First Day on the Tennessee River

We had a nice get-together last night with Joyce and Bill from Carried Away. We hadn't seen them since the Illinois River...nice to know we all made it safely down the MS and up the Ohio!

When we came back from Nashville, we ended up going NW on Lake Barkley for quite a distance. Now we are on Kentucky Lake heading SE.

You can see Lake Barkley to the east and Kentucky Lake to the west in this Google Earth picture. The blue dot is Snow Cat docked at Green Turtle Bay Marina. Today, Saturday, we went through the Barkley Canal, just a mile from Green Turtle, from Lake Barkley on the Cumberland River to Kentucky Lake and the Tennessee River. For about the next 40 miles, the entire east side of Kentucky Lake is known as the Land Between the Lakes or LBL, the green, undeveloped area in the picture.
 According to Fred Myers, this spine of land up to 8 miles wide, which separates Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake, is one of the nation's largest inland peninsulas. LBL was created in 1963 by President Kennedy as a recreational and environmental education area. It has a special appeal to boaters because of its undeveloped shoreline, secluded coves, and wildlife including bald eagles, deer, and wild turkey. The shoreline of Kentucky Lake alone is longer than the entire west coast of the US!!!

Lakes formed along the river when the TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority, which was created by President Roosevelt in 1933 as part of his New Deal, built dams across the river to provide electric power and resource development to the people of the Tennessee Valley, most of whom were economically destitute, and also to control flooding. These dams made the river navigable and have locks to lift or lower boats. There are nine dams along the 650 length of the Tennessee River. However, in creating the lakes behind the dams, many farms and towns were flooded and destroyed. We read that shortly after we came out of the Barkley Canal, we were passing close to the underwater remains of the village of Birmingham, just SW of the marked channel. 

 The mile long Barkley Canal

 We call this the Bridge to Nowhere. We had an easy day on the Tennessee River. The channel is very wide and well-marked, and passing tows is easy.

 We decided to come to Pebble Isle Marina for two nights since T-storms and high winds are forecast for  tomorrow. Plus, their diesel fuel is $3.99/gal, the cheapest we have seen in a LONG time. 

We walked to this state park this afternoon and hope to go back tomorrow with the courtesy car. There is so much Civil War history along the rivers in KY and TN.