- 29.1 miles
- 4 hours 20 minutes (not counting 3 hours anchored above Kentucky Lock waiting for the okay to lock through and an hour waiting to get in marina)
- 6.7 mph average speed
- 7-11 mph winds
Five of us Loopers had to drop the anchor for three hours to wait for the commercial traffic to lock through Kentucky Lock.
When we were finally able to enter the lock, Perfect Match had to go to the very front about 4-5 feet from the lock wall. Kentucky Lock is huge and it was a little scary at first to be so close to the front of the lock but it was also thrilling to watch as the water rose to lift the boats some 57′. This is the second largest lock we will transit. The largest lock we will transit is the 84′ Whitten Lock where we will be in a couple of weeks.
Green Turtle Bay, which overlooks beautiful Lake Barkley, is a wonderful marina and a Looper favorite. There were over 30 Loopers docked at Green Turtle Bay when we were there. In addition to the 450 slip marina, there are three restaurants, a spa, a ship’s store, an indoor swimming pool and lovely vacation rentals. They have a courtesy van and golf carts as well as a shuttle that will take guests anywhere on the compound or to the town of Green Rivers which is about a mile away. We had lunch at The Thirsty Turtle after we arrived on Thursday, a wonderful Prime Rib dinner at the Commonwealth Yacht Club on Friday night and breakfast at Dockers on the Bay on Saturday. We enjoyed riding our bikes around the beautiful compound and to the town of Grand Rivers.
We saw deer each time we went for a bike ride.
Saturday was spent doing some boat cleaning, watching Ohio State beat Rutgers 49-10 and a bike ride to town for ice cream.
On Sunday, we took a golf cart to town and walked around Patti’s 1880’s Settlement which is a recreated historical log cabin village.
We stopped in Calvin Swine’s Moonshine & More for a moonshine tasting. This boutique liquor store was named by Patti’s husband, Bill, who had a pig named Calvin that he used to dress up, put on his leash and walk around the town of Grand Rivers and to the grocery store. He used to brag that Calvin liked to “down a little shine” in the evening. There were seven flavors of moonshine for us to choose from, four of them were inspired from the restaurant’s award-winning pies.
We went to dinner at Patti’s 1880’s Settlement on Sunday night with Never Land, Nice Landing and Gypsy. Patti’s was voted #1 for the Southern Living Magazine’s Readers Choice Award for Best Small Town Restaurant in the Southeast U.S. We had their famous 2′ thick Pork Chops and Flowerpot Bread. We both had enough Pork Chops left over to have for dinner the next night!
