We left Birdsong Marina around 7am. We had to get to about fifty miles today, and there isn’t anywhere in between to stop that made sense. We figured if we get an early start, we could make it. We knew what we were getting into, our struggle against the current will make fifty miles will take a long time.
When we left it was a crisp morning, clear skies, and no rain. We had to follow the route we brought in, out. Thankfully our GPS shows our track from the previous days, so we could follow that same route out. I forgot to mention that on the way in we ‘nudged’ the bottom following the guide boat, which gave us both a minor heart attack. I had marked that on our GPS as “AVOID”, so on our way out I avoided that area and followed the charts we have, then continued to follow our route regardless of where the buoys were. Once out into the main channel we turned south and headed toward Clifton, Tennessee.
We were working our way to the next marina and our speed now was under five knots, so we knew we were in for a long day, but the Browns were playing later so I knew that would be fun to watch. How wrong I was about the Browns. We took turns captaining the boat down the river and enjoyed the ride. Music was playing through the speaker and we just went with the flow. At this point there was nothing else we could do but roll with it. We dodged barges and other boats passing us on their way south. Almost all were polite and contacted us via VHF and arranged a ‘slow pass’ on whichever side they were coming up on. We would slow down a bit, to allow them to slow down and not give so much wake off of their boat so we weren’t rocked violently. As we were approaching the marina we saw a couple of other boats coming up behind us. We were the first to enter the harbor and I made contact on the radio. They told us to pull up to the fuel dock, as that is where they were having us dock for the night. The other boats behind us also made contact and they were also directed to the fuel dock. There was a couple of people on the dock waiting for us to assist with lines. We docked without incident and watched them help the others behind us. The marina is not large, and since we were only staying the night, they figured we would all be good here instead of spreading out around the marina. They have a restaurant on site as well, and once everyone was secured, we all made our way there to eat. The woman running the docks was also the server, the manager and cook! Her husband and mother were helping as well, but she was doing it all. Of course Frank started barking as soon as we left him on the boat, and she told us he was welcome to join us on the patio. Lauren and I shared a fried seafood platter and a salad as Frank chilled out under the table. After dinner, we took him for a walk and soon retired for the night.
Tomorrow we are heading to an anchorage not far from a lock we will have to go through. The anchorage is Diamond Island, and the trip will be another forty miles, so again we will get an early start to make it there in daylight.