Wednesday, July 18

Green Turtle Bay Marina & CYC

Cocktail hour - CYC

Commonwealth Yacht  Club - Green Turtle Bay

The Land Between the Lakes, or LBI as it is locally known, with Lake Barkley to the east and Kentucky Lake to the west, is the largest inland peninsula in the United States.  Created with the damming of the Tennessee River & the Cumberland River, it was officially designated a National Recreation Area by President Kennedy in 1963.  It is approximately 80 miles long and comprises 170,00 acres of wilderness.
The parkland provides many recreational opportunities ranging from fishing, kayaking, camping, hiking and biking - truly a great playground in the heartland.
Paducah is a community that we passed on the Cumberland River and many times on I-24 while traveling to Nashville (during Kristin's college years) and Florida.  It's the kind of place that you might stop for gas, a quick meal or at a roadside inn - you never actually see the community.

Flood wall - Paducah, Ky.

It happens to be the regional commercial hub for this area and we found ourselves headed there to re-provision the boat, i.e. get some wine.  It actually has quite a nice downtown, notably the riverfront where the flood wall features a series of hand painted murals depicting a variety of river scenes.
Our evening was spent at the Commonwealth Yacht Club, located in the middle of our marina and a reciprocal member of the American Yacht Clubs.  The members were entertaining and very welcoming and our dinner of lobster tempura (in Kentucky?) absolutely delicious - our kind of place.  It is BYOB, just like the Ritz used to be, lockers & all.