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.