Waiting for the Fog

October 14

Spent the night at Cuba Landing Marina last night with Looper buddy Wes Litsey and his significant other Amy in a covered slip. No dew to wipe off the boat this morning. Fog will lift by 9 and we can make our 50 mile run to Clifton, Tennessee.
Wes is a real hoot, skin as thick as mine and the bantering never stopped. Great smile that Amy!



Down the dock from Wes’s boat Toscana is his pal Adam and his girlfriend Charmin, yeah like the TP. Think she got teased much growing up?
She has a pretty impressive collection of Jack Daniel’s bottles of which I had never seen, except the Frank Sinatra bottle, which got me to thinking. On board Whisky Business I had a commerative bottle of Jack that I had received about 10 years ago. The honoree was Angelo Lucheissi who went to work for Lem Motlow, who owned the Jack Daniels Distillery before Brown-Forman in 1953. As the story goes, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack drank Jack Daniels but it was a wee bit hard to find on the west coast. Angelo became the source of Lem’s whisky for Sinatra and his possee. Sinatra would refer to Angelo as “The Kid”.
On the auspicious occasion of Angelo’s 90th birthday Jack Daniels produced the bottle Charmin is holding. I had received the bottle as a gift from a friend at B-F and brought it on board WB should any of our guests prefer Tennessee whiskey over the bourbon’s we carrey on board. Since it was such a special bottle it seemed only right that it be included in such a fine collection. So now Angelo’s special bottle has a new home.
With the remnants of Hurricane Delta coming in last weekend we decided to kill 2 birds with one stone. On Thursday I made a Dr appointment in Louisville as my back had been acting up for the first time since surgery last August. Debbie and I rented a car and headed home on Friday and I had my visit with Dr Palmer-Ball. He reminded me I am in my 11th year being a senior citizen. Take Tylonol and Advil throughout the day and quit pestering me! Well maybe not in so many words but you get the picture. To relieve the sting we met the Shircliff’s at Stony River for Manhattans and slabs of beef.
These 2 fabulous boats are the power catamarans Gypsies Palace and One Eye Dog. Yep, Larry and April have a dog on board with only one eye. Does not slow that little dog down one bit. Every long distance cruiser carries a “boatload” of spare parts just in case. A lot of the Loop is in out of the way places. You will cruise for miles without seeing any sign of humanity. We planned to travel with these boats on Monday to Paris Landing Marina. After a few hours underway, One Eye Dog has a spike in the engine temperature in one of her engines. Captain Larry goes into the engine room to investigate and is relieved to just find a broken belt on the engine. He, like the rest of us has spare belts. Upon removing the shroud that covers said belt an engine pulley falls apart spilling it’s ball bearings. Ain’t got one of those in his spares. One Eye Dog is a 2 year old Aquilla Power Cat in the $800K-$1M price range with Volvo diesel engines. A busted pulley? Nobody prepares for that. And, on a 2 year old boat one would certainly not expect that. There is not much around Paris Landing Marina for many miles, but they got the new pulley delivered next day (we hope).
After returning to Green Turtle Bay on Sunday we departed Monday morning with 5 other Looper boats. Just south of GTB is a canal that connects the top of Lake Barkley with Kentucky Lake. The image above is where we crossed our wake when returning from the Loop on October 28th of last year. If you scroll down the blog posts to that date in 2019 you will see the same photo only with WB heading in the opposite direction.

Carey and Keri Garber, a wonderful couple we met in Delaware City last year are driving down to Winchester, Tn to hook up with our other Looper friends Milton and Julie Shafer. They are driving over to Pickwick Lake where we will meet for a few days of laughter. A “drunk front” will probably go through the area at that time. Dammit, I had a great photo of Milton and Julie that I cannot find. Julie is wearing a top that sez, “Momma’s drinkin’ liquor again”. Bloody hysterical!

A few photo’s from our cruise down Kentucky Lake and the Tennessee River
this nest is HUGE! Eagle maybe?
Just before 7 this morning I got this text from Wes. Swell fellow.

2 thoughts on “Waiting for the Fog”

  1. It was great seeing you two again!! As always, nothing but good times! And just as last fall’s travels… all I want to do is continue on with y’all! But not this year! You guys got Amy more excited about the “loop to come one day” than I ever could! Travel safe you two!!! 🙂

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  2. I can’t thank you enough for the amazing bottle. We hope to see you two again, we really enjoyed your company! Safe travels!

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