Tues Nov 7: Clifton to Dry Creek Anchorage

Leaving the very narrow entrance to the Clifton Marina we rejoined the Tennessee River for the last day. Pretty quickly the first lock on this part of the system came into view - Pickwick.  This big lock (55’) lifts us up from the Tennessee River to Pickwick Lake, where one option is to continue up the lake further on the Tennessee River to Chattanooga and eventually to Knoxville, and the other is to make a right turn onto the Tenn-Tom Waterway (more on that tomorrow).  

I’m going to stop saying these are long days-just assume it from here on out.  We have a lot of mileage to cover each day as long there are few places to stop.  That’s ok-we are fortified by the knowledge that we get to see William soon!!

Every time he has a chance Rick hoses down the boat to try to keep it clean and every day the bugs do their part to get back on the clean boat!  Not sure you can see it below but we have been plagued by little gnats the last few days.  They seem to like to land on the back of the boat to get out of the wind and then as we walk around we squish them and make a mess. 

On the last few miles of the Tennessee river the current picked up significantly.  Until then the current had been no more than 1 mph against us, but that increased to 3-4 mph as we approached the lock.  We slowed down dramatically.  We had our usual attack of lock-phobia (developed coming off of Lake MI) as we approached Pickwick Lock, wondering if we would have to wait 2 hours to get through-but the lock master invited us right in and even took pictures of us (they are on the Pickwick Lock FB page)!

Once on Pickwick Lake we said good-bye to our buddy boats (everyday we travel with some boats - not always the same, but there are so many loopers in this area that informal flotillas always form up) and headed out to Dry Creek to drop the anchor.  There are some nice marinas in the area but the weather was excellent, with very little wind, and our anchoring days are coming to an end-better do it while we can. It was the right decision.  We were completely alone in a beautiful, quiet cove and we watched the eagles play in the sky around us.  At dusk the lake came alive with the splashes of fish jumping for their dinner (or perhaps trying to avoid becoming someone else’s dinner!). 

Rick is working on using up our fresh and frozen food and cooked us an excellent dinner of roast pork tenderloin, baby potatoes and broccoli.  We do eat well on Blue Horizon, in fact we had dinner at the restaurant at the Clinton Marina and felt that our own cooking was much superior to the fried fare that was served at the restaurant.  

Off to bed as we will be up tomorrow at 5:45 am to move on to the Tenn-Tom waterway.