Captain's Log: From Country to the Blues

Enjoying some culinary artistry at The Mailroom in Clarksville, TN

We are on the Tennessee River, heading ultimately for Chattanooga. Since leaving Nashville, we have had some amazing cruising. Our first day out, running back down the Cumberland River, we made it a long day. We locked back down at Cheatham Lock, and returned to the city dock in Clarksville. We determined we might have missed a good restaurant or two on our previous pass, and we were right. No sooner did we pull alongside the dock, we were met by Mike and Brandi, who helped us get our lines on the cleats, and in chatting on their Carver, they confirmed having had an exquisite meal at The Mailroom up the hill. With that in mind, we walked to the commissary in question and, too, had a lovely meal of selections off their appetizer menu.

Following our previous pass through the area, we had suspected that the $30 dock reservation we had made wasn’t entirely necessary, and Mike and Brandi confirmed that for us as well. The reservation guarantees you a spot on the dock. If all three slips fill up, the reservation for slip 2 will get a less-savvy boater ejected to make room for you, but the other two face-dock slips are, indeed, first-come. With that firmly in mind, before dropping lines himself, Mike helped us line Stinkpot into "slip 3" so we might spend an extra day in Clarksville and just enjoy the town. This second day had us breakfasting (brunching?) at the nearby Waffle House, and our late lunch saw us, once again, patronizing a nearby, not-to-be-mentioned chain restaurant to satisfy the boatswain’s incessant craving for a particular, deep-fried comestible. They were running a 2-for-1 deal, so this was, necessarily, the end of our search for culinary delights in Clarksville. The morning of Thursday, October 16, we departed Clarksville for a long run downriver.

There are a few good anchorage options on the Tennessee between Clarksville and Lake Barkley, but blessed few where we would need them at the end of our day—especially during winter pool (5 feet below charted datum). I had a couple good options picked out, and the charted depths looked manageable.

When we arrived at the first one, we were approaching a meeting with a barge tow. I called him on the radio to let him know that we were aiming to pull into Hopson Creek and would appreciate a one-whistle, port-to-port pass if he could manage it. He agreed. No sooner was he behind us, we made the turn into the creek and, with the engines just in clutch, went aground where there should’ve been 13 feet of water. I backed off, and we continued downriver to the next opportunity I had identified, which was Little River. We made it a bit further toward our goal at this one, but kissed bottom there too and, again, retreated. In both of these cases I am not sure if the soundings on the chart didn’t line up with the reality of the waterway or if there truly wasn’t water there to be had. In any case, I wasn’t going to risk the boat to take repeated bites at the apple looking for it. I turned us around and took Stinkpot back to the safety of the deep water and on to Plan C—Eddy Creek. We arrived there just after dark. I moved to the flybridge and pulled out my handheld spotlight. We again took it slow, feeling our way into the embayment off the main lake/river. I was looking at the buoys on the chart and methodically finding each one with my spotlight on the water. The chart data was far more trustworthy here than at our previous two attempts. I decided not to use any of the anchorage options that had been marked by others on the charts and instead we “rolled our own.” It was 7PM and after dark by the time the hook was down, but we were glad to stop after a long day underway. We dined late on what I could quickly pull together—the memorable part for Stacey was a potato faux-gratin that I whipped up with a little ham added in. The rest of the meal, well, I can’t remember that myself, as I’m recording this some two weeks on.

Friday morning we awoke with the sun to see for the first time that we were, indeed, anchored in a very beautiful cove off Eddy Bay. We dilly-dallied a bit, but did manage to get underway just before 9AM, bound for Kentucky Lake. I had my eye on an anchorage in Pisgah Bay in the Land Between the Lakes. We nosed in and dropped the hook in the calm embrace of that idyllic, sheltered embayment. We were sharing the anchorage with two other trawlers, who did stop by in their dinghies to say hello. One of them, Serenity, a Kadey-Krogen 48, was carrying a couple from Maine. They spotted our hailing port and had to come over to meet fellow Mainers. We enjoyed this anchorage very much. I considered dropping the dinghy and exploring ashore, but the exhaustion of our previous long day prevented me from doing so. We enjoyed our surroundings from the boat instead, dining on three different stews (fresh and leftover) with homemade “swimming” biscuits making an appearance on the second night—we liked it so well we did stay another night.

On Monday, October 20, we got underway late—around 10:15AM. We weren’t going far. I had spotted the nearby Kenlake Marina on the chart and concluded they had an on-site restaurant that was well reviewed. I had thoughts of our anchoring nearby and dinghying ashore for dinner. This was not to be. No sooner did we leave the quiet comfort of our calm anchorage, the wind came up around us. The lake was a little snotty—not enough to make cruising uncomfortable, but enough that a dinghy ride would probably be out of the question. The anchorage in Pisgah Bay had been so good that the trees and hills were providing a sizeable wind break—we had no idea the extent to which the wind was howling over our heads (though it did occasionally show gusts up to 47 mph on our weather station). We proceeded toward our next anchorage undeterred, and by 11:30AM, we were anchored on an embayment called Ledbetter Creek.

