Day 7 – 10/10/23

Starting location: Green Turtle Bay Marina, KY

Weather: Sunny, low 70s

Ending location: Anchoring in Fords Bay, KY

Statute miles: 30 miles

General summary: We had a “fork in the road” decision to make. Do we continue southward or make a side trip to see The Great Smoky Mountains National Park? We may never get so close again and were approaching peak season for fall color, so decided to head for the park. Regardless of how you do it, you can’t get there entirely by boat, so we’d have find a secure place to moor the boat, rent a car, and find a place to stay for a bit. Totally do-able, just costly. We could either turn West into the Cumberland River, cross one lock, and motor 192 miles to Nashville, then drive 3.5 hours to the park OR go South on the Tennessee, turn East 244 miles off the Loop, cross 7 locks, and stop in Knoxville which is an hour drive to the park. Since we would have to rent a car either way, we chose Nashville. We left the marina and motored to an inlet called Ford’s Bay that looked like it had potential for a good anchorage and has a nice trail on land in the Land Between the Lakes State Park. Anchored in 12 feet of water in a nice cove out of the way of barge wake. Took dinghy to shore and hiked the 7 mile loop, after bushwhacking a bit to find it. Ran into a single person on horseback and later a large group on horseback. All were very concerned, on seeing us, that we had lost our horses. I guess most people don’t do this trail on foot. Highly recommend it. Grilled steak, corn, asparagus for dinner. Had the cove entirely to ourselves all night. Very relaxing and quiet. Great starry night.

Boater information:

1. This book was highly recommended to us by a local for Cumberland River information. We couldn’t get it in time, but will leave the information:

2. Ford’s Bay information

3. Use All Trails to find information about Wrangler’s Campground Trail