Saturday October 24, 2015
We woke up to gray skies and the promise of rain. Martin and Jen left, then Matt left around 7:45am. We were all alone in the anchorage. Perfect! Time to clean out the composting head. I remember asking someone how often we would need to empty the “solids”. Little did I know that there comes a time when you know it is time. I love our composting toilet, but about once a month I can’t take it anymore. I will spare you the gruesome details. Let’s just leave it at the fact that our dinghy got muddy.
By 9:45am we were underway. We kissed the Ohio River goodbye, and headed up the tiny (in comparison) Cumberland River. I loved the river! Despite the dismal gray day, the fall colors were beautiful. The banks were lined with different trees than we had seen on the Mississippi, more colors, more variety. It was a peaceful little river lined by trees, and I thought it would be like that for the next 30 miles. Until we turned a corner and found a tow and 15 barges headed for us. Back to reality.
It started to pour. I moved inside to steer. I love the option of getting out of the cold and rain. Jim prefers to steer from the cockpit, regardless of the weather. Nuts!
By 4pm we arrived at the Barkley lock and dam. Huge lock. The lock master tried to yell something to us, but it was so cavernous, we could not hear him over the echo. Turns out that he wanted us to turn our VHF radio to channel 12. Oh well!
Just south of the dam, on Barkeley Lake, we turned into Green Turtle marina.
Next 5 nights at Green Turtle Marina.