Home Is Where The Anchor Drops

Luckily, if we don’t like the neighborhood it is easy for us to relocate!  Every anchorage in Land Between the Lakes offers a beautiful, scenic environment with plenty of wildlife, and no homes or piers along the shoreline.  However, we discovered that a few places (particularly one with a rare sandy beach) can be quite the party central on weekends. I love to see people enjoying the water, and having a lot of boats anchored near by doesn’t bother me one bit...BUT, my tolerance for obnoxiously loud, and incredibly vulgar/obscene ‘music’ makes me very thankful that we can be in a different ‘home’ very quickly!  I know I am getting old (and maybe a little crotchety), but ‘peace and tranquility’ is the only life for me😁

Smith Bay offers a nice sandy beach, but draws the ‘rowdy’ crowd on weekends.  Finally at the stage in my life when I truly look forward to Monday. TGIM

Just two miles south, Duncan Bay is my idea of the perfect home.

This has been my favorite anchorage since we left the Bahamas.  This spot offers easy access to hiking (which leads you through an old cemetery before you reach the gravel road) and a plethora of wildlife.

Birds abound.

There must be an eagle nest in this cove. We have seen 5 individual bald eagles, including two juveniles that don’t yet have their adult coloring.  Did you know it takes eagles 5-6 years to get the white head and tail feathers?  I believe this juvenile is 2-3 years old. I happened upon two juveniles sitting in a tree when I was paddle boarding.  They scared me as much as I scared them!

Eagles are constantly flying overhead, but one evening they were making a lot of noise, and when we looked outside we saw 3 adults ‘chasing’ each other. They would fly and swoop, then land in different trees and chatter at each other.  It was hard to tell who was chasing whom, but they definitely seemed unhappy with the circumstances...while we enjoyed every moment.

We have also learned a few new things this week.  Have you ever seen these root growths coming out of the ground?  This was a first for us, but after a little research it appears these cypress root ‘knees’ are actually fairly common in swampy areas.  Their function is unknown, but scientists believe the most likely purpose is to provide structural support and to stabilize the soft ground surrounding a tree.

And what kind of creature makes these mud ball tunnel holes?  There are a lot of these tunnels alongside the cypress knees.  I believe they were made by burrowing crayfish, or at least that’s what YouTube has led me to believe.  How did I ever learn anything before the internet?

We have been trying to take a nice long walk/hike a few times per week, and there is a path from the beach that leads directly to the back of this cemetery.  There are several old, multi-family cemeteries on Land Between the Lakes, which reminds us that at one time quite a few people lived here.  This particular cemetery tells the story of what a hard life these people faced, and particularly shows a high death rate among children.  There are a disproportionately large number of grave markers for infants, but there were also a significant number of young children buried here. It appears that 1898 was a particularly brutal year.

There are three identical headstones, side by side, that show the heartache one family suffered in 1898.  Rosco (7), Lennie (5), and Lonso (three months shy of his 3rd birthday) each died one day apart between May 7-9, 1898.  Of course there is no way to know what happened to these children, but it seems possible, if not probable,  a childhood disease was responsible.  After seeing this, we walked around the cemetery again and identified three other children under the age of 10 who died in 1898.  Childhood disease data shows that during that time period Scarlet Fever, Tuberculosis, and Diphtheria were the leading causes of death in children.  We are thankful to have the opportunity to walk through this cemetery in 2020, and sorry for those who lived the realities of 1898.

Birds aren’t the only things that have us looking to the sky.  We are also entertained by a local military unit’s frequent airborne refueling practice.

On most evenings we usually see 30-40 carp feeding at the surface, but one evening we could see hundreds of carp, at the surface of the water, all around the boat.

Her wing span is amazing!

Of course we don’t spend all of our time ‘mud mucking’...back to work.  I am still working on teak (and probably will be for the rest of my life).  It only took me 5 days to prep this door😳

And Keith has moved on to refurbishing the bow pulpit.

One day (in my spare time) I will make a boat project folder for those of you who might be interested in the realities of restoring a 41 year old boat, while living aboard and traveling.  It’s a wonderful hobby/lifestyle.  I can’t imagine just living on the boat with nothing constructive to accomplish.