Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley

July 2017 we towed Cloud Nine 450 miles to Paris Landing state park on Kentucky Lake. I had previously called to verify that we could leave our rig parked there for 2 weeks while we cruised. When we got there the dock master advised us that we had been misinformed. After discussion he let us disconnect the trailer and park it and the truck right out in-front of the Marina Office. We spent 1 night at Paris Landing Marina and started our cruise the following day.

Once we got going, one of the first things we saw was this huge empty barge that looked like it was the size of a Cruise ship.  I couldn't figure out what it was until we had gotten closer. There was lots of wildlife and beautiful scenery

Some of the views from our various anchorages were amazing. Sunsets on the water are always beautiful. Our first anchorage did not disappoint

About halfway through out cruise we stayed at Green Turtle Bay in Grand Rivers, Kentucky. They had very nice air conditioned bathroom suites that were a great pleasure after many days on the hook.

It was so hot while we were there that the entire town lost power. We were almost ready to leave and anchor out so we could run our generator when the power came back on.

Another beautiful sunset from the next anchorage we stayed at. 

Lake Barkley\Cumberland River unlike Kentucky lake has a much narrower meandering channel and can go from 50' to 1' in depth very quickly.  Most of the safely accessible anchorages on Lake Barkley are on the opposite side from the "Land Between the Lakes"

Early morning leaving from Prizer Point Marina for a 75 mile run to Clarksville. We had been wanting to take up to 2 weeks on the cruise, but the temperature and humidity were horrible so we decided to do a long run to our next marina stay in Clarksville. Tried to close up the boat and run the generator in the cockpit so we could run the ac but we only got a few miles before both of our CO detectors went off😞

There are lots of bluffs as you get closer to Clarksville. Don't think they have to worry much about flooding all the way up there. 

Our Last stop was Clarksville Marina, it is a brand new top notch facility. Clarksville is my original hometown and I was very happy to see them build this Marina. After a little more than a week and approx. 150 miles on the water, my niece who lives in Clarksville drove us the 50 miles by land back to Paris Landing to retrieve my rig. Would love to do again sometime when it is not quite so hot. 

We found the anchorages that we used with ActiveCaptain, what a great resource.

I created the map below showing our route and anchorages. 

Spring 2017 Modifications

One of the members of the Yahoo group came up this idea for extra storage. I modified his idea and built this storage cabinet. This uses what is essentially  unused space and provides a good deal  of extra storage.

Any extra storage on a boat is always a plus. The angles were pretty fun to match. The louvered doors were available online. The lower shelf is also very useful and is easily removed to access the anchor locker

We replaced our kitchen sink and faucet. I decided to replace the short galley faucet with the long gooseneck. It sure makes it a lot easier to wash dishes.

I found NMEA 2000 cables that connect directly to the twin Yamaha's. They send information from the outboard's computers to the NMEA 2000 network and allow me to use our Garmin 5212 to view fuel flow, alternator output, water temp, speed, hours, rpm etc.

Bought a king size 8" memory foam mattress and used the existing v-berth cushion to layout a pattern to cut the foam. Used a cheap electric knife to actually cut the foam. Apparently I should have bought a less "cheap" knife as I burned out the plastic gears. Sailrite sells all you need to do a much more efficient job, all it takes is money.

This should be a whole lot more comfortable than the existing cushions.

Got sick of not knowing how full our fresh water and black water tanks were, so I installed the Sensa Tank II level sensors and display. The black water tank was pretty easy to mount the sensors on. The fresh was a bit more of a challenge. Reaching down through the access hatch and attaching the sensors would be easier with longer, skinnier arms. Sure is nice to be able to check the levels, so you don't get a rude surprise.

Bought a hotel style safe at Harbor Freight and mounted it above the hanging locker. Great for stashing wallet, boat registration, SD cards for the chartplotters.

The previous owner had painted the Armstrong brackets with Copper based bottom paint. Unfortunately this can cause major corrosion and had started some serious pitting. I stripped the brackets to bare metal, sprayed with zinc chromate and then primer and topped off with white enamel.

We will see how it holds up.

I did some tailoring of our 2 shower surrounds to make our privacy surround more aesthetically pleasing and functional.  I was quoted over $2000 for someone to make a surround for us. I made ours for under $300. Leaves me money for other boat projects 😁