Wednesday we left Green Turtle Bay Marina as planned and travelled in the rain all day. First time since we left home that it has rained all day. Not bad. It was grey out but the scenery is getting better.
We arrived at the very curly entrance to Pebble Isle Marina in Johnsonville, Tenn. Another covered slip river marina. The owners, Randy and Tammy, and their crew are awesome. We fueled up ($3.87/gallon/diesel! best price in years), pumped out and checked in.
Pebble Isle is an unassuming little marina and the southern hospitality there is the best we've run into so far. They have a little restaurant on site that is more like Mom's kitchen. We sat around and had dinner with the owners, crew and other travelling boaters. We swapped boat stories. It seems the boat stories boaters like to share are all tales of horror and near misses on the water. If a non-boater listened to these sessions they may never want to step foot on a boat. There may be a bit of exaggerating going on.
The next day we wanted to go to Nashville the easy way (would have been 400 miles round trip via boat) in a rental car so Randy's crew drove us 45 minutes to an Enterprise store. We got a car and drove into town. We parked right in the center of honky tonks and country and western stores. We have been to Nashville before so we skipped the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry. We bought a bluegrass cd and a book by Willie Nelson called, "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die". How appropriate for that old pot head :). We had lunch at Jacks BBQ. There was a line out the door and for good reason. Best beef brisket and ribs ever.
After lunch we found a honky tonk where the music was more slanted to blues than CW and stayed there for awhile. We returned to the Enterprise store to return the car and one of the marina guys picked us up and took us back to the boat. They said it was free (!) but we tipped them anyway.
Had dinner with them all again and in the mornings they MAKE you eat these giant, frosted cinnamon rolls. There is a couple living on their boat there who have done the loop twice and they gave us advice and print outs for the journey down the Tom Bigbee that is coming up.
I hated to leave there the next morning but time to move on. The fog delayed us a couple of hours. We like to leave at 8 but didn't get off until 10:00.
We are toying with the idea of taking a 7-8 day side trip to Chatanooga. Other boaters have recommended the trip and we are getting too far south too quick.
Friday afternoon we arrived at Clifton City Marina somewhere in Tennessee. Another mom and pop friendly little marina with a kitchen. We ate there and talked to other Loopers. We really enjoy these small, friendly marinas more than the big glitzy ones. We retired early and watched a couple more Breaking Bad episodes. Incredible writing and acting.
Saturday we left Clifton Marina and made the run to Pickwick Lake. We got behind a very slow trawler and we were all headed to the same lock so felt it would be rude to pass him and then meet up with him at the lock. It was painfully slow but we held out. There were 6 of us locking through the Pickwick Lock. The lock was a 57' lift and the wind was blowing pretty hard. It was tough holding the boat still but we managed. The ALGCA rendezvous just ended not far from here so there are 50-60 loopers coming down the river roughly at the same time. Another reason we want to side trip to Chatanooga, to avoid that traffic jam of boats.
We arrived at Grand Harbor Marina just on the other side of the lock on gorgeous Pickwick Lake. Beautiful estates on the water. We planned on staying only one night but here it is Sunday morning and we decided to stay another night. Last night we went into town with some other looper couples to a restaurant and had a good time. We keep running into the same people and like them all! Loopers in general are very active and motivated people and have great stories to tell.
Today the plan is to take the marina courtesy car and go to Shiloh National Battle Field Park. 23,000 soldiers died there early in the Civil War, 1862.
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