GTB to Kenlake State Park

Left Green Turtle Bay at 8:50 this morning headed for a marina at Kenlake State Park in Kentucky. It is on the west side of Kentucky Lake. The lake is real wide here, no need to worry about meeting tows. The river is wide enough for many tows to pass. There are two sailing lines (channels) on Kentucky Lake. One goes along the eastern side of the lake and is very wide and deep. The other favors the western side and is a lot more narrow and shallow. It is mainly for small boats and serves the myriad of small marinas on the western side of the lake. You cannot go directly from channel to another. You might run into one of the towns that were submerged when the lake was built. To get from one channel to another, there are marked “secondary channels” that you must take or pay the price!

We came through the Barkley Canal that connects Lake Barkley with Kentucky Lake. We took the first left and followed down the west (wide) side of the lake. We did hear a “securite, securite, on channel 16 warning of demolition at mile 66.2 with some resulting blasting. We were not going that far today but I couldn't help but wonder about the crew of Sno Daz that were running about a day ahead of us. They had spent the night at Kenlake State Park, which would put them going through that area today.

There was a slight drizzle but not enough to bother the driving. It was a little difficult spotting the daymarks with the binoculars because of having to look through the isinglass. It made everything blurry. Not many pictures today either, just not good photo weather.

One thing I noticed about Kentucky Lake as compared to the Mississippi, When the plotter said there should be a red or green Buoy, there was a red or green bouy. I had laid out a course on the plotter from bouy to bouy and they were right on. I probably could have had the autopilot follow the course without any problem! The only problem is that I haven't figured out how to make the autopilot do that yet. I'm still trying to get the plotter to get on the right page when I need it. The autopilot will have to wait. In the meantime, I'll lay out the course for a reference and follow it manually. It's safer that way.

Came under bridge to get to Kenlake Marina

Got to Kenlake State Park around noon. Only went about 18 miles today. Got tied up and hooked up power to find we didn't have any. Tried the 50 amp on the pedestal, no luck. Tried my 2-30 amp to 50 amp smartbox and still no power. Tried another power pedestal, still no luck. So I walked to the marina office to see what I was doing wrong. They were in the dark, literally. A storm the night before had taken out the power lines to the marina. The good news was that the power would be back on in about 15 minutes. They were right! My original 50 amp plug worked fine.

Cindy,s Observations:  This was the same storm that blew our fire out the night before.

Cindy and Pat got the bikes down to go ride through the park. I tried to work on the blog, but the Internet service was terrible, so was my AT&T hotspot on my phone. So I did the next best thing – I took a 2 hour nap!!!

Cindy's Observations:  A very relaxing pace today.  Once powered up, meatloaf was put into the oven to bake while taking a bike ride through the Kenlake State Park.   In the park the first thing I noticed was the abundant crop of poison ivy vines attached to several trees showing lovely fall colors.  We followed the trails on the guide map and  saw the highlights.  We rode for 1 3/4 hours up and down the trails.  A tennis ball found on the ground by the courts  was brought  back for Susie, the harbor masters dog, a dachshund/black lab mix. Mike Ramono the owner of the marina is from Swansea, IL and owns Ramono,s Title Company in Fairview Heights IL.  Susie was happy, I was exhausted and the meatloaf was perfect upon returning to the boat.

Tourist