Clifton Marina

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 176 - September 23, 2017

We left Rockport Landing at 7:30 a.m. since we needed to go more than 50 miles today to Clifton Marina. This means get up early, a quick trip to shore for Baxter while Patty makes the coffee, one cup of coffee and a piece of toast, pull the anchor and get underway! The second cup of coffee has to wait until we are motoring up the Tennessee.

Underway I called the Clifton Marina and made a reservation. It can be chancy calling on the same day you want to stay at a marina, but the lady said it would be no problem and they could accommodate us.

There is not a lot to see along the banks but there was this one interesting house WAY up on top of a rock cliff!

House on top of cliff on Tennessee River

We ran the whole way at a faster RPM than we usually do, and paid the price in fuel consumption! We usually do something on the order of 1 gph to achieve about 6.7 mph. To save an hour, we booted it up to 7.5 - 7.7 mph, which put us right around 2 gph. So the extra one mile per hour cost us pretty much an extra gallon per hour. Still, the big boats wish they had our fuel budget! 

When we got to Clifton Marina, it seemed as though they were overwhelmed with several boats coming in at more or less the same time. When I first radioed in, they said they would have someone direct us and catch our lines. When we got inside the Clifton Harbor, they told us to go to "the end of A dock." I asked for a slip number but was told the slips have no numbers.  So, being quite literal, I proceeded past the beginning of A dock to the end of A dock, only to find that there were no open slips there. I radioed again, and he said to tie up on the outside right under the big "A"! Not to quibble but that is the "beginning" of A dock, not the "end" of A dock! Well, I guess that was ONE end of A dock, but he could have told me that right off! I  had to do a little tricky maneuver at the far end to get turned around in a pretty narrow fairway, which I managed to do and get back out from the "end "of A dock to the "beginning" of A dock where we tied up. Oh, well!

We had a little excitement shortly after we got there. Three women in a runabout let one of them off at the dock next to the boat ramp, and she promptly fell in!  I went down to help her back up onto the dock, but all she wanted was for me to bring her shoes to the steep rock bank! The other ladies were yelling "Let him help you get out," but she wanted none of it. I brought her shoes to her at the water's edge, and she finally managed to get out. We then watched the ladies try to get the boat onto the trailer. The boat went on, the truck started up, the truck came back down, the boat floated off. Repeat over and over. This went on for half an hour so so, and they had not succeeded when we went to dinner! We are guessing some alcohol had been involved!

There were several other Loopers there, including Dennis and Dana on Pharm Life, Gail and Bob on The Good Life, and Scott and K.C. on Jet Stream. We all had dinner on the marina's patio. The marina restaurant had a very limited menu, but we all had the shrimp basket which was pretty good. Fries only, no coleslaw, potato salad or other side! Choice of beverage apparently was ice tea, sweetened or unsweetened!

The three ladies must have finally succeeded in loading the boat, since when we went back to Daydream after dinner, the truck, trailer, boat and ladies were all gone!

Tomorrow we move on to Pickwick Landing Lock and Pickwick Lake! This will mark the end of our journey on the Tennessee and the beginning of the Tenn-Tom Waterway!