Wednesday, October 4 - Green Turtle Bay

Wednesday, October 4 - Green Turtle Bay

This Paducah City Dock opened just a couple of weeks ago.  Prior to that, there was no gas or diesel available between Alton, IL and Green Turtle Bay on Lake Barkley.  The dock doesn’t have restrooms, the pump out wasn’t working, and the gas pump had a leak this morning.  But we were so glad to get here last night after finally making it through Lock 52, none of that bothered us. 

Deb and Gil decided to take a rest day, and told us later what a cute town Paducah was.  We only saw it from the river.

Just east of Paducah, we had a choice of turning onto the Tennessee River and going to Kentucky Lake, or staying on the Ohio River until the Cumberland River and going to Lake Barkley.  The Cumberland route was a little longer, but had very little commercial traffic, meaning less delay at its dam, so we chose it.

The most interesting sight along the Cumberland was this rock facility.  You see the machines separating  the different sizes and loading them onto barges.  The dust was incredible, trees looked like they had snow on them. 

There was NO delay at Barkley Dam.  What a treat after our experiences on the Ohio!  There were two boats in the chamber with us, two children on each boat.  They had a great time yelling and listening to the echoes.  (We saw them later in the restaurant and I got their email address to send them a copy of the pictures.)

We took these pictures to send to Gil and Deb to show them how easy the TVA locks and their floating bollards would be.  I have spent a lot of time up close and personal with lock walls!

This screen shot shows the two rivers, the two dams, and the two lakes.  I love Google Maps. 

Green Turtle Bay Marina is just past the dam in Lake Barkley.  It is an AGLCA sponsor so we had heard a lot about it.  And we had our peanuts from Cordele shipped there, so we were doubly excited to be there.

As we pulled into our slip, we saw Carolyn and Craig on Sea Way two boats down from us.  It was great to see them, and we had impromptu docktails on our boat and caught up on what had happened since they left us at Alton.