We left Paris Marina at 9:30 this morning.  It wasn’t windy at all today so we were just slip sliding away.  I barely had to touch the wheel.  I felt like we were on a conveyor belt and the scenery was just passing by.  We traveled at about 6.5 knots all day.  We finally saw our first Tow at noon today.  Other than that, again, no other boats except for a few fishing boats.  I felt sorry for them cause they looked cold when they whizzed by us.

The Tennessee is very wide and deep in the channel, 40 to 50 feet.  There are a few lines we could follow on the Garmin but we are just sticking to the sailing line.  As we travel we can see some sticks, dead heads and birds standing on the land so we know it is shallow in parts.  Better safe than sorry!  There was a 43 foot SeaRay that was at Green Turtle.  He left on Tuesday and decided to take one of those other routes that show up on the Garmin cause he thought it looked more scenic.  Crash, Bang, Boom!  He had to call Tow BoatUS to pull him in.  Now he has to spend 2 weeks at Green Turtle waiting for shafts and props before he can continue on his merry way.  That was an expensive scenic route 🙂

It has been cloudy here and only about 54 out.  It is unseasonably cool here apparently.  As we were traveling we’d see areas marked with two white or red big fat arrows that pointed to each other.  The Garmin had them marked as First Class Anchorage or Second Class Anchorage.  We need to have someone tell us what that means.  Neither of them really looked like that good of a place to pull in.  There were quite a few little channels that were marked with little green and red buoys but sometimes they seemed to go do where.  Of course, we didn’t follow that trail.

There seems to be more sand and less cliffs on this section of the river.  The water is very clean, kind of a green color.  We heard that once we get down past Clinton, the river narrows down some.  We’ll have to wait and see, I think I might prefer that more.  Easier to travel down and follow the buoys.  Sometimes there was such a cluster it was hard to figure out which way to go.  Good things we have the charts to refer to also.  That helps.

We did see a few interesting things as we went.  These power poles went across the river, see how they have the structures around them to keep the barges from knocking them down.

Power Lines

There was this railroad bridge that was taken down and someone built their house on it.  Look underneath it.  Cool little sitting area!  They have a stairway going down on the left and couple of couple of chairs to sit down there on.

Cool House

Then this next picture is described as an abandoned dock.  I bet all the kids in town have been out there doing naughty things!

Abandoned Dock on Tennessee

We are now at Pebble Isle Marina.  They had a really good deal on diesel for $3.87 and dockage was $52.13 (.95 per foot plus tax).  They have a little restaurant, a courtesy van and town is only a couple of miles away.  Plus they are going to make cinnamon rolls early just so we can have some before we go.  Hey!  Good people in my book :).  I’ll post some more pictures on the picture page.  Ya all have a good night and come on back!