Pickwick Lock and Lake

Mansions along the lake shore. Bigwigs in the Nashville music scene?

Pickwick Lock doors closing

Boats leaving Pickwick Lock and entering Pickwick Lake

Last Saturday we locked through the Pickwick Lock, going up 55 feet with more excitement than we needed or wanted. Due to missing bollards, we ended up quite close to the front of the lock where there's more turbulence. Our line wasn't attached quite right and we were moving around so much that the tip of the mast hanging off the bow was scraping the side of the lock - not good! It even got stuck in one of the horizontal channels at one point so we had to drop the line and motor off. The lockmaster stopped the flow of water so we could get re-set on the opposite lock wall. At this point we were facing the other way as our fenders were on the port side. No real damage was done; at least it gave the 5 other boats something to watch while they were locking!

Pickwick Lake is beautiful and huge - 43,100 acres with a shoreline of 490 miles. There are lots of spectacular mansions high up on the shore. We were wondering if they belonged to people from the music industry in Nashville.

We spent two nights at the Grand Harbor Marina on Pickwick Lake. This is a unique marina as it's in two states. The boats are docked in Mississippi, but when you go ashore you're in Tennessee! On Sunday night we had an impromptu potluck with six other Looper couples in the marina lounge. One couple from Ontario is doing the trip for the second time. Others were from Virginia Beach, Vermont, Michigan and Key West. It's fun to hear about everyone's different experiences on the water.