Start: River Mile: 650
Finish: River Mile: 629
Day Total: 21.7
Trip Total: 21.7
Launched this morning at 10:30am just up stream on the French Broad river, about a mile from the Tennessee. Christina and I met Jon me at the boat ramp and hung out with us for 45 minutes while I got my boat loaded. I’m always amazed how bad I am at making things fit the first couple days of a long trip. I end up with more crap in my cockpit than I’d like. The good news is, I didn’t have to leave anything behind and the food bags will just get smaller in the coming days.
It was beautiful paddling through Knoxville, we passed the University of Tennessee Vols football stadium on river right. Almost immediately we were going into a pretty strong headwind, steady at 10mph and gusting at 20mph, Ugg! It was going to be a long day.
At 2:00 we pulled into a secluded spot in the lee of the wind, and got out of our boats for lunch. PB & J on an everything bagel was just what the doctor ordered to give me some fuel for the miles ahead.
More miles, more wind. Around 4:00 even though we had only gone 17 miles, we started looking for a place to camp. We came across the Knoxville Boat Club and pulled into check it out. The place was obviously still closed for the season. We looked around, no sign of life. No phone number to call. Just at email address on their web site. We thought we can probably stay here, we had done this countless times on the Mississippi River. Well as luck would have it, just as we were unloading our boats, and “Member” showed up. We explained our situation and were told in no uncertain terms that “this is a private club, for members only. We were welcome to apply for membership but there was a waiting list.” So, we loaded our boats and wearily got back on the river.
Did I mention the wind, still in our face 95% of the time, was brutal! At that point in the day it’s just Paddle, Paddle, Paddle, one paddle stroke at the time. Don’t stop or you will be blown backwards.
As river luck would have it, I had contacted a river angel, Bradford Collet and he was very helpful. Before we got the the spot he had told us about, we found a boat ramp on George’s Creek. The ramp was no good for camping, too busy. But just across on a small wooded island we found an ok camping spot. We learned long ago that we can make any place feel like home once our tents are up, we have a hot meal in our bellies and a glass of bourbon in our hand. That is the part that makes all the hard paddling of the day worth while.
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