The hum of the generator on the boat directly behind us last night did not bother us at all and we rested well. Erik was up his usual dark and early to enjoy the pre dawn hour and the morning light dawning.
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| Series of sunrise pictures… Just because |
Wanting to do something crazy and different we sat for a bit and drank coffee! 😂 We downloaded a Simrad update to our chart plotter that supposedly will get the compass feature to work. Calling ahead to the Guntersville Lock we were told that they were just preparing to lock a large commercial tow through and that it would be about a 3 hrs wait. Not a big deal since we still needed to go across the lake to fill up the gas tanks at what appears to be the most reasonable gas we will see for a while and then it will be an 8 mile trip down to the lock; this would take us a couple hours anyhow.
As we were preparing to depart a couple in an absolutely gorgeous boat, ‘Cha Cha Cha’ came up beside us and greeted us after noticing our AGLCA flag. They welcomed us to Guntersville even though we were preparing to leave. More nice folks.
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| ‘Cha Cha Cha’ a beautiful boat! |
After fueling up with 162.8 gallons of gas at a bargain rate of $5.49 per gallon we headed toward the Guntersville lock. We hailed the lock master on the radio when we were a mile from it. Not good news. We were informed that he still had a barge in the chamber, another tow/barge at the top of the lock in front of us AND he was having mechanical issues with the lock. We were told to hang tight and he would be in touch with us when he knew anything. While floating and waiting for news we worked on logging our trips stats and scoped out potential anchorages near the dam in case that became necessary. The bright side is that it was breezy and a perfect temperature and we were in a very scenic area with many pretty rock walls, some of which had multiple caves in their sides. We read in our Tennessee River book that in the evening hours it’s not unusual to see thousands of bats emerge from them.
The two hour wait turned out to be five hours! It was now almost 3pm CST. Well…guess we won’t be making it to Joe Wheeler State Park after all. My good friend and coworker, Jason, shared with me years ago the Dwight D Eisenhower quote: “The plan is nothing; Planning is everything”. So true! No fear though, Renee IS a planner and thus had a plan B (likely C and D as well). Plan B was to make it to Decatur where there is free docking at their harbor.
It was nice to be moving again. We set the throttles at 10pm and made our way down river. Just down from the lock as we rounded the bend we had a nice, rewarding view ‘painted bluff’.
An hour or so later while Renee drove Erik prepared a gourmet late lunch/dinner of coney dogs and chips.
Shortly after we realized that by the time we reached our destination Riva will have been on the boat for well over 11 hrs with no land breaks. This meant time to burn some of that bargain $5.49 a gallon gas and push down on the throttles some. It was a gorgeous late afternoon/evening but as the sun got lower we were cruising almost directly into it which made it rough on the eyes.
| We took Riva for a walk up the road after docking and tried to find a convenient store to get something to satisfy our sweet tooth’s. No luck; nothing was open in the immediate area and we were too tired to get the bikes off of the boat And then it happened, the invasion of the mayflies! Immediately after sunset the swarms came in and totally covered everything! We fled to the boat to get in and close the windows. (We have no screens!). We were too late. By the time we closed everything up quite a few had taken up residence inside so we spent the next thirty minutes catching and disposing of all the pesky boogers who made it in. |
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