Day 5...the long day

Today was a 98 mile day. it had me a bit concerned so we hit the road early. Lines were untied and we were on the river by 0720. It was a chamber of commerce day with temps in the upper 60's when we left and topping out about 80...we are chasing 80 after all.

The first half of the day was spent on Pickwick lake. It was very wide with big homes and reminds me a lot of Cumberland (with a way out). The picture bellow gives you an idea of the lake size as well as the entrance to the Tenn-Tom waterway that leads to Mobile...it was hard not to make a left turn. Just past this point I was able to pilot the boat to a point where we were in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee all at the same time...pretty cool for a geek like me.

Pickwick dam was about our half way point and we entered at 1:00 with no delay. The gates closed behind us and....nothing happened. We sat for at least 10 minutes before we started to drop, painfully slowly. Overall it was a 40 minute delay in the lock and I began to think we weren't going to make Clifton before dark. Not what I wanted to do.
As we got underway below the lock I ran the boat back up to 1400 RPM's where we had been running at 8.5 MPH on Pickwick (in a head wind) and when I looked at the GPS we were surfing at over 12 MPH...Woo-Hoo we were flying!! Funny, if you are in a car at 10 MPH I feel like a turtle...On this boat I'm the hare!!
Pickwick was our last dam before we head out to the Ohio river. Below the dam the shore line became much more flat with homes built on stilts, much more flood prone than any of the TVA lakes above here.
We had a bit of fun on the narrow river as we were rounding a tight bend and a large towboat appeared headed at us. It was a bit tight for a moment, thankfully he wasn't pushing any barges. Of course Mike was driving...he was driving yesterday when we hit a submarine....I'm just sayin'.

Well, thanks to the push we were tied up in Clifton by 6:30. Not a bad day for such a long run.We had a great dinner with the marina owner and some local old timers, couldn't understand most of what they were saying but we laughed ourselves silly. Tomorrow we are headed to New Johnsonville, TN. A much easier day with no locks. Until then....g'night.