Monday September 20, 2021.
Temp: 73/71, Humidity: 91/96%, Top Wind: SE9 mph, Precip: Yep! rain, Miles Traveled: 45
********************************
The alarm went off at 7:00. I stretched and yawned and thought about getting up. At 7:02 the rain started pounding down on the roof of the boat house. 💦. It was going to be a wet day. I did get up and check the lock queue and found nobody waiting at the lock. I checked the weather, and saw that we might have a bit of a break around 8:30, but for now… back to bed. We didn’t want to go out in the pounding rain and thunder storm. Fortunately, the thunderboomers went by and the rain did let up a bit for us to get out of Dodge. But it drizzled ALL DAY LONG. Like Seattle drizzle. Wet. Wet. Wet.
The neat community building out on the point at the park had birds sittin on the peak with their wings spread out, trying to look like gargoyles.
Remember the bridge that is under construction that had the navigation channel closed from 0600-1800 daily? This is it. As Mr. Zyg the local looper told me, the channel is now open for daytime marine passage. YAY!!
This is why the channel was closed. There was traffic crossing both ways on the solid part of the bridge, but the rest of it is having some serious work donw! Sorry for the scruffy picture…. it was taken through a rainy window.
Captain spied a waterfall, which is kind of rare along here. This section of the waterway seems to be a little low on water.
Our view for much of the day was low wet clouds. It wasn’t pouring down hard rain…. but wet gentle rain that never stops.
The farther up the river we went, the stronger the current got. We averaged LESS than 7mph today! This is the strongest current we have traveled against since we were on the St. Clair River near Detroit!
Yes – we spent most of the day downstairs. It was a little warm and humid, but not unbearable. It really is uncomfortable for Kenny to drive from down here. The seat is too high, so it makes him scrunch up to look out the windshield. There was a lot of debris in the river so we had to keep a close eye on the water and play dodge-a-log.
We made it to the Cheatham Lock by 11:30. The lock master said he needed to reset the lock and then we’d be in, up, and on our way. YAY! There was enough current this close to the dam that Captain just kept Island Girl in gear and we crept up the river at a snail’s pace. By the time the doors opened and the green light came on for us to proceed, we were almost there. There was quite a bit of current from the dam and the water was really swirrely squirrely, so I didn’t even go up to the bow until we were inside the lock entrance.
It was just sprinkling rain, so we didn’t get soaked. YAY! This was about a 23’ lift, and it was pretty slow. That’s OK, though, because the water swirled around and was pushing us forward. Our two-line system on the bollard works pretty good to keep us from getting out of sorts.
We were just about half way on our journey to Nashville, so another 23 miles to go. We saw some neat ranches and homes along the waterway. Some had black fences, some had white.
The Riverview Restaurant is a recommended place to stop. They allow a free stay on their dock (no power or water) if you eat in their restaurant. They are not open on Monday’s, so maybe we’ll stop here on our way back down the river.
I tried to get a picture in between the water spots on the window, but I got one big water blob! I liked this big red barn and black fences. What a pretty setting.
I told Kenny that once we came through the lock, we’d be in the clouds because we’re up higher. Sure enough! The river scenery is really pretty. I’m looking forward to our trip down, hopefully on a sunny day! The trees are just starting to put on some Autumn color. We noticed since we came through the lock that the water level here is now up in the trees. 🤔 That’s new for the first time since we left Lake Michigan. Each dam has different specifications on what to do with their water, I guess!
We arrived at the entrance to the Commodore Yacht Club. It looked kind of sketchy. This is it? 😳 I called them to let them know we were coming and ask if there was anything we needed to know about the entrance. He said that the water is really high right now, so there should be plenty of water, just keep the green marker buoys to port. We had to dodge all kinds of logs, garbage, and debris flying by in the river. Strange that the river is high here, but below the dam, it is pretty low. I guess they’re holding water back for some reason.
Once again, a marina that is all undercover! Their transient spots are out on the ends, so we were not under cover, but that’s fine. It didn’t look like there were any live-aboard boats here. And they must not have a huge bug problem, because several boats had lights on all the time, but we only saw a couple of people. It’s a yacht club, so in their party space they had beer taps with a $1 jar honor system. There was a regular household (not coin operated) washer & dryer available in the ladies room, so I washed our bed sheets for something to do.
That’s the party building on our dock, behind the flowers. The docks are locked, and the entrance to the parking lot is locked, so even though we’re way out in the boonies, it is a secure place to be.
Since it was so rainy, we didn’t get to ride our bikes to the nearby (1.5 miles) brewery. We could have taken an Uber, but it wasn’t that important. The dockmaster didn’t highly recommend riding bikes here anyway, because there is a working gravel pit, and not good shoulders on the roads, so not the best place for bikes. Oh well! We got a nice rainbow just before sunset!
It was kind of a squiggly route today. Tomorrow we’re just going 20 miles to downtown Nashville. Hopefully they’ll get the power up and running on the dock! That is why we stopped here today, because power isn’t going to be on until tomorrow or maybe Wednesday. That’s ok – today was long enough in the rain and against the current. Do you see this? Average speed of 7.2 mph. And that’s moving time. It doesn’t count when the engines are turned off in the lock. 🤷♀️
