We left Clifton Marina on Thursday Sept 30 after getting fuel. The day started off humid and we thought it would rain again but it was a comfortable overcast day looking at more houses and birds.
Unfortunately we did see homes that had experienced the effects of the flooding. Sad to see, especially when its a log home.
We anchored behind Wolf Island (MM192) just as one of the Giant Barges were going by – we also saw a tug making a U turn – happy we were anchored and didn’t have to deal with that situation!
Electrical & water update: Brian turned off the inverter at the panel when we aren’t using it and the batteries charged up – so we will call that “ticket” closed for now. He is still watching a slow leak from the hot water – no answers yet.
Then we got to Pickwick Lock and Dam. Our first lock and it is one of the biggest on the loop. We arrived and the Lockmaster was in the middle of locking through one of the “15 Barges”. They have to uncouple partially to get through the lock then retie once they are through. A two hour wait for us so we anchored, we heard others have waited twice and three times that.
A thrilling experience!! The Lockmaster tells you which side to use and you loop your line around a floating bollard. The gates shut behind you, the water comes in and you ride up (we are heading upstream). We have now experienced locking!
As soon as we got into Pickwick Lake we realized that all the houses we had seen on the Kentucky Lake were just “cabins” compared to the homes on Pickwick.
It started to really rain as we motored to Grand Harbor Marina. We are right in front of the Marina store with several other looper boats. Met the crew of RAMA (we have been following on their blog for months), Maggie Jo, Turn the Page, Hell of a Life, and Windshift. We also met another Camano on the loop – Spontaneous.
We took the car and provisioned, made some quick sloppy joes for a late dinner and met up for docktails with other loopers.
This marina is beautiful. The docks are wide and slips have room for a patio table & chairs and golf cart parking.