It probably bears mentioning that these creeks are really not creeks any longer. The TVA project flooded the area, so what are now lakes, bays, and coves were once rivers, hollows, and creeks. It was only after we’d left this anchorage in Ledbetter Creek that I realized we had anchored over what used to be a cemetery before the dams were built. Most of the graves were moved, but on some maps of the area, I do see one remaining grave noted on shore near where we were. A stark reminder of the price that progress sometimes exacts—usually from poor folks. On the charts, I can see where houses, schools, and churches once stood. I can see where the roads and bridges were—or still are, in some cases. These are beautiful places, but it is not without some amount of solemn reverence that we cruise over these grounds that were once dry land where villages of families lived and thrived, reading by firelight and lugging water from the well. The TVA project displaced them, but brought electricity to the whole area. Some might rightly argue it was a fair trade. I’ll abstain from judgment on that.

Ledbetter Creek was a lovely stop, though we never did sample the restaurant or even launch the dinghy. The wind was relentless, and craning our dinghy down from its perch atop Stinkpot did not seem wise with the wind blowing a gale—especially for the first time. We subsisted on grilled pork steaks with sweet potato pancakes and a salad the first night. The second night we had leftover pork strips (from the previous steaks) served with coleslaw, biscuits, and beans and rice. We do eat well.

On the morning of Wednesday, October 22, we made our way south with our eye on another opportunity for dinghying to dinner on Cypress Creek. We anchored on the north side of the embayment just in the lee of the wind inside a cove. I verified with the interwebs that the restaurant would be open—and they didn’t disappoint, letting me know that it was open every day but Monday, year-round. We splashed the tender for the first time. It started right up, and we made our way to the “resort marina” where the restaurant was. The parking lot was empty. We pulled up in front of the fuel dock for the marina to see a sign on the door saying “closed for the season.” Apparently, “year-round” means something different in this part of the world.

We cruised around the “creek” a bit to look around, chatted with another boat owner in another marina, and returned to the boat in time to be greeted by friends in dinghies—Mike and Brandi, whom we met in Clarksville, were buddy-boating by with another couple and happened to anchor nearby. They came by, introduced their friends, and slid away to the safety of their own anchorage. We decked the tender and enjoyed leftovers for dinner.

Thursday we relaxed aboard, but finally got underway just after 1PM to make the short hop to Paris Landing State Park Marina, where we had Amazon packages waiting for us. We were tied up by 2:10PM and started enjoying a little land life for three nights, dining twice at the perfectly adequate restaurant in the lodge and enjoying a pizza delivery on our second evening. It was a good pizza by Tennessee standards—lousy by Brooklyn standards. Perspective is everything. While there with packages of new boat parts in hand, I put myself to the task of changing out our Raritan head’s “brain box”—the flush controller has been vastly improved since the head was made in 2007 or so, and we wanted to take advantage of that. A current version of this head sells for $1500 or more, so investing a few hundred in making it work vastly better seemed money well spent. The jury is still out on that, but all signs are that it is improved. We also got a replacement head for the forward lavatory, but I’ll wait until we have ready access to a hardware store to tangle with its installation. It’s never the parts you have, it’s the parts you can’t get that are the problem. We enjoyed a few good walks and even took a trip into town with some dock neighbors to get the lay of the land. They needed to get new thruster batteries for their Hatteras. I was glad to help them get those into the boat when we got back.

As happens with these momentary tethers to land, time ran short and before we knew it, we had moved to the fuel dock on a dreary Sunday morning, taking on almost 400 gallons at $3.49 a gallon, pumping out our waste tank and getting underway dodging raindrops most of the day. By 3:40PM, we were anchored behind an island in an anchorage known as Rockport Landing. For dinner, I made a Hungarian-style pork stew that I served over pasta with a “defensive” side salad. We had a small battle-royale going with some fruit flies aboard, and we thought perhaps they were enjoying our grape tomatoes, so we ate the tomatoes—which looked fine—on the salad. They were delicious. The fruit flies are gone.

Monday the 27th was another 50-something mile day and had us relaxing behind yet another island—Beech Creek Island. At this point Kentucky Lake has given way to something that far more resembles the Tennessee River from which it was made. It has narrowed, and the current coming at us was getting stronger—over a knot! These island anchorages are starting to blend together somehow. We had leftovers of the Hungarian stew served over rice.

Tuesday was a slightly shorter run, but a much longer day. The current was building on the nose, slowing our forward progress, and at my insistence, we pressed on to the lock to get through. I really didn’t want to spend two days fighting a river current. We arrived just before a shift change, so it took some time before they opened the lock for us to lock through to Pickwick Lake. By the time we were exiting the chamber onto the lake, night was falling. I had an anchorage chosen just a few miles beyond the lock, and in the cloudless, damp dark, we anchored. Dinner was obviously a very uninspired affair, given that even now, just days on, neither of us can remember what we consumed. We were both just so gratified to be anchored and no longer fighting upstream.

