We're in Florence, AL on Pickwick Lake after a beautiful cruise up the lake yesterday from Grand Harbor. As we got closer to Florence, the river was frequently filled with bass boats. Upon arriving in Florence, we found that the Florence Marina is the site of the big annual bass fishing tournament held this weekend. I have never seen so many bass boats in one place. We'll probably be awakened tomorrow morning by the Le Mans start of a hundred bass boats.

Pickwick is a really beautiful lake created by the TVA dam on the Tennessee River. It is loaded with very nice wooded islands and multi-million dollar homes, an area reminiscent of the 10,000 Islands area of the Saint Lawrence Seaway between Upper New York State and Canada.

Yesterday, we visited Corinth, MS, a Civil War battle site. I never realized the significance of Corinth before, but the National Park Service site at one of the earthworks bunkers, shown in this picture, explained t well. Corinth was the railway crossroads of the South and therefore one of the most critical objectives of the Union Troops.
The Confederate Army was massed to protected Corinth and the Union Army was marching south to seize Corinth. A Confederate General learned that the Union Army was at Shiloh and decided to decided to create a surprise attack to destroy the Union Army. That was the reason for the huge battle at Shiloh. The last time we cruised in this area, we visited Shiloh, which was a very moving experience.







Today, on Pickwick Lake, we saw lots of Cyprus trees, with their cypress knees in the air. Farther south, the Cyprus form huge Cyprus swamps covering acres with interlocking knees everywhere.















We also saw lots of Kudzu, which grows so fast that it covers everything in sight.


We got a one day rental car today and went back and got our own car Grand Harbor, so we'll have a car for the week we're here. It's nice to have a car handy.

We're at Grand Harbor Marina at the exact corners of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.

In fact, the view from our aft deck actually overlooks Pickwick Lake and you can see all three states from our aft deck! Across the water is Tennessee, on the left bank is Mississippi and the right bank is Alabama.

Two nights ago, we were at Clifton, TN Marina.... no cell phone service and no internet. Now at Grand Harbors, there's also no internet and poor cell phone service so my internet cell doesn't work. I posted this from my laptop in the car in a parking lot where there's good cell coverage.

We'll be here 2 days, then on to Florence, AL where we plan to stay for a week.

On the river cruise to Clifton, we passed many barges, including tis one... the largest tow we have ever seen. It's 4 barges wide by six long, so one towboat is pushing 24 barges. I talked to the towboat captain on VHF and he said that each barge has 2 million lbs. of coal, so the whole tow has 48 million lbs of coal in it. Incredible!!

The Tennessee River frequently has limestone cliffs like this along the banks.













Where the banks are sand or riprap, houses are built on high stilts to stay safe from the floods.










There were a number of places where the Fall colors were starting to show nicely.

We cruised 30 miles South on Kentucky Lake today. A nice, easy cruise in 70 degree sunny weather.

I did catch a nice little smallmouth bass before we left the anchorage, and we saw the bald eagle fishing for his breakfast in the little bay again. Very scenic.







We saw this old abandoned dock building along the river. There is absolutely no land access to it. It's just a big dock from bygone days, possibly from prior mussel harvesting or fishing ventures. We also passed a U S Coastguard buoy tender boat, fixing the red and green channel markers on the rivers. We're sure glad they're around because the channels change and the Coast Guard moves the buoys to match the channels and puts the damaged or missing bouys back in place.

We're at the Pebble Isle Marina in New Johnsonville, TN for the night. We were here this time of the year 2 years ago when we did the Great Loop Route, and this long "transient dock" was packed full of boaters. Today, it's almost empty, with just 4 boats. There are lots of boats in the permanent slips here though, including a nice Hatteras 53MY like ours.

We're anchored out in Sugar Bay on Kentucky Lake.

It's an absolutely beautiful, serene anchorage which is in a completely sheltered arm of the bay surrounded by nature of the National Park "Land Between the Lakes".

We're the only boat in this arm of the big bay, but there's a boat ramp and small park campground about a half mile away across the big bay in another arm of Sugar Bay. We went there in the dinghy to take Daisy for a walk this afternoon.

These are the first really colorful Fall trees we have seen. I think they're sweet gum trees. The other big green trees next to them are huge Cyprus trees. I tried fishing this bay with no luck this afternoon and also fished off the aft deck with worms and a minnow, also with no luck.


