Night before last, walked to the Thirsty Turtle for a beer.  Really beautiful tavern along the resort in Grand Rivers.

Went into Paducah (in McCracken County) last night for dinner at The Freight House, a farm to table restaurant which came highly recommended.  It did not disappoint!  The best meal of the night was the burger, resplendent with pork belly and fried egg:

Place had over 200 bourbons and whiskeys, and made a mean cocktail!

Beautiful drive after a Thunderstorm to Paducah across the Tennessee River:

Thunderstorms the past few days.  Weather forecast looked pretty good today to take off.  About 7:00am, sky looked pretty ominous.  Around 8:00, looked a bit better, and the radar looked more promising.  Decided to take off at 9:00.  Went to the fuel dock and pumped out our head (the less than fancy part of boating).  Departed GTB at 9:30.  Had a decent wind out of the North which we figured would be a good thing as we were traveling south.

Had Heartbeat buddy boating with us which is always awesome.

Super funky seas as the recent rains had elevated the water levels of the area lakes significantly and the dam’s spillways were working overtime to lessen the levels.   We were running against the current, but with a super weird following sea of very confused, short-period quartering waves.

Lots of eagles around here.

Had decided with the crew of Heartbeat that we would anchor for the night somewhere en route to Pebble Isle Marina, which is storied to be one to visit.

Dropped the hook in Dry Fork Bay in Tennessee.  Beautiful anchorage that we are sharing with 3 other boats (to include Heartbeat), all of whom are doing the Loop.  After we set our anchor, Mike and I hopped in our dingy and went over to Heartbeat with a bottle of champers to celebrate our first true leg of the Loop.  A couple bottles in, the folks from the other two boats in the harbor came over to say hello.  One couple has been doing the Loop since ’16; the other, the past 7 months.  Really nice folks.

Stunning anchorage.  Fun to look out at Heartbeat which is the color Forever Friday was prior to our paint job a couple years ago.

 

Weather depending, plan tomorrow is to head further south to mile marker 96 to Pebble Isle Marina.  Will see.

M&M