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Day 188: Sunday, October 23rd: The lock at Ft. Loudon Dam, where we spent last night, only operates from 9:00am to 10:00pm (the only lock on restricted hours on the Tennessee).  So, we slept in.  Just before we were ready to get underway about 9:20, we casually radioed the Lockmaster to advise him that we wanted to lock down in a few minutes.  He said we might as well go back to bed, because he was just starting to take a large tow through and that would take about four hours!

The Captain of the tow (Jay Bludworth is the tow's name) overheard the conversation and told the lockmaster that he could wait for us if we were going to be there right away.  The lockmaster told us to come on in a hurry.

We rushed through the process of getting underway (in the fog), throwing lines, power cords, fenders and everything aboard.  Bill squinted through the morning fog and negotiated us out of the marina and to the lock in 18 minutes flat.  The Jay Bludworth was tied to the lock wall, waiting patiently for us.  We thanked him profusely for his courtesy and eased into the lock chamber.  Sorry, we were too frazzled to get any pictures!

Surprisingly, there was no fog below the dam.  It was cold and overcast again today, and we cruised downriver through the pretty countryside in gloves and coats, remembering the record high temperatures of a couple days ago.

Our destination was the Blue Springs Marina, a large marina on Watts Bar Lake that is very popular with the Loopers who make the side trip up the Tennessee.  Their sign was a little hard to read: