Kentucky Lake Bound

 Heading North to get South

Just so you know that not every single day is sunny, our last day in Nashville started out cloudy and eventually progressed to a light sprinkle. Fortunately not a deal breaker. On Monday morning we set out for Clarksville some 58 miles down river and involved passing thru the Cheatum lock again. Funny thing about these rivers.

To get to Nashville on the Cumberland you actually are traveling south and a bit east and upstream. River lingo you are traveling North. Don’t get it but that’s the way it is. When communicating with the Tows I stuck to up bound and down bound. That seemed to keep everybody on the same page. Monday turned out to be a pretty long day as it took us about 2 hours to get thru the lock which made for the arrival at Clarksville at 4:30 pm. We were also aware that the temps overnight were going to drop into the low 30’s. 

When we woke up on Tuesday it was quite cold with a nice 5 mph breeze. I had zipped in the rear enclosure the day before but still needed gloves to hold onto that cold stainless wheel . To our favor it was sunny and the wind was on our more most of the day. We had a planned 50 mile cruise to Bumpus Mills where we anchored in Saline Creek. By about 9 am it was actually fairly warm on the flybridge which made for a nice cruise.

We traveled with our 75 year old friends on Call Me Curly. I can only hope to be as sharp and full of energy as they are when we get that age. When we arrived to the creek my first attempt at the entrance had to be aboarted due to lack of water. As we back off to try again a crackly voice came across the radio, “Cruiser trying to enter Saline Creek come in tight on the green, you should find plenty of water.” Well we did just that and in we went. We found a nice spot and dropped the anchor for the night.

We got another call on the radio and this time it was our friends. They invited us over for dinner and a game of cards. We played a card game called Wizard which was a whole lot of fun. We hopped into our dinghy and Uberdinged back to the boat. 

On Wednesday morning we headed out around 8 am for the next 50 mile leg to Pisgah Bay situated just off Kentucky Lake.

The Tennessee river actually runs thru Kentucky lake all the way to Pickwick dam where we will pick up the Tom-Big-Be. The cruise was not as chilly as the past two days so it was more enjoyable. When we finally entered the canal we would now be heading south for warmer climes. We anchored up about 3:30 pm and got settled for the night or so we thought. I then got a text from Razors Edge which are some folks we have been cruising with on and off. They said they were going to meet us at the anchorage and raft up. Before they arrived I went in the dinghy and explored an old rock quarry. The rock faces were covered in graffiti in kind of a good way. Ashore I found a great trail that went through the woods. It was like a big park with little under brush. When Razors Edge arrived Sue made a great dinner for everybody. After dinner we went over to their boat to watch a funny movie called TED. We laughed our butts off. The moonless night sky was just spectacular. We were quite a ways from any populated area which made for great star gazing. It also made for some serious darkness aboard. The type when you hold your hand up you don’t even know where to look for your hand.