We saw an adult bald eagle flying low around this bay looking for fish as we were out in the dinghy. It flew almot directly over us at about 100 ft. up. A really great sighting of this magnificent bird. We also saw 4 deer come down to the water's edge to eat the grasses at the head of the bay.

When it was totally dark this evening, we turned off all of the boat lights, including the anchor light, so we could go out and see the stars. It is simply incredible how many stars you can see when there is zero light pollution from lights. There was no moon out yet so even the Milky Way was clearly visible.

Tomorrow we're going another 60 miles South on Kentucky Lake to Pebble Isle Marina at New Johnsonville, TN. I'll have to get a Tennessee fishing license, even though my Kentucky fishing license is good on all of Kentucky Lake.

We went driving in Kentucky down through "the land between the lakes", which is a National Recreation Area bordered by Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. It's beautiful, rolling wooded land with lots of scenic vistas of the lakes and camping and fishing sites provided by the National Park Service.

It's fun to drive down the little dirt roads through the woods.












And to stop at the large grasslands set aside for the elk and bison herds maintained here by the park service. The buffalo are absolutely HUGE!











We went to a local winery and Kathy liked a couple of their Kentucky wines.

We plan to stay here until Saturday morning because it's going to rain until then and the marina gave us 3 free nights here because our boat was not in the slip when I had the bottom painted. Then we plan to anchor out in Sugar Bay on Kentucky Lake on our way South.

We made it to Green Turtle Bay marina on Lake Barkley easily on Thursday, Oct. 15th. We went the Tennessee River route instead of the Cumberland River. Most pleasure craft take the Cumberland because the lock to Kentucky Lake is operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers and they are more likely to lock you through without a long wait. However, I called the state operated Kentucky lock and they said they had no traffic backup so we saved the 25 extra miles by taking the Tennessee. We had to wait 2 hours for a split tow in the lock when we got there, but it would have been at least that long going the extra miles on the Cumberland. For really long barge tows, they have to split them into two halves and take each half down separately, recombining them into one big tow at the lock wall after they're both down.

We're staying at Green Turtle Bay for a week so we can go get our car and our dog, Daisy, from home. It's a very nice marina and for $5.75 per foot per week it's like $.080 per ft. per night, including electric, WiFi, cable TV, etc. This also gave me a chance to get the bottom painted. It has never been fully painted in the 5 years I have owned the boat. I have just touched up the prior good bottom paint every winter in dry heated storage. Since the boat was on blocks in the boatyard for bottom paint, I also changed props, since the props on the boat have almost 7,000 miles on them and we touched the sandy bottom of the ICW in Georgia twice.

Today is 10/21/08 and the boat's back in the water and we have our car and dog back with us. We're a pretty large boat for this marina, but I was sitting at the dock this afternoon when this 115 ft. Burger pulled in to the fuel dock. Boy, I'd hate to pay for the fuel for that monster.

We'll be here for 2 more days, then leaving Friday morning, 10/24, to cruise Kentucky Lake, which is connected to Lake Barkley by a canal. We'll be on Kentucky Lake for a few days and then on the Tennessee River, which forms Kentucky Lake.

We're anchored out in the Ohio River at mile 949 behind a little sandbar, out of the channel.

It was a beautiful flybridge day with temps around 80 degrees and mostly sunny skies. The Ohio is at a lower stage than the Mississippi and so the water is cleaner, less floating debris, and slower current, which is good because we're headed upriver on the Ohio instead of downriver like we were on the Mississippi. Running at the same 1200 RPMs we were doing 12.5 knots down the Mississippi, but only get 8.5 knots up the Ohio. There goes our better fuel mileage, but at least diesel fuel is down to $3.60 per gallon here.

There are lots of tows on the Ohio and Mississippi, and some of them are huge. This one, that has barges cabled together into a tow 5 barges wide by 5 barges long, is about 1,500 ft. long and 250 ft. wide.







Sometimes the channels are narrow and we pass really close to them.












We also passed many spectacular sized sandbars on the Mississippi. I would guess that the one pictured here is about 3 miles long and about 1,500 ft wide, and totally uninhabited. Of course, it's under water when the Mighty Miss. is in flood, but it's sure inviting today.

We should reach Green Turtle Bay marina tomorrow. We haven't decided yet whether to go up the Cumberland River, or the down the Tennessee to Lake Barkley. It may depend on the condition of the locks.

