8 Nov 2019 Heading South on the Great Loop.

Three tows, two big bridges, 8.5 engine hours and 51 SM traveled today.

What a chilly if not right well cold aboard Serenity this morning.  25 degrees outside as we got up and made coffee.  Fortunately, we remain connected to shore power and had the little electric heater going and eventually, was above 50 in the galley.  We would have enjoyed spending another couple of days at Green Turtle Bay, but this fabulous marina with excellent facilities is not free.  Also we want to get heading south.  So at 0700 began preparations for getting under way.  I wanted to remove some of the extra dock lines I had put on before the rain.  Yep, frozen this morning.  A lot of twisting and pushing/pulling I was finally able to get the frozen lines off/reposition.

Frozen deck lines

Second, the shore power cord is pretty thick yellow cord for 30 amp service—-it will not coil up either when it is 25 degrees.  There was ice on the dock, boat and gangplanks making for a slippery morning.  It was sunny, light breeze from the NW as we got underway at 0802.  We are headed south.  Temp outside a balmy 32 while helm station 45.

Cruising downstream on the Cumberland we enjoyed going with the flow, today we faced into the current.  Same 1850 RPM but our SOG dropped to 6.0-6.5 MPH.  Today was our longest in terms of engine hours.  It really was quite beautiful with clear blue sky and bright sun.   Passed a couple in an open cockpit sailboat with the mast down.  Back of boat said Minnesota--guess it was not that cold for them.  Sail boats have to drop their masts on portions of the Great Loop.

They probably started from the Great Lakes

It warmed into the mid 70s at the helm station.  Engine heat plus solar made it very comfortable.  Not as many birds as we anticipated.  We hate to be cruising past such great little coves with excellent anchorages and gravel bars to walk on and explore, but we are racing to beat the next really cold cold front on the way.  Saw so many places we would have liked to stop and explorer.

We arrived in our anchorage within Leatherwood creek at MM 73.5  (map) Good anchor set in 11 feet of water.  Watched the sun set, closing a pretty good day.    Lesson learned:  I calculated today’s travel time at 7 MPH knowing we might have a current.  Took 45 minutes longer.   Will recalculate tomorrow’s ETE.  Boat and crew did well.