10-25 Turtle Creek Harbor to Louisville KY 67 miles.

We left around 7am, it was still dark and raining. The marina channel is winding and shallow. This is where we had our most harrowing experience to date. We bumped the bottom a few times and then got stuck. We couldn’t go forward or back, the propellers were sunk in the mud. We radioed Time Out and Warren phoned the marina office and told them about our problem, but the marina’s tug was broken so there wasn’t much they could do. Time Out started heading back towards us to throw us a line and try to tow us out. Fortunately, the water level started to rise just before they got to us and we were able to get free ourselves. Most of the rest of the trip that day was spent worrying about damage. There is a bit of a vibration in the propeller shaft that wasn’t there before, but the boat is still running just fine. We may get her hauled out later on and get it fixed, but we’ll determine that later.
We first stopped at Juniper Beach Docks where Layla made a reservation several days earlier (unusually long notice). She had to travel from Louisville back to Pittsburgh for business, so we planned on staying 4 nights. No one was there when we arrived, and the dock we were supposed to stay on was too shallow for us so we tied up on the gas dock with Time Out. When the marina owner arrived he had us re-tie, but said we were fine there. He came back in the morning and told us we couldn’t stay on the gas dock because it was going to be a nice weekend and he thought he could sell some gas. There were still 40 feet of available space on the gas dock, but he said we might intimidate people! Our first experience with a not nice person. There was no where else for us to go except the free public marina in downtown Louisville. The guy at Juniper Beach said there was power there, but we didn’t exactly trust him. Time Out’s generator is really loud and they do not have an inverter (converts boat battery power to run appliances like the fridge), so the idea of being somewhere without power for 4 days wasn’t very appealing to them. We have an inverter. I called the guy from Turtle Creek Marina who had also mentioned the public docks, and he said that there was power, and even though there is a ‘No docking without permit’ sign we were allowed to dock there. We cynical northerners were dubious.

As it turned out there was power, it was deep enough for us, it was free, and no one told us to go away. Louisville has a marvelous waterfront park that the 5 slips are part of. We then became nervous that we were so near downtown and in an area that would be isolated at night, but again our fears were unfounded. This turned out to be a beautiful, safe and convenient spot, and we just loved Louisville. Did I say FREE?!






We drove to Churchill Downs and watched a couple of races on opening day.









Aristedes, the first horse to win at Churchill Downs with Pat Day in the background, the winningest jockey












We took the trolley and wandered around the very clean and vibrant downtown area a couple of days.



















Had a famous ’Hot Brown’ sandwich at the Brown Hotel. Beautiful old hotel, great sandwich.
































I even tried some burbon at the Seelbach mentioned in the Great Gatsby.



















The home of the Louisville slugger.




















There is also an area called Old Louisville that is made up of old mansions that we spent part of a day wandering around. The town made a great impression on us.