Green Turtle Bay Days - Days 22-25 - Grand Rivers

Hi folks  ..  sorry we've been delinquent in blogging  .. we're still in GTB  .. enjoying the resort.   We're on Lake Barkley (then there's the Land Between the Lakes or LBL) and on the other side is Kentucky Lake.  These lakes are big (44 miles long).  There's not much activity on either lake now (late Oct.), but I'm sure it bustles in the summertime.   Unlike the rivers, the lakes are clean.   There is a land crossover that we can walk in about 20 minutes to go back and forth between the lakes.  On a dingy, it's a long ride to the other side.    So here we are with our masthead (Kodi) touring the north side of the GTB resort.

  

Kodi our Masthead



These are GTB timeshares on Lake Barkley that can be rented. 

The weather has been super.   Since we left Oct. 3, we had 21 consecutive days of perfect weather.  Then, for a change, it rained on Sunday and Monday and stormed on Tuesday.  Today, 10/27 it's once again sunny and 77 degrees.   Just lovely.

Storm clouds on Sunday

Wed. through Sun., the Yacht Club at GTB serves dinner.   (See last blog)  However, considering this is a "dry" county, the bar at the Yacht Club is always crowded?    Seems that you can bring your bottle of Jack Daniels, etc. or wine, if you'd prefer, and give it to the bartender.  He puts it on a shelf with your name and member number and then you can ask him for as many drinks as you'd like.   And people at the bar like a lot of drinks!

Monday and Tuesday nights we got the courtesy car and went to the movies in Paducah (30 miles one way).    Like other small towns, the cinema is at the mall .. not in the downtown area.   We went to see "Hereafter," the new Clint Eastwood movie with Matt Damon, which we thought was terrific.  We were surprised, however, at how few people were at the 7 PM show.

That's Diana before the other 6 people arrived

On Tuesday, we saw "Social Network" about Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerburg.   I'm not sure how much is fact and how much is fiction, but we did enjoy the movie.

Tuesday afternoon, Les found out there was a place in Grand Rivers where he could get his haircut.  Kodi and I walked over with him.    The shop is in a tiny pink cottage.   The owner/operator is Janice Kaye.    Janice is adorable and speaks with the mild southern drawl from Kentucky.   She did a great job on Les' hair, so I asked her if she'd cut my hair too.  Well, a while later I was liberated from long hair and feeling real good about it!

Today (Wednesday), Les has been working hard (very hard) on cleaning the silt out of the sea strainers, which we picked up on the Mississippi (aka, the Big Muddy) and in shallow water on the Illinois; especially at the IVY Club and Tall Timbers Marina.

Engine and generator sea strainers.  They had some mud

Side Story: Charlevoix is our favorite destination on Lake Michigan and one we have done many times despite a 650 mile round trip.  The photo below is of a large boat house on Round Lake that we have long admired.

Massive boat house on Round Lake

On Monday, Les walked up to a boat with a Charlevoix hailing port on the transome and started the conversation with "Charlevoix is our favorite port."  Les and the owner got to talking about Charlevoix and, guess what, he discovers he is talking to the owner of the boat house; John Winn.  Further he discovers that John is one of the four Winn brothers who founded Four Winns; a major boat manufactuer.

The story gets even more interesting.  Turns out John, who was "driving" a late model Silverton Sadan Bridge, also stopped at the IVY club for fuel and overnight dockage.  Recall that we also bought fuel and stayed there two nights.  The photo below shows Guided Discovery just east of the fuel dock (red dock just in front of our boat).

Guided Discovery tied to starboard just east of the fuel dock

We churned up alot of mud as we pulled into the fuel dock and still more as we moved the boat west to stay for the night (Note: Hence the need to clean the sea strainers).  We were told by the marina folks that it was a sandy bottom.  Turns out John was told the same thing and pulled in as we did to a starboard tie.  However, for some reason he needed to turn the boat around and in the process of docking to port (or facing west) his starboard prop struck a rock (that was not suppose to be there).  Well, $6,000 later and a 20 minute tale of woe with many chapters (too complicated to re-tell), he was sitting at the GTB dock with new props but, unfortunately, still had a vibration between 1,200 and 1,400 RPMs.  Bottom Line: We were just plain lucky.

Written by Diana and Les