Captain's Log: The Chattanooga Choo Choo

Our new "Boat Card" — the calling card we share when we meet other boaters on the water.

These blog updates always seem to come together over the course of days and even weeks, and often, by the time I finish them, the original context—and even the opening sentences—no longer seem to properly precede what comes next. Such is the case with this one. We are currently in Decatur, AL, on our way back down the Tennessee River on the very same dock in Decatur we will stay at a mere two paragraphs hence in this missive. All this following an amazing few weeks of travel by water and by car, and a solid week of enjoying ourselves in Chattanooga. We stopped here for the night and ended up spending an extra day to wait out nature’s chilly bluster—and as I record these words on Tuesday, December 2, we are huddling inside Stinkpot while the 20-amp receptacle 130 feet from the dock is providing just enough electricity to keep us warm while the temperature descends into the 20s tonight (that’s Fahrenheit for our foreign friends). Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, which is one reason Stinkpot carries no cannon.

When last I scribed here, we were in Florence, Alabama. We left there on a lovely Thursday morning, locking up to Wilson Lake almost immediately. We ran the length of the lake, and Wheeler Lock told us we’d need to wait about an hour for a barge tow to lock down, so we anchored behind some mooring cells near the lock around noon. The tow emerged from the lock at around 12:40 PM, and we weighed anchor and moved into the chamber. Within 30 minutes, we were on Wheeler Lake. We made our way to Wheeler State Park and anchored just beyond the marina for the night. It was a gorgeous setting.

Sunset in Joe Wheeler State Park

Had we not just spent three days living it up at the marina in Florence, I’m sure we would’ve dinghied ashore to walk the trails and enjoy dinner in the lodge, but we were content to simply watch the birds play, enjoy the sunset, and have a peaceful night’s sleep. Friday morning, we had a leisurely start, but were underway by 9:30 AM or so. We had a nice run to Decatur, where we docked on the town dock around 1:30 PM.

Decatur’s dock is nothing special, but there’s nothing wrong with it either. The best part was that it was within walking distance of Scrugg’s BBQ—a walk we willingly made. We filled up on so much carnivorous goodness we could scarcely walk back with our leftovers. It was a quiet spot, but the dock did fill up over the course of the evening. We were the second boat there—preceded by Lie-Lo, a sailing catamaran that left its mast home to do the Great Loop. The next boat in was Avalon, a Kadey-Krogen 42 that remembered us from an encounter in Canada in 2019 when we did our Great Loop. The final boat to come in slid into the harbor after dark, and I got neither a name nor make to identify it. I do know it was their first voyage, and the captain had never docked the boat before. They threw us a line, and I talked them through swinging the boat to the dock with the engines. We got them tied up, for which they were enormously grateful, and we turned in for the night.

Saturday morning, we got an early start, casting off just before 7:30 AM—we were the third boat to drop lines, leaving only Lie-Lo behind. Wheeler Lake quickly narrowed back into a river above Decatur, and the current was building. By 2 PM or so, we arrived at Guntersville Lock. This lockage might be the strangest we have ever had. I called on the radio and got an unintelligible, if brief, acknowledgment. As we approached the lock, we could see the miter gates opening, and the lock sounded its horns. The light was flashing green. I tried calling the lock for instructions but got no reply, so we proceeded into the lock and made fast to one of the floating bollards. Once we were secured, I called the lock again to tell them. I could hear my own voice on the radio echoing on speakers around the lock. The gates closed behind us, the lock filled, the gates ahead opened, they sounded the horns again, and we left the lock. Not a single word of communication from the lock. I have seen moody lock keepers, but never silent. Perhaps he’s a mime.

Guntersville Lake and its eponymous town are simply gorgeous. We made our way to the city docks where we tied up for the night, dining at Big Mike’s Steakhouse and enjoying Kilwin’s ice cream for dessert. We walked along the new walking/biking path after dark. It was a surreal, gorgeous evening, and we enjoyed it while we could. We knew the cold was coming.

I rose early Sunday, as is my way, and started considering our immediate future. With the coming three nights of below-freezing temperatures, it seemed prudent to have access to shore power so that Stinkpot’s heat could work through the night. I settled on a place about 20 miles upstream in Scottsboro called Goose Pond Resort Marina and made the call. They told us they had plenty of room for us and to come on. The wind had come up overnight and was blowing us onto the dock pretty well, so I planned our “escape” and fired up the engines at about 9 AM. As is the way with these things, it didn’t work exactly as I had envisioned, but we got off the dock without causing any damage to either the boat or the dock, and we were quickly on our way.

