Saturday July 28

Is it really raining?  Nickajack Lake - "Grand Canyon of the Tennessee"

It's five o'clock somewhere - party cove Nickajack Lake - Tennessee River

 Nickajack Lake - Grand Canyon of the Tennessee

Seventeen miles past Huntsville we exited Wheeler Lake and entered the Guntersville Lock.  It is here exiting the lock, that the Tennessee River views really begin to change.  This expanse of water between bluffs and forested hills is quite lovely.  Guntersville Lake is about two miles wide and runs a length of 76 miles.  It is the second largest lake in the Tennessee River - only Kentucky Lake is bigger.
While beautiful, it is also home to the nation's largest gray bat population.  Three caves in this area have the correct environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity in which the gray bat can survive.  Some 40,000 to 60,000 bats can live in each cave.  At dusk, thousands fly from the caves to feed on insects - we did not stick around to see them.

Guntersville Lake - Tennessee River

At the far end of Guntersville Lake you can see both sides of the Sequatchie Valley, one of two rift valleys in the world - the other is the Great Victoria Valley in Africa.  Both were created by the earth's surface literally splitting apart.  The valley is more than 125 miles long, but never more than five miles wide.
Our final lock was Nickajack where we entered the narrow 46-mile long Lake Nickajack.  This stretch of the river to Chattanooga is known as the "Grand Canyon of the Tennessee."  While that may be a bit of an exaggeration, the scenery was some of the best we have seen on the river.
Soon the gray clouds overhead cut loose and we found ourselves actually needing to use the windshield wipers - a rare occurrence these days.  This was our turning around point - we would now retrace our route back to Lake Pickwick and the entrance to the Tenn-Tom Waterway.
Our intentions were to spend the night at the Hales Bar Nickajack Marina - but with a lukewarm response to our request for a slip, we decided to head further down the river and knock off a few more miles.
At the Goose Pond Colony Marina on Guntersville Lake we called  it a day.  It was 6:30 pm and we had traveled 200 miles.  Located at the marina was a relaxed, low key restaurant reputed to be one of the best on the river.  With a house specialty of shrimp and grits, it did not disappoint.