Returning to Diamond Island to Anchor

Diamond Island welcomes Kismet back to its beautiful anchorage.

A beautiful fall day presented itself to us as we headed out, from Clifton Marina early the next morning, with a plan to anchor out at Diamond Island. With bright blue skies and a pleasantly warm day, we basked in the scenic beauty along the Tennessee River during our cruise. Lots to see with many boats on the water, some Loopers passing us, and people fishing or relaxing along the sandy shoreline of the river.

The houses along the river are interesting to look at and we enjoyed seeing this herd of cattle grazing along the river. (Above)

We met Bill and Bonnie, on Elissa II (above) during our stay at Clifton Marina, they are from Northport, Michigan, not far from our hometown. Small world isn’t it?

This was our third time anchoring at Diamond Island. We knew there was a number of boats leaving Clifton the same day, so we were surprised to find we had the entire anchorage, on the east side of the island, to ourselves.

Diamond Island (the entrance to the anchorage – above), and the surrounding area, are called Pittsburg Landing where, in 1862, a large force of Union Soldiers stationed themselves for the Civil War’s Battle of Shiloh. On this day, however, it was hard to imagine anything so horrific as a war taking place in this serenely beautiful spot.

As we settled in for a peaceful night on the hook, fellow Loopers, Joel and Debbie, on Watermusic (below), arrived just before dusk and dropped anchor downstream, behind us. The weather the next morning had changed and high winds were expected. Since we had the Pickwick Lock to negotiate, we decided to leave early before the wind had a chance to build, and, as luck would have it, we were relieved to have gotten through the lock without a problem. By the time we made it to Grand Harbor Marina, with the weather quickly deteriorating, we were happy to be tied up to a dock. We were more than pleased to see a lot of Loopers there already, with more headed in later in the day. Of course, a happy hour on the dock was organized and we got a chance to meet several more of this year’s participants in the Great Loop boating adventure.