Day 39
The next morning, we awoke to super-heavy fog and had to postpone pulling anchor until it lifted. We had noticed another apparent flying insect hatch the night before. Steve started out the salon door and came back in slowly and quietly, motioning for me to look out the windows. Our entire boat was covered with swallows! Those that weren’t perched, were flying all around us. Zooming and darting over the water taking advantage of all the newly-hatched insects. We watched them for several minutes until Steve had to go outside, which scared them away. WHY we didn’t think to take a video of that spectacle, I do not know. It was not your average morning occurrence! The fog finally lifted at 10:30 am on Tuesday morning, 10/20, so we pulled anchor and headed for Volunteer Landing Marina on the river in downtown Knoxville, TN. The closer we got to Knoxville, the more impressive the lake estates became.
For the first time, we cruised in cloudy and chilly weather. No rain, but no bright sunshine, either. I was disappointed because my pictures were not as good without optimum lighting. We arrived at Volunteer Landing Marina about 1:45 pm. The harbor master there, Don Butler, had to be one of the nicest, most accommodating harbor masters yet. He could not have been more helpful and polite. I highly recommend staying at Volunteer Landing, if only to meet Don! 😊 After fueling-up and registering for our transient slip, Don directed us upriver from the fuel-dock to a covered transient slip. He walked down to the slip to catch our lines and help us get tied-up. It was a good thing he was there, because that was our most challenging slip entrance to date. Our slip was right on the river (which is really narrow at that point), and perpendicular to the 4-knot current running past it. Steve prefers to back Legacy into a slip, so I had previously run all over the boat positioning the lines and all three fenders for a port tie-up, but the river’s current was not allowing a reverse entry at all. Every time Steve got the boat to the point he needed to be for backing up, the current carried Legacy downriver before he could get the boat turned. We tried over and over and finally decided to just head directly into the slip, which meant I got to run all over the boat again, moving lines and fenders from the port side of the boat to the starboard side. Yippee… I felt sorry for Don, as it seemed like he used up his entire afternoon waiting for us to get close enough to the slip to pitch him our lines. Even with our luxurious bow and stern thrusters, that current was so strong, Steve still had to make multiple attempts at nosing into that slip, too. Finally, Don caught our bowline and basically manhandled Legacy’s bow into the slip against the current. Thank you, Don! 😊 Once inside the slip, the current made tying up equally tricky. Each time Steve thought he had us where we needed to be, the strength of the current made him change his mind and retie. It took us over an hour to enter and get settled in that slip. Thoroughly exhausted, we showered and walked up for an early dinner at another Calhoun’s, just west of the marina on the river.
Position: N 35° 57.661, W 83° 54.659
Distance traveled: 24.9 NM
Total distance traveled: 615.8 NM
Time underway: 3 HRS 8 MIN
Total time underway: 79 HRS 42 MIN
Total marina nights: 30
Total nights at anchor: 9
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 8