10/26/18 Friday: Are we crazy or what?! Another early get up day, with the plan to travel 100 miles. SAY WHAT!? Yep. The plan is to get on down the rivah. In the rain. And the cold. All day. I’m so thankful that we have a helm inside the boat where it is dry, no wind, and is warmer than outside. We cannot run the heaters without running the generator, but at least I can put blankets on and stay warm out of the wind! The neighbor boat already had their generator running first thing this morning. The Captain said that his current Admiral needs to stay warm. I think they were going to run their generator to run their heat as they cruised today. I just found my blankies, hoodie, and scarf, and had them ready.
Here is what has been going on. Red numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 on the map were our stops going up the Tennessee River. We stayed in Chattanooga at #7 for three nights (and Rogersville at #3 for six nights for Rendezvous). And now instead of taking 6 nights coming back down the river, we are taking just 3 days with stops at purple 8,9,10. We are putting in some long days to get back to our starting point, which will be at the top of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, where we will end our side trip and re-join the Great Loop route. The green line was our travel for today.
Look at this! I wasn’t kidding! This morning was cold, cloudy, rainy, foggy, and mostly yucky outside.
There were two other boats (locals) at Goosepond that were traveling downriver today, and we managed to hit the lock at Guntersville together.
Our timing was fortunate. There was a tow below the lock, but we were able to scuttle on in and get lowered down, without having to wait for it to be lifted. Whew!! And the rain held back to just a sprinkle while we locked through, so we didn’t get soaked. After we were out of the lock, we heard Aslan call for a drop through. He was just that far behind us, but unfortunately, he had to wait for the up-bound tow to get through.
We continued our long unremarkable, windy-in-the-rain trip to Joe Wheeler State Park. We soon saw Bert go zooming by in his little go-fast Grady White. We knew that he was headed to Wheeler too, because he told us that Saturday night is Prime Rib buffet night there! YUM!
I didn’t take many pictures today, and it wasn’t an exciting day. The wind blew, the rain fell, the lake/river splashed. The middle windshield wiper quit working. The Captain-side one and the Navigator-side ones still worked. Another project for Mr. Mechanic.
When we arrived at Joe Wheeler, we were thankful that it is tucked back in a nice cove, and sheltered from the westerly wind. It was good to get out of the whitecaps for docking. We arrived about 5:00, and it was starting to get dark. Of course, because it was kind of dreary all day. The marina staff was already gone. When I called the marina earlier in the day, they said that when we arrived, we could just pick any open slip, and go register at the front desk of the hotel. We were met on the dock by Mr. & Mrs. Just Right. It was nice to see familiar faces and have help catching and tieing lines. I had changed into some capri leggings and my Keen sandals, and I was cold! But I knew I was going to get wet, and didn’t want to get my jeans soaked walking up and down the gunwales of the soggy wet boat.
Mr. & Mrs. Just Right were soon headed up to the buffet for dinner with Mr. & Mrs. Halcyon Days. We weren’t too far behind them. The dinner was OK – nothing spectacular. But we were surprised how busy the restaurant was. Perhaps this is a popular dinner spot for locals on Saturday nights? We did make arrangements with the two couples for our departure in the morning. They would call the Wheeler lock, which is just a couple of miles down stream from here. We’d get a report from them at 6:30 determining our departure time based on lock activity.
We settled in, turned on some heat, and hit the sack. We traveled 99.3 miles today, with 10:02 hours of moving time. We also jumped over a major milestone – 5000 miles for this Great Loop trip so far. Tomorrow we will jump over 600 hours of moving time for the engines (according to the Garmin) and transit our 100th lock of the journey. Man! No wonder we’re tired!