We're anchored out on the Mississippi River in the "Little Diversion Channel" near Cape Girardeau, MO. This is the place we met Bill & Jane Stone 2 years ago, and also the place that I let one of our anchors drop into the water forever. Maybe if I dragged our new anchor along the bottom, I could catch it?

It was kind of a gray day all day, with a few light sprinkles thrown in, so we stayed inside at the lower helm station.










This is the Little Diversion Channel, which is not much wider than a creek, about 150 ft. wide. The bottom is deep, soft silt and our main anchor wouldn't hold to my satisfaction, so we put our Fortress anchor, set for soft mud, off the bow and it held fine, Then I used the main anchor as a "kedge" near the stern to keep us from swinging.

We'll anchor out again tomorrow night on the Ohio River.

Rolling... Rolling.... Rolling on the River.
We came 86 miles down the mighty Mississippi today, burned 60 gal of diesel fuel, and we're tied up to the Kaskaskia River lock wall.

Yesterday was Sunday so we walked uptown into Alton, IL to a local bakery for donuts and the Sunday newspaper. Their donuts were passable to good (I consider myself a donut expert). Last evening some friends from the Hatteras owners forum, Jim and Dudley Grove, visited us. Over drinks on the aft deck, we learned a little about cruising to the Bahamas, which they do every winter in their Hatteras. Then we went to dinner together at a very nice restaurant. We hope to have Jim and Dudley join us on the Tennessee River later.

We passed by downtown Saint Louis
as we left Alton, IL. There's a nice view of the Arch, but not much more.








This is the Kaskaskia River lock wall. It's nice and secure for the night and you can get out and walk on the lock wall, but it is effectively a cement island in the Kaskaskia River, so you can't get off the wall. Kathy did about 20 laps of the long wall instead of the usual treadmill exercise she does at home. I caught two catfish from the aft deck this evening as Kathy was walking. Then she made an excellent pasta with fresh oyster mushrooms and some other strange but delicious fungus she got at Sulard's Farmer's Market in Saint Louis on Saturday.

There are no marinas in this area, so you just have to make do with other places to stay. Tomorrow we plan to anchor in a small channel off to the side of the Mississippi River, just to have a place to stay out of the current and the barge traffic.

We spent Saturday in Saint Louis and visited our son, Stephen (and his dog Schatzi). His fiancee, Beth, is out of town until Wednesday. Nice to have him and his car squire us around to Whole Foods and a good local grocery store so we could provision the boat for our trip on the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers starting Monday.

Stephen lives in a nice apartment building right downtown, in easy walking distance to lots of nice restaurants, bars, etc. We went to a great sushi bar for sushi, probably the last well have for a few months. Sushi isn't too big in Tennessee and Alabama, you know. This is the view of the St. Louis Arch from his apartment building rooftop pool and garden. That stone courthouse at the bottom right of the arch is where the Dred Scott case was decided.

We went walking to the park at the Arch with Stephen and Schatzi. When you put a long retractable leash on Schatzi and get out a frisbee, schatzi runs like a banshee, just zipping around for the sheer joy of zipping around.

We're on the Mississippi River at Alton, IL which is as close to Saint Louis as marinas get. Our son, Stephen, lives here so we'll spend the weekend. Unfortunately, Saint Louis has done nothing with their river front. There are no boater facilities and most of the riverfront looks neglected and shabby. You can see the Arch as you cruise by, but no place to stop, no docks, etc. Except for some commercial tour boats, the river front is useless.

The Fall colors have not even begun on Illinois River yet. There were a few little red trees, like this one, but no real Fall yet.









We completed the Illinois River about 3 PM today. This picture is mile zero of the Illinois and mile 218 of the Mississippi. We'll take the Mississippi to the Ohio River, and then go up the Ohio.







As you cruise down the Mississippi, the first 10 miles or so have these beautiful Palisades along the banks. They are 300 ft tall weathered sandstone cliffs with green trees growing along the tops and bottoms.

Day three and we're anchored out in the wilds of the Illinois River below Beairdstown, IL.

It was a beautiful day with temps in the 70s all day and clear blue skies. We cruised on the flybridge, which on our boat is completely open to all views, but also open to all weather (except for a Bimini sunshade).

