The Real Trip Begins

So, after a dock party on Sunday night (RonVoyage), it was time Sunday morning to do the real thing...start making wake for Key West. My second crew volunteer, Chip Thomas, met me downtown to cast off. After a short interview and photo session with the newspaper, we prepared the boat and pushed into the Tennessee River at 9:04 a.m. on Monday, October 3. The wind that had blown all weekend was still blowing, so we raised the mainsail before we motor-sailed under the Olgiati Bridge. With a strong current (1.1 knots) and strong breeze we were boosting Agaliha's normal cruising speed and making good time.

The trip through the Tennessee River Gorge was as beautiful as it was rapid. The river winds back and forth for 28 miles while only covering 7 miles of "straight line" distance. With everything in our favor, we were covering nine miles of ground every hour. We tied off in the Nickajack Lock at 1:50 p.m. and untied 13 minutes later in the fastest and easiest locking in history. Maybe all our bad luck was used in the Chickamauga Lock on Friday.

Our next potential showstopper was the railroad bridge at Bridgeport, AL. It crosses the river 34 feet above the water, so it has to be raised for our 51 foot rig to clear. We called the bridge tender and he answered right away, assuaging my fears.


We motored on, past TVA's Widow's Creek coal plant and the mothballed Bellefonte Nuclear plant to our anchorage next to a highway bridge at mile marker 386. We anchored at 5:55 (CDT) and cooked a great grilled chicken dinner. We had covered 78 miles in our first day with everything working perfectly.


We awoke the next morning at 6:30 (CDT) to a cold morning (48 degrees) with a 10 m.p.h breeze out of the NNW. There was no current to push us today, but the wind would give us a boost. We flew the genoa and motor-sailed for a couple of hours as we enjoyed the largely undeveloped Guntersville Lake.

It was another beautiful October Day without a cloud in the sky. The temperature eventually rose to 75, so we peeled off layer by layer as we moved toward the Guntersville lock, which we reached at 11:15. After a short wait for an up-bound trawler, we locked through and exited into Wheeler Lake at about noon.


We made a short stop at Ditto's Landing Marina at 2:00 p.m. for fuel and water, even though we didn't really need either. There was another RR bridge at Decatur that is less than 10 feet off the water, so unless the bridge tender was home, we were stuck. He was home...and very friendly...so we passed under his raised bridge at 5:35 p.m.


We tied up at the Brickyard Marina in downtown Decatur at 6:00 p.m. Just behind the marina, we saw barbecue smoke and a sea of white tents. We walked over to the Alabama Sportsmen's Wild Game Cookoff and settled into a series of venison, buffalo, boar, rattlesnake and other dishes washed down with lots of free beer. Are we living right, or what?




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