Day 1
We’d originally planned to officially ‘start the loop’ in November of 2020 when we will have our boat insurance company’s go-ahead to finally cruise south of the hurricane belt at Demopolis, AL, on the TennTomBigbee Waterway, but finally realized we could start our loop anywhere, so why wait until November? Therefore, we deemed Green Turtle Bay marina our starting point, which means when we “cross our wake” at the end of our loop, we’ll be right back at GTB. A favorite of us both.
Legacy left GTB this morning after fueling up and getting pumped-out. We got underway about 10:15 am; beautiful day, slight breeze on the nose, which made for a very pleasant trip even though the temperature was in the upper 80’s. (Thank God we had the canvas work done at GTB, so we could open it up! Otherwise, we would’ve been driving from the inside salon helm in the air conditioning).
Soon after leaving GTB, we passed three fellow boaters that we’d bumped into at other marinas, one of which was Gypsy’s Palace, who hailed us on the radio. We learned that they were headed to GTB as we were leaving. We chatted a few minutes, wished each other luck and kept heading upriver. The entire day, we only saw a handful of bass boats, and a handful of non-fishing boats. We had the waterway almost completely to ourselves. Much different from this past weekend, which was Labor Day.
After almost 6 hours of travel, we decided to stop and anchor-out for the night in Cane Creek behind the old abandoned building and dock once used for shipping grain, on the east side of lower Kentucky Lake. History says it was at one time to be demolished, but was discovered to have been so strongly-built, it was left as a landmark (river mark?) instead. The evening was cool enough to actually enjoy our adult beverages from the cockpit, sitting in our cabana to watch the sunset. The cabana has been a bit of a conundrum since we bought this boat. It was custom designed by the boat’s original owner for use up on the Great Lakes, which makes perfect sense, since the summertime temps up north can sometimes be on the chilly side. I can totally see how that covered bench was great to sit in on a sunny morning or evening, with the cabana serving as a perfect windbreak from any brisk breezes that might cause discomfort. BUT, fast-forward to the boat now inhabiting much warmer waters further south, and that cabana turns into our boat’s mini-greenhouse, second only to the flybridge, which can be our main greenhouse! So, sadly, we’ve not utilized the cabana as much as we’d like to. Steve has plans to change it in some way (maybe ventilate it, or perhaps remove the cover completely), but that’s in the future.
Position tonight: N36̒° 18.139, W87° 56.278
Distance traveled: 48.8 NM
Total distance traveled: 48.8
Time underway: 5 HRS 45 MIN
Total time underway: 5 HRS 45 MIN
Total marina nights: 0
Total nights at anchor: 1
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 0