The river below Peoria was just below flood stage, but still much higher than usual. We went right over the top of the dam at Peoria. The lock was wide open on both sides and the lockmaster just said to cruise right over the dam anywhere. It was very interesting, and only a little scary, as we watched the deth finder go from 16 ft to 38 ft almost instantly, and that lock is a very low drop usually.

The trees along the river's edge were still flooded, with a line about 6 ft higher on them where the flood waters had washed the leaves away or muddied the leaves that remained.






When we anchored this evening, there was a mature Bald Eagle sitting in a dead tree right next to the boat. The picture is from my cell phone, so it just looks like a little blob high up on the dead limbs, but we were actually very close. It kind'a gives you chills when it looks straight at you.




We're anchored out of the river channel behind this little island (Sugar Island). Kathy's looking at the eagle just after we dropped the hook.













By sunset, I was fishing off the aft deck while we had wine and cheese, and later I hickory smoked hamburgers on the grill for dinner.




The fishing paid off after dark when I caught a very nice little channel catfish that looked good enoigh to eat, but we didn't. A very nice day.

We plan on going to St. Louis tomorrow, about 100 miles.

Day 2 and we're in Peoria, IL. We went about 70 miles today.... rain this morning but nice sunny and seventies this afternoon. The Illinois River is still up about 4 to 6 ft. from recent rains, which doesn't impede cruising at all, but it sure helps to get into the very shallow marinas at Peoria.

We had one mechanical problem today. I smelled raw diesel fuel in the starboard engine room and found that a fuel pressure sensor was dripping a drop per minute when the engine was running. We were only about an hour from Peoria, so we just went on in with a rag under the drip (diesel fuel does not evaporate and ignite easily like gasoline). I recalled a recent Hatteras Owner's Forum thread indicating you could just replace it with a little pipe plug. Incredibly, I had two of the right size brass pipe plugs in my little bag of spare parts and replaced the bad sensor with a pipe plug. In 1978, that sensor was used to turn on the engine hour meters whenever the engine runs and also to shut down the original battery charger when the engines were running. However, I have digital engine hour meters that replaced the old ones, and I just replaced the battery charger with one that does not require the fuel pressure sensor, so the switch that died was no longer needed. Sometime on this trip, I'll replace the port engine sensor with a brass plug also.

We've gone about 106 miles since we filled up with fuel before the trip. It took 98 gallons of diesel fuel to fill up today, so we're going about 9 knots and getting a little over one MPG, which is typical for this boat. We could get better mileage going 6 to 7 knots, but it just tales too much time.

We plan to go halfway to Saint Louis tomorrow, either anchoring out on the Illinois or tying up to a barge on the banks at Bairdstown, IL.

The floods are over and we're on our way again!

This picture is ten days ago when our marina on the Illinois River was flooded. Where I am is standing on our usually dry dock where out anchor usually hangs a little above waist high. We left Harborside Marina (our previous home port) today and headed down the Illinois River. We're anchored out at Buffalo Rock this evening after an easy cruising day in a light drizzle. I'm fishing off the aft deck into the river current behind the boat and having appetizers with Kathy. Aft deck fishing is the most luxurious type of fishing, even if you don't catch many fish.

The boat performed flawlessly today as did the new inverter. No wireless internet here on the rivers, so I'm on the slow cell phone connection.

We're going to Peoria, IL tomorrow, where the river is still up a few feet from the recent floods. That's good, because at normal pool levels all the marinas in Peoria are shallow.

It's a new cruising season!

We'll start out on October 7th, leaving our home port Harbobrside Marina in Wilmington, IL and go cruising on the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers (and maybe the Cumberland) for the Fall 2008 season. When we did the America's Great Loop Route cruise, we really enjoyed the beautiful scenery amd Fall colors on the Tennessee River, but we left the Tennessee when it turned East and we continued South on the Ten-Tom canal and Tombigbee River to Mobile, AL.

This year, we'll follow the Tennessee East all the way to Chattanooga. We plan to stay in Chattanooga until it starts to get too cold (maybe the first week of December?) and then go back to the Ten-Tom and South to Florida or the Texas Coast. We'll come back up in March or April and leave our boat in Columbus, MS for the summer. Our plan is to bring our car with us this time by getting a one day rental car to go get it, wherever we left it at the last few marinas.

My blog may not be as detailed or picture storybook style as the Great Loop since it's really designed mostly to keep our friends and family posted on where we are and what we're doing. Same boat, same crew, different fun!