Port #31: Not Seeing Double...

 Great Loop II Date: 10/07/2014
Day # 68 (Tuesday): 53 miles (1790 total miles)
Locks: 0 (12 total locks)
Port #31: Clifton, TN
Anchorage: Double Island

Although the crew on OB was very tempted to stay at Pebble Isle a day or two, we’d fallen behind our schedule with the prop repair as well as the weather delays. We couldn’t really come up with an excuse to extend our stay.

The day started off overcast and finally broke into partly cloudy skies. There was less wind than the day before. The landscape continued to change as the Tennessee River narrowed. Throughout this part of the trip, there was evidence the river was a lower than normal winter pool.

Some fall colors were beginning to peep through.

Nice little farm nestled in the trees.

New housing had popped up since our last trip.  It took away the rural nature of the area.

We saw more limestone outcroppings and higher hills.

We continued to navigate around the barge traffic.

Cypress trees were more prevalent.

We could see the water levels were well into winter pool.

The top line on the rocks is were the water level is at summer pool.  The water levels are controlled by the dams.  Here it was controlled by Barkley Dam (that we left behind at Green Turtle Bay) and Pickwick Dam (our next lock and dam before Grand Harbor).

Some of the scenes were reminiscent of our 2010 adventure. All in all, these next miles that took us eventually to Yellow Creek and the beginning of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway held some of my favorite scenery.

We saw this old grounded tow in 2010.  I mentioned something about a 'hard grounding'.  It was by itself at that time.

This time there was obvious work going on nearby with dredgings from shoaled areas being deposited there.

The anchorage we chose was one Blue Angel and Miss Ruby stayed in during 2010. A severe thunderstorm chased OB, Sea Estate and N II Wishin into Mermaid Marina that evening. Blue Angel and Miss Ruby had great protection during that storm so we felt this was an excellent place to put down our anchor.

Charlie found his comfortable spot.

A beautiful setting with the full moon rising.

Double Island was wide with a good bottom and our anchor took a sturdy hold. We enjoyed a quiet evening watching the full moon rise to our east. We hoped we’d see some of the Blood Moon early in the morning.

I awoke at 2:30AM to the rattle of our AGLCA burgee above our heads. That’s a small penant flag we fly on the bow to denote that we are Loopers. I got up to check the weather and saw lightening to our north. I closed the boat up and checked the weather radar online.

A strong line of thunderstorms was heading in our direction. I decided to stay up and ride out the storm. Once again OB hung well on her anchor. However, the cloud cover kept me from seeing the Blood Moon.