Monday, June 11, 2018

6/10/2018 - Sunday - Clarksville to Old Hickory




Enjoyed the free night at McGregor Park docks.  Started the day with bacon and eggs for breakfast, yum!  Headed out somewhat early for another long travel day.  I'll be glad when we can slow down!  Went up river about a mile to Clarksville Marina where we filled up the gas tanks and pumped out.  Erik replaced a broken alternator belt with a spare we had. After traveling about 20 miles, we hit our first lock for this trip, Cheatham Lock & Dam.  Had about an hour wait to lock through then we were on our way.   The Cumberland river has long stretches of rural areas with some stretches of beautiful homes on the outskirts of Nashville.  As we came through downtown Nashville, there was a music festival going on on the riverfront.  We were just getting ready to drop anchor and enjoy some free music when they started sending people away due to lightning in the area.  There were not many good anchorages out of the way of the many barges, so we decided to push through to Old Hickory.  There was some rain and thunder and lightning so we dropped anchor and waited till the skies cleared a little.  30 miles past Nashville we did our second lock of the day, Old Hickory Lock & Dam.  Just a little way past the dam we found a cove to anchor for the night.  Erik grilled us some steaks on the grill and we relaxed and enjoyed the view of "bird island"(a little island full of birds that made lots of crazy sounds).  Apparently during the night some more storms brewed up and some winds kicked up.  I was awakened about midnight to water lapping against the hull. Since it was so calm when we went to sleep I decided to peek out and see what was happening outside.  I quickly realized we had moved quite a bit.  Because we had been blown into an area I was pretty sure was quite shallow I woke Erik up and we moved the boat and re-set the anchor.  We threw our back up anchor out too just to be safe!  Thank goodness we stayed put after that!  The next time there are storms around I will find a cove with better wind protection or a marina!!!
Erik cooking breakfast.

Clarksville Marina

Cheatham Lock

Beautiful rolling hills

One of many amazing homes
Very neat swing bridge that swings open to let tall boats through or swings closed to let the train cross!

Coming into Nashville!
The "green"method to keep the grass trimmed along the river!


If you zoom in you can see a couple of deer on the river bank 
Rainbow as we were coming out of the Old Hickory Lock

Sunset at Skinny Dip Cove facing "bird island"

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