Well it was 39 degrees this morning with a lot of river fog. The pictures show what the marina looked like this morning with the fog.
Also took some pictures of the resort cottages on the outside of the marina. These are floating cottages that were pretty well rented out. Truly a house on the water.
We waited for the fog to burn off and left around 9:30 this morning. You can see the sun had come out and it warmed quickly. According to the weatherman today will be the last day in the 70’s for at least a week or more.
The scenery along the river was spectacular today. Going thru the river gorge with the mountains on both sides was great. For the most part the mountains are covered with trees and they almost look like a carpet. On top of the Raccoon Mountain is a water reservoir. No way to see it but they will pump water out of the river and into the reservoir and use the water to generate electricity during peak usage periods. The mountain is over 1100 feet above the river.
We also ran into a lot of current as we approached Chattanooga. At one point I saw about 4.3 mph current as the difference between the water under the boat and the ground speed on the GPS. This will be really nice when we head back downriver from Chattanooga.
There were a lot of homes/cottages/rental places along the river. We also saw docks on the side of the river with a wood deck patio and a stair up to a parking area. The owner must live close enough that they just use it for day recreation on the river.
The river is deep with most of the areas in the 30′ to 40′ area but there was a section that the depths were 70′ to 80′ and the guide book said not to be surprised if we saw 115′ depth. It went on to explain that this particular area was an ancient earthquake fault line.
The river for the most part is anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile wide for this section. There are a couple of areas with islands and the channel splits at the island but we have been following the main channel all the way.
There are 9 Looper boats here at the Aquarium Dock tonight and the dock is full. 2 of the boats are not current Loopers but have done the Loop previously. We had docktails tonight and it was a great time to get to know the people a little better. We did a mini docktails last night at Hales Bar with 4 boats in the marina.
We will probably go to the Aquariums tomorrow. There are 2 aquariums, one is salt water and the other is fresh water. There is also an Imax theater that I would like to go to. It will be a busy day. We are here for 3 nights.
I also included a couple of photos of Champ III on the Tennessee River. These kind of photos are hard to get and we thank Kat In The Hatt, Katherine for the photos.