September 28 – October 8, 2019 – After treating ourselves to a long 2-week stay at Green Turtle Bay, we headed down Kentucky Lake, planning to overnight in a series of bays in the Land Between the Lakes.
We made several short hops, less than two hours cruising time, to nice anchorages at Pisgah Bay, Vickers Bay, and Clay Bar.
We relaxed, and dropped the dinghy a couple times to explore. At Pisgah Bay, we went around into the Rock Quarry, a popular local party spot. Just a few local boats tied up, and lots of cool graffiti painted on the rock cliffs surround this former quarry over 100′ deep. We forgot our camera, so nothing to show you, except this sunset when we got back to the boat-
Each day was quite hot (over 90), but as the sun went down each evening, it cooled off nicely and made stargazing on the foredeck quite pleasant.
At Vickers Bay, after the sunset we laid out front for over an hour just enjoying the whole cove to ourselves, and seeing a great night sky.
At our third anchorage, we saw quite a display of nature, with two bald eagles fighting, blogged separately.
Finally, though, after the third night, the heat got to us, and we headed to Paris Landing State Park Marina rather than anchoring out a fourth night. Since we were so late in the season, the restaurant at the marina wasn’t open when we were there, but a local restaurant would come pick us up; here’s the limo that came – pretty cool! And good creole food, too…
We then moved down to Pebble Isle Marina; one of their trademarks is that the dockmaster bakes fresh cinnamon rolls each morning and delivers them to the boats. Delicious!
As we move south, up the river, the river narrows, we begin to see rocky shoreline rather than just trees and bushes along the levees. The nature of the boats that we see also changes. A lot more bass boats, and a lot fewer sailboats.
All the water that we are traveling in this section is ‘Kentucky Lake’ so named as it is held back by Kentucky Lock. As part of their management of the waterway, the lake level is reduced by about 5 feet in the winter (to ‘winter pool’). At this marina, they had a concrete marker that shows winter pool (now), where summer pool would normally be, and where the level would be if flooding reached the top of the dam.
Here’s a marina that we didn’t stop at, although their advertising was quite eye-catching. We’re in the bible belt, aren’t we??
Some sections of the shoreline are TVA property, and some are private. We see a lot more vacation homes, and some more ‘rustic’ camping.
Do you supposed it might flood here? Check out the stilts on these homes!
We finally exit Kentucky Lake, at Pickwick Lock, and head into Aqua Yacht Harbor for a few days before continuing on to the AGLCA Rendezvous.
This marina had an interesting phenomenon going on – people would rent (or buy) a large covered slip, much larger than their boat, but then build in a separate ‘patio’. We saw a wide variety, including screen enclosures, patio furniture, refrigerators, smokers and grills, large screen TVs, heaters and fans, and carpets. Quite the weekend place to hang out!
