October 4, 2015
Yesterday evening, Rob had reviewed the PO’s logs again and
mapped out a tentative plan for the next few days. Paper charts may someday be obsolete because
of all the electronic maps that are available, but it still seems easier and
faster to flip the pages to see features along a planned route. Our PO – Bill and Libby Krumrey -- had left
us all of their charts and maps, and Rob noted that they had made notations on
the charts about places they had anchored.
How helpful it is! They are such
wonderful people! When we bought the
boat, they told us to call them anytime if we had questions about
anything. We have taken them up on it
several times, and it has always helped us out.
Our tentative plan for the day was to cruise to Cuba Landing
and anchor by the marina as Skipper Bob and Active Captain reviews had
indicated that others had done so before.
Our day was pretty uneventful, except for seeing a duck
blind being moved. It looked like
Grandpa was driving the johnboat, Dad was keeping watch on top of the blind,
and 2 youngsters were along for the ride.
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| Duck blind being moved. |
As you get closer to the end of Kentucky Lake, the channel
narrows –though it is still plenty wide for 2 tows to pass – and you start to
see wide areas of grass along both sides.
At some of these areas, our Garmin charts had red-hashed areas labeled
“rock”. You definitely don’t want to
stray outside of the channel here!
The railroad bridge at MM 102 is like the gateway out of the
southern end of Kentucky Lake. The
charts list the height as 24.5 ft, and we need 20.5 ft of clearance. Still, it looked low to us compared to all of
the other bridges we have passed under to this point, and we slowed down as we
passed. The markings on the side showed
that the water was way below the 25 ft level – meaning we had plenty of
clearance-- but the bridge operator raised the bridge for us without us even
having to ask – just to be safe, I guess.
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| Railroad bridge, Kentucky Lake, MM 102 |
The scenery along the Tennessee River is very pretty, with
lots of tree-lined shoreline and small islands along the edges where the river
has cut into the land. Many places there
are lone trees still stubbornly holding their own as the ground gradually gets
washed away around them.
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| These trees have been cut off from the land |
We tooted our horn at 2 girls in pink coats who were playing
by the river down from a campsite. We
were going around a big bow in the river with lots of grassy area on the inside
of the bow. This is a great habitat for
birds, and we even saw 2 bald eagles perched on a stump.
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| Grassy area with 3 kinds of birds clearly visible |
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| Eagles |
When we got close to Cuba Landing, MM 115.5, we called them
to ask about anchoring in the bay there.
The staff member who answered the phone was very nice and told us that a
fishing boat had gotten stuck back there, so she wasn’t so sure there was
enough water for us (we draft 4.5 ft). Then
we inquired about dock space, and she told us that another 50 ft boat had
called shortly before and had reserved the last spot for a larger boat, which
was the fuel dock.
We decided to go on to Densons Island, MM 125, because it
was listed as a nice safe anchorage by both Skipper Bob and our PO. It turned out to be a great anchorage,
although it is a bit deep – 30+ ft – which means you need more anchor
line. The anchorage is a small channel
where the river has cut through, so the island separates you from the main
channel. The current coming through the
small channel generally keeps the boat fairly straight, but we had passed 2
sailboats on Kentucky Lake who had said that they planned to anchor here as
well, so we put out our 2nd anchor to keep from swinging so that
they would have room. There was another
sailboat already anchored when we arrived, and when we talked to her captain,
he said the other 2 boats had decided to stop earlier.
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| Densons Island anchorage |
Sasha had the run of the small island and had a great time
exploring and playing Frisbee.
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