Down the Tennessee

October 9, 2014

Again, the early risers.  We continued our trip down the Tennessee River.  As we traveled, we would see these enclaves of huge, beautiful homes.  One of the guide books we read noted that with charts and mile markers, you know exactly where you are on the river. However you have no idea how that relates to the land!  So we don’t have a clue where these communities are!

Mansions on the river

 We thought we would share with you our basic navigational tool…the chart.  We have a GPS that tracks where we are electronically. But we also use paper charts. They aren’t very high tech, and that’s a good thing. 

So here is a picture of our chart.  Some are better than others, but this is a page of the chart book that is guides us down the Tennessee River.  We use Tim’s multi-tool that we use to keep track of our progress and hold down the page in a breeze.



Tennessee River chart

 It provides us with a sailing line…where the channel is.  Also gives us a pretty good indication of what is coming up. 

The facing page tells us the bridge clearances, and how high the power lines are. Sea Fever requires 45 feet to clear bridges and power lines.  This isn’t usually a problem, but water levels vary considerably and quickly on the waterways depending on the weather. As we said in a previous blog…we just don’t look up when passing under a bridge.  It doesn’t help!

As a side note, all sailboats coming down from Lake Michigan on the Illinois River have to step (take down) their masts to get through Chicago. Since they won’t be sailing until they get to the Gulf of Mexico, many just ship their mast down to Mobile. So there a quite a few Looper sailboats travelling without a mast for whom clearances are not important issue. 

While we were enjoying the lovely day on the Tennessee River, trouble reared its ugly head. Our ever dependable Yanmar diesel motor suddenly began to lose power. Tim pushed the throttle forward to give it more fuel and the motor responded. But it never seemed to settle into its normal hum.

We headed for our marina for the night, Clifton Marina, in Clifton TN and got Sea Fever tied up.  Tim figured the fuel filter could be the cause of the Yanmar’s malaise and got to work replacing the fuel filter. The filter was rather dirty. With the new filter in place, the Yanmar seemed to be running better so our engine troubles were apparently over.

While Tim worked on the engine, Kathy got directions to the Savanah Walmart Superstore from an old salt. She also arranged to use the courtesy car and met several other Midwesterners who were also on the “loop”.

Later that evening, we unpacked the groceries, and headed to sleep.