Green Turtle Bay To Pickwick Lake

Green Turtle Bay was just what we needed after those long stressful days on the Mississippi. We stayed there five days and had a wonderful time.  Every evening, the loopers (there were about 15 of us there) all convened at the gazebo above our boats and one night, we all went to a crab and shrimp boil hosted by the resort's Yacht Club.

Gazebo "Docktails"

Crab & Shrimp Boil

One afternoon, we celebrated the renaming of one of the loopers' boats. It was a very intricate ceremony designed to please Neptune and thus ensure the boat's good fortune.

Champagne for Neptune

New Name Unveiled

Quiet evening on "Carol Anne" with Shayna the dog

Pete at bottom of Barkley Lock  near Green Turtle

Me at top of Barkley Lock

"Carol Anne" in Barkley Lock from our boat

After Green Turtle, we left the Cumberland River and made our way to the Tennessee River. Due to the fluctuation of the water level on the river, most of the houses are on stilts and the marinas float.

Marina floats up those blue poles as river rises (Humbug in background)

Stilt houses

Humbug on a "diamond day" in Tennessee \

Tennessee and the Tennessee River are really beautiful - rolling hills, lush woodlands, many large lakes. We now understand why so many people settle here after they finish the loop.

We followed the Tennessee River to Pickwick Lock and Dam which created Pickwick Lake by flooding the Tennessee River. Pickwick Dam is just one of the many TVA dams along the length of the Tennessee River.

Beautiful Pickwick Lake

A few miles down the lake, we arrived at Grand Harbor Marina where we stayed for four nights.  The dock we tied to, was in Mississippi. The end of the dock walkway where we picked up the marina loaner van, was in Tennessee and just across the channel, was Alabama.

Dinner with Hiromi and Mike at Grand Harbor

When we arrived, our friends from "Off Leash,"
Hiromi, Mike and dog, Sydney had drinks and dinner waiting for us - how nice! The next day they left and our friends on "Carol Anne," Loretta, Bob and dog Shayna, arrived to play tourist with us for the next couple of days. It's nice to have made some new pals.

Grand Harbor Marina is only about 20 miles from Shiloh Battlefield National Park, so we and "Carol Anne" had planned to spend an afternoon there. Of course, the day we were to go, our wonderful government shut down and there were barricades across all the access roads to the park.

Bob and Loretta scowling at park barricade

Fortunately for us, a ranger (who was embarrassed to be considered an "essential person" and therefore still getting paid by the government even during the shutdown), found us angrily staring at the barricade and took pity on us. He gave us a wonderful,45-minute synopsis of the battle which, he stressed, was not about Shiloh, but Corinth, a town 20 miles away where two major rail lines intersected. The Union Army wanted to advance from Shiloh to take Corinth in order to protect their supply lines.The Confederates wanted to catch the Union Army off guard in Shiloh before they got to Corinth, and drive them into the nearby swamp. They too, wanted to protect Corinth for the same supply-line reasons. During the 2-day battle, the ranger told us there were 50,000 Union soldiers and 35,000 Confederate soldiers at Shiloh.  At the end of the second day, there were more than 23,000 wounded, missing or dead. Incredible.

Our ranger angel, John

That same day, we ate lunch at the "Catfish Hotel," a local institution a few miles from the battlefield, that featured, what else? Catfish. Catfish cooked 10 different ways - whole, filet, Cajun, lemon pepper, etc., but all covered in cornmeal and deep fried. Of course, the fish was accompanied by fried green tomatoes, deep fried onion rings or fries and last but not least, hush puppies which are deep fried blobs of dough. Our digestive systems will never be the same.

 

 

 

 

Catfish Hotel and loaner van

After that light lunch, we continued our Shiloh history lesson at the Tennessee River Museum.
There we learned that the Union Navy played a big part in the battle. From steel-clad, mortor-launching barges pulled up against the Tennessee River bank at the edge of the battlefield, they  bombarded the confederate positions.  Probably the most interesting thing we learned about Shiloh, however, was the active participation of the survivors of both sides, to bring the park into existence and erect the many monuments.

In front of Tennessee River Museum

Changing the subject entirely - ASIAN CARP

In case anyone has been wondering, we saw a lot of Asian Carp jumping around us while on the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio and Cumberland Rivers (haven't seen any on the Tennessee). One night, while anchored, there were literally, hundreds of them surfacing around our boat and while underway, we heard them continually thumping against our hull. We heard one loud thump at our bow and looked back to see that we had sliced one right in half! We didn't have any jump into our boat, but several jumped into the back of "Carol Anne" and, while taking Sydney ashore, one jumped into "Off Leash's" dingy. They make a mess - bleed all over the place, stink and can weigh up to 100 lbs. (most were about 2 ft long). One chatty tow captain told us that one of his engineers was knocked cold and had his collar bone broken by a carp. I'm glad we're out of carpland now.

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