them alone.

Sept 19, 2012

We had some problems with our generator battery so the first thing we did was call up an auto part place that would, not only sell us a new battery but would also deliver it to us. That went off without a hitch and we started our day, eager to explore Nashville.

At the Nashville hockey team (Predators) arena

I don't even know what to write here as a comment.
We were having so much fun...

We spent a lot of time touring through the LST 325. Gary enjoyed talking to the Vets who crew the boat each summer as it sails 24 hours a day at 8-10 mph.

The MASH jeep from the TV series

If you look close you can see
our boat in the background

Gunner



The bunks where the crew would sleep

The boat is a 99% original LST (Landing, Ship,Tank) The largest ship ever designed /built to place tanks, troops and cargo onto a hostile beach, then retract it. 1,051 were built for WW2 and it is considered The Ship That Won The War.

After touring the boat it was time for lunch and we enjoyed the “Best Hot Dog in Nashville” and I can’t say for sure because I am not able to compare but is was darned tooting tasty!!

They were very good hot dogs

We spent the afternoon checking out the Walk of Fame just across from the Hilton Hotel where many famous people have suits, among them Little Richard who apparently likes to drive through town blowing the horn of his big old Cadillac, just to make sure people notice him. We kept our eyes peeled but saw no one famous.

Nashville Walk of Fame

We toured the Country Music Hall of Fame and surprisingly I must say I really enjoyed it. Apparently there is a lot of country music that I actually do like! We saw Elvis’ Gold Cadillac and gold piano. Many outfits that the country music stars had worn on different occasions and we also enjoyed a guided tour of the beginnings and history of country music. We both had a tear in our eye when we watched the last performance by Johnny Cash.

Elvis' Golden Piano

We ended the day on a high note by going into yet another one of the bars on Broadway Street and listening to some amazing performances.

This is a great town and you will be surprised at all the different music you hear on the streets. It is mostly country but there is a lot of rock and roll, blues, and bluegrass too.

When in Nashville.....

Nashville at night

So many honkeytonks, so little time...

On our last day in Nashville we decided to visit Opry Land, home of the Grand Ole Opry. Unfortunately it was a Thursday so things were pretty quiet there. They have a show every Tue, Fri and Sat. In the summer they add a show on a Wednesday (I think).  We enjoyed lunch at Johnny Rockets and headed back to the boat.

Soon two more boats showed up at the city dock. MVLauren Grace (a GOLD Looper )and MV Carina. As we were listening to the Zac Brown Band doing their sound check for the weekend’s upcoming show, we enjoyed a few cocktails and shared some stories.

Looper cocktail hour

Loopers are always willing to share information about anchorages and places to see and these folks were no exception. MV Lauren Grace actually gave us a great chart of Kentucky Lake with their favourite anchorages marked on it.

It was the perfect way to end our short trip in Nashville. Gary and I keep saying what a wonderful surprise it was to walk up the street, on our first day there, and hear the great music coming out of the honkey tonk bars. We really enjoyed Nashville, the music, the drinks, the food and the people.( Beer just tastes better when it is accompanied by great music)

Zee, her husband was working security for the LST ship
and also for the Zac Brown concert that was being held on the weekend.
While he worked she fished and visited with us.



The sternwheeler General Jackson . The world's largest showboat
at 300 feet long can accommodate over a 1000 guests.
Quite a sight having her pass us while we were tied up to the city dock

On our bustrip we saw this example of some of the greek inspired architecture
which gained Nashville the name of "Athens of the South"
This building is the Tennessee State Capitol

A close up of the Batman Building (aka ATT)

Now we must head back down the Cumberland to Green Turtle Bay, to pick up parts we had ordered before we head out to Kentucky Lake.

Near Nashville

Having a well deserved nap

Early morning at anchor on
our way back to Green Turtle Bay

 …………………………..TO BE CONTINUED

Cumberland River to Nashville

Sept 16, 2012

Because we have some time to kill, we decided it would be as good a time as any to do a little side trip. So we are going to Nashville!!!!!!!!!!

