Pebble Isle Marina, New Johnsonville, TN to Joe Wheeler State Park, Rogersville, AL

After leaving Green Turtle Bay, we headed down Kentucky Lake and on into the Tennessee River towards the site of the Fall Loopers Rendezvous at Joe Wheeler State Park, Rogersville, AL. It would take us four travel days to reach Joe Wheeler State Park.

One of our stops was Pebble Isle Marina in New Johnsonville, TN. This was a sign of things to come as the number of Looper boats is increasing as we draw closer to Joe Wheeler. Six of us stopped Here for the night.

The marina restaurant was normally closed on Monday nights, but because they had so many loopers tied up at their marina, they were kind enough to call in their staff and open the restaurant just for us.

The next morning dawned cool and foggy as we headed out. This was one of the boats that traveled on the same day, though not a Looper boat. It's a 100' yacht named NO VACANCY It is headed to Florida for the winter.

One of the many interesting homes along the Tennessee River.

The Pickwick Lock.

NO VACANCY tied up at the lock.

The next lock we had to transit through was the famous Wilson Lock. This is the largest lock in the U.S., with a change in elevation of 95'. We, along with several other boats had to tie up for three hours to wait our turn.

Just so happened the place I had to tie up to was right next to a Yellow Jacket wasp nest inside one of the bollards. I quietly closed the window on the fly bridge to not disturb them.

Finally, after three hours, we are inside the lock.

It was a fast, rough ride UP the 95'. Apparently the lock master was in a hurry  to get us through and opened the underwater valves all the way. Note the white, bubbling, turbulent water. One of the engineers in the group figured the flow rate as 5,000,000 gallons per minute coming into the lock!

Sara has us tied off on the floating bollards and we are standing by for the ride up.