It was a beautiful cruise, but with the brisk wind we were glad to have a warm pilothouse from which to enjoy the journey. When we were outside the marina, I called to let them know we were nearby. They warned me that the channel seems shallow, but that it’s just the density of weeds on the bottom, and that there is really about 8 feet of water all the way in. I did have to wait for a boat to come out of the narrow channel before I could start into it, and they called me and advised me where the water was. I thanked them and proceeded in, armed with more knowledge about this odd channel than I really needed. Staying in the center really was all that was required, and that’s what I did. As I was warned, my depth sounder told me there was absolutely no water under the boat, but we did not go aground and made it all the way in. The marina had a crew of three guys waiting on the dock to help us dock in a stiff wind. I brought it alongside, and Stacey handed off the midship and aft lines in quick succession. We were docked, despite the wind’s best efforts to blow us off the dock.

We finished getting the lines made, connected the shore power, and did the paperwork in the marina office, then settled in for the building bitter weather. We walked to the snack bar at the nearby golf course (it is a resort, after all) and enjoyed very good cheeseburgers. Despite the cold and building overcast, we managed a decent walk, but settled in on the boat before dark and cranked up the heat. The overnight low was in the high 20s.

Monday was bitter, with the temps not even rising out of the 40s. With an unforgiving overcast and snow flurries swirling around us, we borrowed the marina courtesy car and made our way to Scottsboro’s most famous retail outlet, Unclaimed Baggage. Considering everything was pre-owned, we found the prices a bit too close to retail to be compelling and ultimately left empty-handed, but we can now say we saw it. From there, we made our way back toward the marina, stopping for lunch at a well-regarded Chinese restaurant, which I’m sure is good by Scottsboro, Alabama standards, but didn’t quite impress our palates. Then we picked up a couple of items at Piggly Wiggly, including a small pork butt, refueled the courtesy car in the customary fashion at the nearby Shell station, and returned to the marina and the warmth of Stinkpot.

Monday night also saw plunging mercury, and we were thankful to be connected to a steady power source. I slept in Tuesday morning until almost 7 AM, cocooned in our electric-blanketed berth. I got up, touched up the heat, and prepared our morning cuppa. We spent most of the day aboard, enjoying not needing to do anything. The pork butt had spent the night in the slow cooker and had filled the boat with comforting smells. We dined on pulled pork aboard as a late lunch, and before it got dark we bundled up and took a nice walk around the park, ending at The Docks, a restaurant mere stumbling steps from the marina. We sat ourselves at the bar and ordered dessert. Stacey had read online that their dessert menu was worth a trip. I didn’t read the reviews myself, but based on her retelling, it may have ventured into hyperbole. It truly wasn’t bad, but—to my mind—empty calories like that should be far closer to a transcendental experience than what we had. I would return for dinner next time through, but I think I’ll pass on the sweet treats.

Tuesday morning, we got underway at about 9:30 AM and decided to make a good run of it. We made it all the way to and through Nickajack Lock, locking up. We had hoped to dock at the nearby Army Corps park, where there is a free dock, but someone else grabbed the good spot while we were in the lock. We could’ve anchored nearby, but it just lacked the scenic qualities we have come to expect from our anchorages. We pressed on and anchored just beyond the I-24 bridge behind an island. Despite traffic noise, it was a scenic spot, and we very much enjoyed ourselves, dining aboard on the leftover pulled pork and heading to bed early. 

Wednesday morning, we took it slow. I did a bunch of computer work for Argo, and we almost reluctantly got underway at 1:20 PM or so. Our target was an anchorage on the outskirts of Chattanooga, behind Williams Island. It was a beautiful cruise and a lovely anchorage, but Thursday morning we found ourselves too close to Chattanooga to resist the desire to come in a day early and start our preparations for our trip to the AGLCA Rendezvous in Orange Beach, AL. I called the marina and, a little after noon, we found ourselves tying up for a two-week(ish) stay. Saturday, November 15, I Ubered to Enterprise to get our rental Toyota Corolla. Sunday morning, we packed into the car and drove over six hours to the hotel in Orange Beach, and spent the next four full days in the Argo booth at the Rendezvous. We had a great time and met a lot of current and future loopers. Thursday, after running an Argo “roundtable,” we pointed the Toyota back to Chattanooga where we would be enjoying our Thanksgiving. Our holiday tradition is that we don’t have one, but we always enjoy a great meal. With that in mind—and very short-duration automotive access—we went shopping for the feast on Friday before returning the rental.