To get to Nashville from Green Turtle Bay, you have to go N/E through Barkley Lake via the Cumberland River.

The Kentucky Stae Penitentary
aka The Castle on the Cumberland

We passed a gorgeous building overlooking the river. I wondered if it was an old mansion or perhaps a museum of some sorts. NOT!! It is the state penitentiary, nicked named The Castle on the Cumberland. They have executed 161 people at this penitentiary. Such a shame, as the building is absolutely gorgeous. Apparently stone masons came all the way from Italy to work on it. I wonder why they put so much effort into building a jail?

Our first stop after GTB was a little marina called Eddy Creek. We stopped there because their fuel is a lot cheaper than GTB and they are on the way to Nashville. As soon as we got off the dock we were met by Larry from MV Lady KK. Larry and his wife are starting the Loop in a couple of weeks. They are heading to the rendezvous at Joe Wheeler and they really look forward to getting started.

The people here in Kentucky have the greatest accents. The young man who worked the fuel station kept calling me mam. Everyone here is very polite and very friendly, true Southerners!!

After we filled up with fuel, (Gary is ecstatic because our fuel consumption is down to 2.32 a gallon!!) we decided to take a walk around and ended up picking up some lunch at the restaurant on site. We shared Barkley Burger (as in the name of the lake) and cheesy fries. Delicious!!

Scenic Cumberland  River

 The channel markers on the lake and on the river are sketchy at best. And for some weird reason both of our chart plotters showed us way out of the channel while we could see we were well in between the markers. There were many deadheads in the river so we had to keep a close eye on the markers and on any debris that might foul up our prop (Someone asked me what a deadhead is, a deadhead is what you call a tree or a stump or a log in the water)

Sunday evening we stayed at Bumpus Mills Marina. Gary said if there is a kid playing the banjo on the porch he isn’t stopping (Ref the movie Deliverance) but thankfully there was just a friendly guy named Wally who runs the “Bass and Crappie Heaven”. He charged us $25 cash to stay the night and that included power, what a bargain!!

Wally - Bumpus Mills Marina

Again, he had the heaviest accent and half of the things he said, we had to ask him to repeat because we couldn’t understand him. But I know he said we were welcome to stay on our way back from Nashville.

Sept 17, 2012

It started to rain very hard during the night and when we left in the morning it was still raining. It rained pretty much all day, and it was a long and boring day. The landscape along the river never varied.

Rain falling on Ft Donelson,
From here the Confederate soldiers
leveled their fire at the Union  fleet.

The Dover Hotel where on Sunday February 26, 1863
General Grant accepted the unconditional surrender from
the Confederate General Simon Buckner
(the first and only time during the Civil war that a large army surrendered unconditionally)

We passed Clarksville and decided not to stop there but push on to Harpeth Island.

Bypassing Clarksville,
 all the while singing: "take the last train to Clarkville"

We anchored in a gorgeous spot as the rain continued falling softly.

Sept 18, 2012

Scenes from a river

The winds were stronger than we had experienced on the rivers thus far but the good thing was that it was on our stern. The wind push gave us a little power as we fought the current going upstream to Nashville.

By this time I seriously doubted our Nashville trip. The river is filled with dead heads; some logs the size of the back of our boat. The trip is boring, we never saw any other traffic, even the tugboat s were quiet and MIA. We wondered if we had made a mistake coming all this way…..

Nashville skyline in sight, note the Batman building?

At last we entered the Nashville city limits. The first thing we saw was a gentleman on the side of the river, saluting us at full attention. We just waved and though ….what’s up with that? It is nice but what????? We figured he must really like Canadians.

As we turned the last bend in the river and spotted Nashville’s skyline but we also saw a huge boat which is a landing craft for troop and vehicle deployment. At first I thought it was a Russian boat because of the weird writing but it turned out to be Greek. Our stay in Nashville had just begun……

What is it?? Stay tuned.....

…………………………..TO BE CONTINUED