It was very chilly this morning with the temps in the high 40’s. Lots of water fog this morning. We had planned on leaving at 8:00 but we waited for the sun to burn off the fog and we left about 45 minutes later.
The fog did not stop the bass fishermen. Candy and I were out at 6:00 this morning and they were lined up at the launch ramp across the street waiting to launch. There were 6 trucks in line with their bass boats when I counted them with another one in the ramp and another putting the empty trailer in the lot. They were all over the place when we left the marina.
We had 7 boats scattered along the river today. Journey left first as they were one of the slower boats. Cat In The Hat anchored out last night about 6 or 7 miles further up the river so they had a good jump on the rest of us.
The Nickajack Lock was approximately 45 miles up the river and the marina was about another 7 miles past the lock. We were pretty fortunate with no tow traffic on the river today. It worked out well at the lock. We had 4 boats go thru in the first lock and they were followed by the slower boats about 1 1/2 hours later in the 2nd locking.
There was not a lot of wind today so the water was relatively smooth. The only other boats on the river were the bass boats. That certainly is the boat of choice down here and must really generate a lot of sales for the bass boat companies.
We passed a couple of power plants. One of them was a nuclear plant that was started in the early 1970’s but never completed. With the environmentalists it will probably never be completed. It was easy to identify because the cooling towers were constructed and they have the strobe lights on top.
Once we re-entered Tennessee with had a nice view of the Cumberland Plateau. This area of the Plateau is about 1000′ high. We have a couple of pictures of the Cumberland Plateau.
The locking at the Nickajack Lock was pretty uneventful. The turbulence from the water filling the lock was not bad and we are tied to the floating bollards a little different now.
Some of the boats were anchoring out tonight after the lock but we still ended up with 5 boats in the Hales Bar Marina. The marina was pretty good about getting a slip assignment to the boats before they got to the harbor but the problem was that most of the slips had other boats in them. There was no help in docking and it was almost like the guy on the radio did not believe there was a boat in the slip when it was reported back to him. They appeared to have no concept which slips were full and which were empty. Only one boat ended up where they were assigned.
This week is supposed to be cool during the day, 60’s and cold at night, 30’s and 40’s. Hope the weatherman is wrong.