In the subsequent buildup to the holiday, we dined at nearly every nearby restaurant within walking distance of the boat and also spent a day playing tourist around town courtesy of our new friends, RVers Bruce and Yvonne. They picked us up in their Jeep Tuesday and took us to a fabulous burger joint called Urban Stack and then proceeded to take us up Lookout Mountain and Raccoon Mountain to see some unbelievable sights—the former true to its name, giving us panoramic views of the valley around us, and the latter a TVA project to provide peak hydropower to the area. They cut the top off the mountain, hollowed it out, and filled it with water. During peak electric demand, the water is gravity-fed to spin turbines, and water is pumped back up to the mountain reservoir during off-peak times. It’s essentially a big battery. They also took us to see the Chattanooga Train Depot (the Chattanooga Choo Choo) and the new lock under construction at Chickamauga Dam—pretty cool stuff.

Wednesday morning, we were visited by fellow Mainer Phill, a now-retired concert promoter who used to book the Dave Rowe Trio into his venues for years. He and his bride now reside in Chattanooga during the winter bluster in Maine. He brought us goodies from Maine as a sort of boat-warming present. After his short visit, I got down to business and cooked. We had a two-day Thanksgiving feast because that was the only way I could cook an entire 13-pound turkey in a toaster oven. After both dinners, we walked to the City Cafe Diner, a 24-hour New York-style diner with unbelievable cakes and pies, to get take-out dessert which we brought back to Stinkpot for proper devouring.

Thursday morning, we moved the boat from inside the dock to outside so our departure Friday morning would be less likely to see us boxed in by other boats. Friday morning, we got underway and started back downriver. Our first night, we locked down at Nickajack Lock and then anchored in one of the Battery Hill anchorages around 3:30 PM, dining on (of course) leftovers.

Saturday, we continued downriver with a fairly early weighing of the anchor (we had changed time zones from Eastern to Central during Friday’s cruise). We ran only a few hours, opting to end our day back at Goose Pond Marina to take advantage of their fuel deal ($3.43/gallon) and promise of a free night if we could take at least 200 gallons (we managed to squeeze 205 into the tank). We also pumped out our black-water tank and then moved to the T-head for the night, where I also changed the oil in the main engines for the first time since we left Michigan. It was overdue by a little, and this was the perfect place to deal with it since the marina has a courtesy car, just in case something went pear-shaped.

A friend we’d never met—Kendra, a dear friend of one of my oldest friends—had been messaging Stacey and offered to pick us up and take us to dinner at a local joint known as 50 Taters. She promised this was classic local gastronomy we needed to experience. She also warned us that it was nothing that would truly impress. Expectations held suspiciously in check, we enjoyed the company more than the meal, which lived up to the hype (but barely). While we had wheels under us, we asked her to spin us over to Tractor Supply where we usually get non-detergent oil for Stinkpot’s fuel injectors. They were out. Empty-handed and very full, Kendra returned us to the marina where we had a quiet evening aboard.

Sunday morning, we jumped into the courtesy car and drove to an auto parts store to dispose of the waste oil from the oil change and buy the non-detergent oil for the injectors (at a premium). We then drove over to a local grocer to resupply our fresh produce. Returning to the marina, we handed the key back and got underway. Our destination was a return to Guntersville City Docks, where we arrived at about 1:30 PM. I had intended to tackle some plumbing tasks I’ve been putting off, and that desperately need doing, but bumped up against an immediate need for materials. As luck would have it, a new friend, Jill—a fellow boater who has been following our travels online—noted that we were nearby and offered to help us if we needed any errands. We quickly accepted and made a necessary trip to Lowe’s. I didn’t tackle the work, but at least I can now.

Saying our goodbyes to Jill as the early dark descended upon us, we decided to trudge over to dine at the only open nearby restaurant—a beer-and-burger joint just off the docks called Nash’s. We tried the Korean BBQ Pork Wings, which were delicious, but I am sure were not anatomically correct. For our entrées, Stacey had a reportedly pedestrian pasta Alfredo while I enjoyed a decent patty melt. With the early sunset, we found ourselves turning in early and getting underway Monday morning before 9AM. Our destination was Decatur, where I am now wrapping up this missive in the place and time where it started—with dropping temperatures outside driven by a relentless wind. We arrived here just before dark, dined aboard, and have been here ever since. With any luck at all, Wednesday will see us continuing on toward Florence for a little more BTDT, but that is another blog.