Sept. 11 - On the 8th anniversary of 9-11, we said goodbye to downtown Chattanooga after the fog lifted and headed northeast up the river. Passing through Chickamauga Lock, which raised us another 48 feet, we entered Chickamauga Lake. This 59-mile-long lake has 800 miles of shoreline, but most of the marinas do not have slips for transient boaters like us. We found a great place to anchor at pretty Sale Creek about 40 miles upstream from Chattanooga. Sept. 12 - It was foggy again, so our departure was delayed somewhat...no problem since we have no timetable whatsoever! The weather was beautiful in the afternoon, and we continued enjoying the beauty of nature. We locked through our 18th lock (Watts Bar) and entered Watts Bar Lake (elev. 741'). Capt. Bill declared: "That's it, Char - no more locks until we turn OMEGA around!!"
Watts Bar Lake's shoreline is quite irregular. Surrounded on all sides by mountains, the steep mountain hollows and valleys were transformed into countless deep-water coves when the reservoir was flooded. This lake has more wilderness anchorages than any of the other Tenn. river reservoirs. There are very few towns, so isolation is one of the lake's greatest appeals. No cell phone signals, no TV, no Internet, just the pleasure of a quiet, peaceful time in this gorgeous part of our beautiful country. While we were there over a weekend, we saw very few other boaters.
We anchored at Foshee Bend (Mile 537) our first night. On the afternoon of Sept. 13th, at Mile 555, Bill turned OMEGA around and announced that we have gone as far upstream as we're going!! It's time to head towards home!! That evening we anchored at E. Martin Light and on the 14th, we dropped our hook at Deer Island. Nearby was Spring City, TN, one of the few towns on Watts Bar Lake, so we offloaded our dinghy and went ashore for a bit to eat.
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