Day 87 – Hales Bar Marina to Island Cove Marina, Chickamauga Lake - October 1, 2011

What an awesome section of the river today.  The stretch from Hales Bar Marina to Chattanooga is known as the “Grand Canyon of the Tennessee”.  While that may be a bit exaggerated, everyone agrees that this is some of the most stunning scenery to be found anywhere on the river.  There is a section of the river where the depth finder shows water as deep as 135 feet.  One reason for this extreme depth is that the river follows an ancient earthquake fault.  Before Nickajack Dam was built there is a portion of the river near this deep water where many accidents happened.  Early boatmen thought the boiling and swirling water reminded them of food being cooked, so they named the various places “The Pan”, “The Skillet”, “The Pot”, and “The Suck”.  We actually waited in “The Pan” for a tow with barges to pass through a narrow section of the river before we passed him.  Our chart of Lake Nickajack shows two other places with “fun” names – in between “the Pot” and “The Suck” is a place called “Deadman Eddy” (we just love that!) and after “The Suck” is “Tumbling Shoals”.

We passed by Lookout Mountain just before arriving in Chattanooga.  Again this is a place we have been where we have looked longingly toward the water from shore, knowing that soon we would be on that water ourselves.

We passed through Chattanooga today as well.  There are some free city docks where you can tie up for the night in Chattanooga.  Unfortunately there has been some vandalism to boats at these docks, so instead of taking the chance that we would have a problem we decided to go through Chickamauga Lock and stay at a marina in Lake Chickamauga.  The plan is to rent a car and visit the city that way. 

            Miles: 45.9      Bridges: 6        Locks: 1

this barge with the curved roof is the "Coca-Cola Stage" that's towed to
Chattanooga to serve as the centerpiece for the city's annual River Bend Festival -
it is stored near Hales Bar Marina when not in use

beautiful rocky bluffs

you can't beat calm water, green hills, rock bluffs and fluffy white clouds

we are a bit early still for fall colors, but these maples were already
showing their red leaves

looking back at "Deadman Eddy" - it doesn't look dangerous now, but you never know

Lookout Mountain

Lookout Mountain with Highway 24 at its base

Looking back at Chattanooga and its bridges. The bridge in the foreground is
a pedestrian bridge.  It was originally built in 1909 but in the mid-1990's declared
unsafe for modern traffic.  The Chattanooga citizens rallied to save the bridge
and caused it to be converted into a pedestrian bridge.

sunset from our dock at Island Cove Marina - you don't have to be at
anchor to see a magnificant evening sky