Day 159: Bass Bay, KY to Decaturville, Tennessee
Day 159: Saturday, September 24th: We got up at dawn this morning and got underway right away. This piece of a rainbow greeted us as we moved out of Bass Bay onto the Tennessee River:
We noticed we had now taken over 4000 pictures while on the Loop. Of course most of them ended up deleted in preference to the better ones.
Almost immediately we met Windless, Butterfly Suite, Roy El and Sonsie pulling out of a creek where they had been anchored for the night. We fell in line behind them and had a five boat flotilla chugging up the river. We swapped stories and trivia on the marine VHF radio.
We soon came to the lowest bridge we would encounter on this lake; a railroad bridge with a height of 27 feet charted. No problem for any of us:
We eased into a geological area that was formed between 150 and 300 million years ago. The riverbanks gave over to sandstone cliffs covered in gnarled trees. Some of the trees were starting to show a slight fall tint:
There was a residential development in the area with some impressive houses set on even more impressive lots. Notice the white round lighthouse-like building on this cliff:
There were some pretty high bluffs on each side of the narrowing river now:
One cliff was named Lady Finger Bluff. Legend has it that in the pioneer days a young woman jumped to her death here to avoid capture by Indians:
It wasn't too unusual so see an occasional barge washed up on the riverbank. It WAS unusual so see a towboat up there; here is the only one we saw:
This is a trick picture. It looks like the river is sloping several feet in this picture:
In a few miles we came to our destination for the night: Mermaid Marina. We were in the vicinity of Decaturville, TN, about the only civilization around. Again, no cell phone signal. The marina had some unique signage:
The back side of the sign showed the unusual number of endowments of Lady Mermaid. She is, uh, symmetrical:
Next to the mermaid was this eye catcher:
We wanted to buy diesel fuel again, although we only needed about 26 gallons, but the marina had just run out filling Roy El and Windless. They thought they would have more in a few hours (they didn't). We tied Integrity to a pier under two productive hickory trees. Notice how the building wind was blowing the Tennessee Vols team flag. The wind was blowing hickory nuts onto Integrity and the pier; they sounded like cannon shots:
All five of the boats in the day's flotilla stopped at Mermaid and another Looper, Proctor Anne was already there. Since yesterday was the birthday of Harold on Sonsie, we all decided to celebrate over dinner at the marina restaurant. We insisted that Harold use the "Elderly and Handicapped" elevator:
Here's one of the group's tables; that's Harold in the blue shirt at the head:
The whole restaurant was decorated in mermaids; they were everywhere:
This working model train was also a hit. Notice the fancy pressboard walls:
This tiny mermaid was pretty accurate, anatonomically speaking:
We listened to the NOAA weather for tomorrow and it did not sound good. The remnants of Hurricane Rita were forecast to pass through the area. Rain, thunderstorms, high winds - all promised. We went to bed early thinking we might just have to stay here for another day..
Position tonight: N35 33.638 W088 00.377
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