Normally Laura is the main driver behind the Sparkling Star leaving at first light because she loves the sunrises on the water. When we had arrived at Ditto Landing, she had left for her walk when the other boat discussed what time to leave in the morning so that everyone would reach the lock at the same time. Ted shared that we always leave at first light, and some of the other boats reluctantly agreed to leave that early. However, when Laura returned from her walk she didn't know or ask about the conversation with the other Loopers. Because the day had been so long the day before, she didn't rush Ted to get up early to go. However she saw boats leaving early. We continued to go through our process. While the engines were warming up, she went to go see a friend who she saw was up early and doesn't really like to and excitedly greeted her about the mornings journey. She looked startled and said something Laura couldn't hear through the engine noise.
Come to find out later, all the boats were confused why we weren't moving first and why Laura was walking around when we should have left. And Laura was wishing we had left earlier. Leaving just 15 minutes later meant we missed the best pictures on the water. We all chuckled quite a bit about the confusion.
Although the sun was higher than our normal departure, we still got some beautiful pictures of this picturesque trip.
In the end, we had to speed up to reach the lock with everyone else. Because of our later start, we needed to increase speed here so Ted took all the pictures of the Painted Bluff rocks and Laura didn't get to see them. Because our trip to Chattanooga is a side trip, we will retrace our steps and have another chance to take more pictures coming from the other direction which will be downstream next time.
Ted tied us higher on the ballard for this lock because he couldn't reach the lower ballard easily.
We had disnificant turbulance in this lock. Laura turned on the engines and had to engage them in forward and reverse to secure to the wall. Another looper said they broke a pole trying to push off the lock wall.
After leaving the lock, Ted secures all our fenders.
Laura likes to take pictures of our boat at each marina.
We were positioned across our good friends on Finito. We met them on one of our first stops on the Loop at Havre de Grace in the Chesapeake. They have the same boat as our friends from Prince William Yacht Club and our training captain on Blessed.
We now have a picture of the crews of Sparkling Star and Blessed.
We ate at the Docks at Goose Pond marina. The food was excellent, but the views were spectacular.
Laura kept getting up from our conversations to take yet another sunset picture at the colors changed.
We also got a suprise visit from our friends on Jewel that wanted to come to the area to sight see but were unable to get through the Wilson lock after waiting 3 days.
The last time Laura saw them was when she was unable to get on the plane to leave Drummond Island. So great to see them again!
Stay: 2 nights
Pros: Helpful staff, courtesy car, laundry, clean showers, great grounds to walk around
Cons: Shallow windy entrance & Ants, (We got ants on our boat for the first time that climbed up one of our lines. The staff sprayed and made them go away, but that was a first)
Rating: 4 stars
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