Well we survived the first day and it was an incredible day. We left out of Rock Harbor Marina in Nashville at 10:50AM after topping off the fuel for our 48 mile journey. It was a beautiful Friday morning for just about anything (it was sunny, low winds and 81 degrees), and it was a perfect day for us to be aboard Cloud Nine. We turned left out of Rock Harbor and just a few miles on the left we saw Alan Jackson's house. It was incredible....see below.
Alan's house was at the widest and most beautiful area on the Cumberland. Sadly we didn't see Alan at his house today!
Just a mile or so further, we met our first "barge". That was "interesting". It was carrying multiple barge loads of sand and coal. Its wake was huge, but we made it thru without any issue. Whew.....
About 2PM today we approached the "dreaded" dam/lock we had to go thru. If you remember my last post, I was sweating bullets having to go on the front of the boat and loop the rope around the bollard to secure us in the lock. We had to wait about 20 minutes for the Lockmaster to raise the lock so we could enter. Then the huge horn blew signaling us to enter the lock. My heart was beating a thousand miles a minute, but we looked like pros.....at least to us we did!! The lock dropped us about 40 feet then we proceeded down the Cumberland River. We saw the mouth of the Harpeth River -- we had no idea the Harpeth was in Cheatham County -- it was beautiful -- it's not so pretty nor deep in our hometown of Franklin, TN. This is Cheatham Lock
The next noteworthy sighting was when we saw a volleyball net in the middle of the Cumberland River. Apparently they play volleyball on a sandbar in Cheatham County!! It's hard to see, but believe me the volleyball net is there---in the middle of the River!!
At 3:50PM we reached today's destination at Clarksville Marina. We had an amazing dinner, now listening to Kenny Chesney radio on Cloud Nine and writing about our day. During dinner, we critiqued our day and laughed so long and so hard, folks were staring at us! That was the most we have laughed in a long time - tears were flowing!
We plan to leave no later than 8AM on Saturday. We have almost 100 miles to go tomorrow and it took us 4-1/2 hours to go 48 miles today so we need to giddy-up and get going early tomorrow.
More from Lake Barkley and Green Turtle Marina tomorrow night!!
I really love these updates and pictures!!!! Stay safe and keep up the reports!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kathy. We are having SO MUCH FUN. Center Hill is gorgeous -- but the river voyage has a different and beautiful site everywhere you look. Glad you like the updates and pictures. I'll keep writing and publishing our adventure. Take care......Gene and Kathy
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