Lock Down

A little fog again as we left Guntersville.  Found this to welcome us to the Guntersville lock.

Most of the lockmasters are very friendly, however, they speak southernease and can be difficult to understand at times.  Same goes for the towboat captains.  Fortunately, they both can use horn signals to let us know what to do.

Pam finds locking through a stressful situation.  If you take your time, it's no big deal.  Here's what the gates and chamber look like full.

You tie off to a floating bollard, and about 10 minutes later, here's the same gates opening, and the chamber empty.

When Bret and I made this trip, he played his bagpipes inside every empty chamber.  Hopefully, none of these lockmasters will recognize me.

Guntersville

We had to wait at Goose Pond until about 11:00 am for the fog to lift.  We had a short day planned anyway, so we were still able to reach our planned destination for the day.  Guntersville, Alabama.
They have a free dock.

We walked over to the city's welcome center, and unfortunately Pam found that they have a hysterical museum in town.  The fact that it is several miles from the dock and uphill in both directions didn't deter her.  Off we went.  The museum was mostly about Wernher von Braun and rockets.  (Huntsville is not far away.)  The museum also had a mineral collection.  "Minerals--NOT Rocks."

The city of Guntersville is about 10 miles above the dam, and at this point is more like a lake instead of a river.  There are more bass boats on this lake than anywhere we've been.

 

Goose Pond

There was another boat at the campground free docks, and when they left, we followed.  We were less than a mile from the Nickajack lock, and wanted to go through with them so we wouldn't need to wait for the lock chamber to be filled again.

The morning fog had not totally cleared yet.

Shortly after the lock, we saw this gallery.

We're now at Goose Pond Marina.  Thursday.

Dawg, the coordinates are
N 34 34.810
W 086 04.758

Here's the view from our dock.

Here's looking the other direction.

 

We're in Alabama now.  

This is what a "stand up paddleboard" looks like here.

We're off to have Shrimp and Grits for dinner.

Downstream

When we left Chattanooga, Pam couldn't decide which direction she wanted to travel. We started out going upstream, but when we got to the Chickamauga Lock, we turned around.  We had been going 6 mph upstream, and without changing the engine rpms, we went 11 mph downstream.  I think that means there was a 2.5 mph current.  (I'll consult with my grandson when I get home to confirm the math.)

We stopped at a campground that has my favorite kind of docks.  Free. 

There were no showers available in Chattanooga, so we thought we would sneak into the campground bath house and clean up.  On the way to the bath house, we passed the office, and the nice woman came out and told us that the docks were free, but showers cost $3.00 each.  I asked her if Pam and I shared a shower, could I only pay for one.  So $6.00 later, we were clean.

While we were at the dock, we saw these two boats pass by.

 

The Nina and Pinta.    Really.    http://www.thenina.com/

Chattanooga 2-2

Our second day in Chattanooga. We went through their aquarium.  Interesting.......I didn't know butterflies could swim.

We really liked Chattanooga.  We were on foot, so we didn't get to "See Rock City," but we were able to ride across town on their free electric shuttle bus.  We even got to visit the Moon Pie Store.

 

The only problem with Chattanooga is the same as most other river towns.  The river is the lowest spot in town, and everything else is uphill.  In this case, it was a hundert and fidy steps up to street level.   This set of steps had a waterfall adjacent to it.  The waterfall commemorates the "Trail of Tears."  All the other kids got to play in it, but Pam said no.

 

The other problem with being down on the water is that we couldn't access the the free wifi.  I had been tethering to my phone, but got caught, and shut off.

Chattanooga

As we got closer to Chattanooga, the  river housing improved.

When Bret and I did the Tennessee River, our schedule didn't allow us to stop in Chattanooga.  Since then, the city has done a lot to clean up the waterfront, and entice boaters to stop. 


We're tied up to a dock in front of the Tennessee Aquarium, and we intend to spend the day there tomorrow.  We are the middle of the three boats in this photo.

Here's a pretty cool museum overlooking the river.

This is either a killer skateboard course, or a handicapped access to the river.  Either way it's a heck of a ride.

When I was in the sailboat business, I thought that used up sailboats went to our local sailing club to grow old and die.  I never really thought about where used up stern wheelers would go to grow old and die.  But here you are.  The Delta Queen is no longer able to ply the rivers and is now used as a floating hotel. 

Hales Bar

I have cruised on the Tennessee River before.  All of it.  Back in 2008, my young friend Bret and I started at the river's beginning in Knoxville, and followed it to it's end at the Ohio River.  All 652 miles.  We took Bret's old leaky Catalina 25' sailboat, and had a great time.  I guess I talked it up so much that Pam decided we should take TONIC on a similar trip.
I do think that parts of the Tennessee River are as scenic as anywhere east of the Mississippi.  In particular, the "Gorge" area just west of Chattanooga is beautiful.  So that's where we started this trip. 

We launched at Hales Bar Marina.  If you've traveled on I-24 between Nashville and Chattanooga, you've passed right by Hales Bar.  You can see it from the bridge crossing the river.  In that area, it's Nickajack Lake. The marina is located at an abandoned lock and dam.

The sign on the door going into the showers made me wonder where the camers are mounted.  I'm pretty modest and wouldn't want to show off my bare butt to everyone.

From Hales Bar, we headed upstream towards Chattanooga.  I probably took a hundert photos of the hills along the river.