Wednesday morning was a slow start. We didn’t feel like getting underway right away, and our destination was very near. I decided we needed a couple days with a bit of easy land access, and the Pickwick Landing State Park Marina was not far away. A little after noon, we weighed anchor and made our way there, anchoring in an excellent spot that was nowhere near the “recommended” anchorages on the charts. It was here that we finally made good use of our dinghy to get ashore for dinner at the Restaurant at Pickwick Landing.

Thursday we relaxed until the afternoon, returning ashore at the nearby state park marina to walk around and ended up having a late lunch/early dinner at Sunken Ship Bar & Grill. It was GOOD bar food. Following our meal, we took a walk around the park and ended up meeting a couple loopers, Kevin and Cressie on AdventureUs doing the same. We chatted for a few moments, and they told us they were having problems with their freshwater system. It didn’t take long for me to realize that their pump was sucking air. I offered to swing over to their boat with a few spare parts in tow to see if I could get them a hot shower. It was a successful mission.

Friday morning, we weighed anchor around noon to make a short hop to an anchorage in nearby Indian Creek in Iuka, Mississippi. It was the first of two beautiful Iuka anchorages in as many days. The next day had us anchored on Bear Creek in one of the coves on the western shore. Sunday we got underway and meandered to another lovely anchorage near Florence, Alabama, behind Buck Island. This was to get us as close as possible to Florence Harbor Marina, where we had intended to spend a night, use the marina’s courtesy car to get groceries, and perhaps take in a museum or two.

Monday, November 3, we weighed anchor after the morning fog lifted and made the 6-mile (or so) run to the marina. We tied up, did the paperwork, and signed out the courtesy car for 4:30PM. We spent the day walking around Florence, taking in the sights that we could after enjoying lunch at an unremarkable, local eating spot called Milla's Place. We walked around the Rosenbaum House, a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian built in 1939, and restored by the town into a museum. I say “walked around” because it was closed, as it and many of this town’s attractions seem to be on Mondays. We walked back to the marina and took our turn in the courtesy car, getting groceries at Aldi and haircuts from a nearby cutting spot. Then we returned to the marina, put away our purchases, and walked downtown for a perfectly serviceable Italian meal at Ricatoni’s Italian Grill. We both got the lasagna. By the time we were walking back the temps had dropped into the high 40s. It was a chilly walk back.

Tuesday we awoke with intentions of getting laundry done quickly while we had access to water (our own portable machine on deck—dried by the gentle breezes while we were underway), pump out our waste tank, and then get underway. Dakota, the dockhand here, came by the boat as we were preparing to move to the pumpout and asked if we were sure we wanted to get underway. We were sure. Then he told us that a mysterious benefactor had gifted us another night on at the marina if we wanted to stay. The disappointment of the Wright museum still stinging, we immediately changed our minds. We pumped out the waste and moved to their transient dock—the slip we were in was already reserved for a bigger boat.

Once settled, we trundled over to the on-site restaurant at the marina and lunched (good bar fare), then walked back to the Rosenbaum House and went through the tour! After that we walked over to the W.C. Handy Museum…just as it was closing. The woman who ran it bumped into us in the parking lot as she was locking up. She told us to come back the next day, and we rebuffed the suggestion because we’d be long gone. We walked back to the marina. We did go back out again after dark to have a snack and some shakes at CookOut—a chain of restaurants we have been bumping into in some southern states. Sated, we bedded down for the night.

The morning brought another challenge to our plans. I got out of bed and walked, pajama-clad, into the salon and heard an alarm I have never heard before. I traced it to the autopilot. The readout said something about low power. I checked the DC state of charge indicators, and they were both absolutely BLANK. I ran to the engine room, and the inverter was inverting with the “low battery” light illuminated. I ran out to the dock and one of our shore power cables was disconnected. We had been running heat all night on our batteries, and they were DEAD. I reconnected the shore power, and the inverter/charger started charging. I could not have started the engines if I had wanted to. We were, quite literally, dead in the water. I told Dakota we couldn’t leave and why—he assured me it was no big deal. “Stay another night and get your batteries charged.”

I thanked him and went back to the boat. Stacey and I enjoyed our morning coffee and then walked to Yumm Thai: Sushi and Beyond for lunch, which was highly recommended but didn’t live up to the hype. We then enjoyed an ice cream dessert at Trowbridge’s Ice Cream & Sandwich Shop, which did not disappoint. Then we made our way back to the W.C. Handy Museum. We joked with the very same woman about sabotaging our boat while we enjoyed her tour of the museum dedicated to one of the inventors of the blues. We returned to the boat and met a new crop of boaters coming into the marina, and enjoyed their company at the River Bottom Grill this evening. Tomorrow, first thing, we will finally drop lines and continue on toward Chattanooga.