Worth It?

Friday morning. Departure day. Woke up a bit early, made some coffee. Amy made some tea and we had a bagel for breakfast. Cleaned up the dishes, stowed whatever still needed stowing, untied the lines and headed to the fuel dock. Half a tank of diesel later, we were on our way. We’ve been on this part of the river before. Some bittersweet memories of making this trip two years ago, and having to end it for a time. But here we are again, acting on some advice: “you should go…”.

Most of this leg was uneventful. Only passed one tow, but we were passed by several Looper boats. One of the frustrating things of the day was our cruising speed seemed to be roughly what it was before the bottom job. I was expecting a bit better, but sitting in the marina for five months has probably allowed enough algae growth to slow us down. Maybe we can get that cleaned soon.

After the river widened near the Natchez Trace Parkway bridge, we tried to sail a bit. It was a mixed bag. The wind was strong enough to get us up to around 3 mph, but it wasn’t consistent. So after a while we went back to the engine and continued on to our planned anchorage at around 6 mph. The anchorage as it turned out wasn’t a good choice. We were closer to a boat ramp than I realized and the traffic made it unpleasant. So Plan B.

Zippy Cove is just across from Grand Harbor Marina and though a bit narrow, it is well protected from wind in most directions and very quiet. We dropped the anchor in about 13 feet of water, and settled in for the night. Burgers for dinner, a couple of puzzles and it was time for bed.

Except I couldn’t sleep. The frustrations of the day, low speed, poor first anchorage, were bad enough, but then after dark, another boat appeared in the anchorage, shining a spotlight all up and down each bank of the cove. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing, until I saw on a boating app that lets Loopers track each other, that they were a Looper boat. I concluded they were just trying to pick a spot that gave them enough room to swing at anchor. Then, our anchor chain began making noise. I worked out later that it must have been scraping on a rock shelf on the bottom, as you could feel the vibration in the chain as the boat moved in the wind.

At times like this, when you’re still awake at 3:00 am, you wonder “is it worth it?” The answer to that began as the sun was just peeking over the hills of the cove. In the cockpit with a hot cup of coffee, this was what surrounded us.

Beauty. And quiet. Occasionally in the distance you could hear a passing fishing boat or the faint rumble of heavy equipment at an industrial park just down the river, but apart from that, just the wind and infrequent bird songs. Our anchorage neighbor pulled out early, so by 8:00am we had the place to ourselves.

Amy awoke to the smell of baking biscuits. After a couple of morning chores, we weighed the anchor (still 35 lbs) and motored out of the cove and back to the main lake channel. We were going sailing. As we approached, we could see just the right amount of whitecaps on the water ahead. Once we past the last bit of land, our wind instruments read 10 - 14 mph. Perfect. We hoisted sails and reveled in the simultaneous relaxation and exhilaration of sailing. Amy declares that 4 mph sailing is better than 6 mph motoring. We had almost forgotten how well Kotona sails when she is properly balanced.

After a few hours, we set course back to the marina where we had a reservation for the night. We tested out the new autopilot on the way. It worked great. After an uneventful docking, we had a chat with an old acquaintance at the marina, got a bite to eat and settled in for the evening.

Worth it? Yeah.