Clifton, Tennessee to Safe Harbor Aqua Yacht Marina in Iuka, Mississippi on Pickwick Lake

On Wednesday, October 22 we left Clifton Marina around 8:30 (after the fog lifted). We traveled with another looper boat, Current Obsession, in hopes of getting through Pickwick Lock together. This worked out well and there was no wait for Pickwick Lock! It was a little tricky, though, with a strong wind and a 55 foot lift but we made it through! After the lock we were in a wide part of the Tennessee River called Pickwick Lake. This is another beautiful location and we continued on to Safe Harbor Aqua Yacht Marina. The marina is in Mississippi, but on the way we were on the border of 3 states: Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama! After realizing the covered slip was a little low for us, we landed in a slip on uncovered Dock D. This is a large marina with docks from A through H and several piers have around 80 slips on each. Having an uncovered dock is great for us because we can use our Starlink internet so we were happy! We had dinner at their restaurant, Earl's Grille. They are very welcoming to Loopers and have created t-shirts for us and they have a white board for the 2025 Loopers to add their name and boat card! Tim and I also celebrated 1000 miles so far (hard to believe) with a bottle of Caymus wine that his coworkers gave him when he retired!

Monday we waited for the props to be done so took a walk and got a few photos of fall colors and a blue heron. Peden's Prop Shop finally called at 4:00 so we borrowed a car from the service department at the marina to go pick them up! Hoyt, the owner, invented the amazing machine that straightens props. Only one of ours needed it but they inspected and sand-blasted both of them. We had to wait until Tuesday for the service department to pull our boat and put them back on. They have a pontoon that they use to push boats around like ours that have no props. That was how they got us back to our slip and then how they returned us to the lift. It was interesting and a little nerve-racking actually. However, we were very happy to be back up and running and waited for the rain to end the next day, Wednesday, to head out. More on heading down the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in the next blog!

On Thursday, we had some required maintenance done on our boat. It had been 600 hours since we had an oil change so we had that done and also had the impellers changed. We also had new zincs put on which will serve us well when we get to salt water. On Friday, the service department lifted our boat (with us in it which was kind of fun) to inspect the propellers. We had noticed a vibration on the port engine over 1700 rpms since we left Pebble Isle. As suspected, one of the props had some bent blades. This most likely occurred on the way into Pebble Isle a few days ago where we must have run into a little more than a "pebble". The good news is that we are very close to an expert prop shop, "Peden's" in Iuka, MS. We loaded the props into the courtesy van and took both props for repair and calibration, and then had breakfast at Cream and Sugar in historic downtown Iuka. Peden's said they would probably be done by Monday. Saturday we took a courtesy car to Savannah, Tennessee on a Walmart run and then had dinner near the marina at Freddy Ts. in Counce, Tennessee. They had live music and the stage was a converted boat. Sunday brought church, rest, and the forecasted rain.