October 10, 2013 Green Turtle Bay Marina in Kentucky

I can think of  "38" wonderful reasons why this is such a good day (a special certain someone will understand that reference).  And one of them was, after noting the water levels dropped 3 feet overnight, extracting the anchor and being able to turn around in the towhead without any depth problems.  We had dropped the anchor where it was a little over 9 feet deep.  It was 6 feet when we started retrieval operations.  Backing out several yards showed depths twice that so we had no issue turning the boat around and heading out.

Entering the Cumberland river

The Cumberland river was just 1/2 mile up stream.  Its relatively narrow but very scenic with forest lined banks an a wide variety of bird life.  And the calm water was disturbed only a few times by tows so it was a pleasant day cruise.

Entering the Barkley lock

Our continued good fortune with locks remain intact as we approached the  Barkley Lock.  The Lock Master had the gates open and we drove right in.  A 54 foot rise in less than 10 minutes, and were in in Barkley Lake!

Leaving the lock for short journey to the marina

As we drove out of the lock the vista of Barkley lake is pretty impressive and somewhat confusing due to the myriad number of buoys there.  The warnings all indicate a severe rock ledge off the channel.  One of our group of boats cut a few corners short and ended up in 4 feet of water which they safely passed but we, luckily observed that and went the long way around to get into the private channel to Green Turtle Bay marina,

Entering Green Turtle marina waiting to fuel

We had to idle out in the marina basin for about 20 minutes until a spot on the fuel dock became available.  Took on 144 gallons of fuel.  I cant divulge the price per gallon.  Painful.  Oh so painful.

Once fueled up we proceed past Active Captain (again) and drove bow in, into slip 16.  Nice and cozy!

Our slip for a week

Seems there are a number of other looper boats here although we didn't meet any of them yet.  Our little flotilla decided to go out for dinner at the yacht  club tonight.  One small caveat though is the dry nature of this Kentucky county.  One must bring in their own alcohol.  The hostess will take your bottle at the door and place it on your table as you sit down.  Then the waiter comes along as asks everyone what they want to drink.  If you want a drink made with the bottle of wine/beer/booze you brought with you, they will take said bottle and make you a drink.  And then return with the bottle and a rather well mixed drink if I do say so myself.  It does make for an interesting dinning experience.

We intend on remaining here next week to start heading down the Tennessee River.