Retracing our Steps

KG here - full disclosure- I was supposed to write the blog last evening but I was very much under the weather and was unable to do anything that required me to be upright.  I’m happy to report that my immune system worked overtime last night and I was able to fully support our underway trip today from Ditto Landing to the Ingalls Docks in Decatur, AL.  So this will have to cover two days of movement.

We started the day yesterday in Guntersville, AL.  Since it was still below our 40 degree F minimum for moving when we were ready to go, we borrowed our marina’s courtesy car and went out for a hot breakfast.  There we had what will likely be the first of several check-ins for our Great Loop.  We’ve learned a lot about each other so far on the trip: 1. we’re never going to be able to read each other’s minds so we’ve stopped expecting the other one to read ours and that has improved communication greatly. 2. We’ve both accepted that if one of us thinks a job sucks, the other one of us feels the same way and so we have to put on our big girl (or big boy) panties and do our fair share of of the chores/sucky tasks.  And so the vote was 2-0 in favor to keep going on the loop.  We’re looking forward to getting through the rest of the rivers portion of our trip (including 17 more locks) all the way to Mobile, AL so that we can be on the Gulf.

After returning to the boat, we got underway before lunchtime and travelled back down Guntersville Lake to the Guntersville Lock.  We arrived to the lock at the same time as another “Looper” and locked down with them.  The ride was significantly smoother going down as they let water out of the chamber; instead of the water swirling in around us as one is locking up.  We are getting closer to our Rendezvous and so we’re seeing more Loopers along the Tennessee as we are all slated to be in Rogersville, AL on Sunday.

We docked for the night (last night) at Ditto Landing Marina in Huntsville, AL We’ve described this stop previously in the blog and we didn’t learn any additional fun facts, but this time the transient slips were full of Loopers.  The cold overnight temperatures continued last night, but the days are warming up nicely and we were able to take a walk along the river and still get underway before 10:30 with temperatures already in the mid 50’s.

On today’s transit, we got another chance to pass by the Painted Bluffs which marks the end of Merrill Mountain in the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachians. The cliffs seemed to be more spectacular on our way down river. 

That was about the only landmark of note all the way to Decatur, AL. We did arrive here earlier this go around so had a walk into town enjoying parts of one of the three walking tours they have set up and available for download to your phone. Here I am at the tracks of the original railway station. 

And also the street view of the station.

If you’ve been following for some time, you might remember that we stopped at the Ingalls City Docks on our way to Chattanooga also, and were roused out of a sound sleep on that Saturday morning by the sounds of a fishing tournament getting underway.  We didn’t see anything online about a fishing tournament tomorrow (we couldn’t find anything last time after we left) so we thought we’d risk another Saturday morning here. This is a city dock that is free to use but doesn’t have any power or water to hook up to.

More than just the possibility of an early busy harbor, it also looks like we’ll have another cold overnight with temperatures in the 30’s and since we don’t carry a generator, we can only use our electric heater when we are plugged into shore power.  However, we have one last piece of equipment that Tony brought that we haven’t tested - a Little Buddy propane powered heater that he got from an ice-fisherman colleague.  Somehow the idea of using a compressed gas to run a heat source in a boat that can get tossed by wakes from other boats passing quickly seems a bit fraught with peril - so if this is the last blog post to this site, you might want to ask Mrs Google about a “McGregor boat explosion” in Decatur AL.  Just Sayin’