Green Turtle Bay

Sunday, October 12

We plan two short days, so no hurry to get going. We finally get started on another gorgeous morning and proceed slowly down river. We decide that the forecast is for warm enough temperatures that the AC is going to feel good so we choose to go to KenLake Marina as opposed to anchoring in one of the many lovely bays in the land between the lakes. We are now back where all of the starboard shoreline is LBL.

Diana continues to photograph the pretty scenery.

By early afternoon we were headed into the KenLake Marina. They are a private marina within a state park. They don’t have a lot of permanent slips but they have 800 feet of nice new transient docking. They also have a nice ship store and a small breakfast and lunch eatery all on an old barge.

We got tied up and settled in and chatted with our neighbors across the dock. They were two couples from Clear Lake, CA. They had trailered two small (24 -27? foot) sailboats from CA to Knoxville, TN. They are working their way down the Tennessee then will go up the Cumberland to Nashville, retrieve their trailers and return home.

Later in the afternoon a lovely Nordhavn 62 came in and tied in front of us. This was a couple from Mason City, IA who had the boat in La Crosse for the summer and are taking it to Florida. They had started their boating career on Clear Lake, IA where I have sailed many times. He was very helpful with conditions on the Mississippi and a possible anchorage.

Monday, October 13

It was another nice morning, temperature in the upper 60s, but with a little wind and cloudy. We went up to Cindy’s on the Barge for breakfast. The crews from the other three boats were already there. After breakfast we watched the others get underway then got going ourselves.

The wind was higher than forecast. We had 10 to 15 gusting 20, fortunately it was behind us and the flybridge was pleasant. We continued to cruise the river at a leisurely pace and watched the scenery go by. Diana got more photos of interesting rock formations.

Finally about noon we saw the red and green marker that indicates a split in the channel. This is the mouth of the Barkley Channel that takes us from the Tennessee River back to the Cumberland.

From there it was just three more miles to Green Turtle Bay where we had reservations for two nights. We pulled into the fuel dock, fueled and then moved to our slip. By now a front had moved thru and the sky had cleared and the wind in the harbor was only 5 to 8 (much easier to maneuver in).

The fueling was good news and better news. The mileage was back to just under 4.1 mpg and the price with Boat US discount was $3.59 a gallon. The cheapest we have seen all summer.

We borrowed the courtesy van and ran to the IGA. This should be our last supplies of the trip and we tried to buy enough to get through the next ten days without much left over.

We had a nice afternoon socializing with eight or ten other boaters here then watched the full moon rise behind the boat as we grilled pork tenderloin for dinner.

We are still enjoying live!