Shade Trees at Green Turtle Bay
Before leaving Green Turtle Bay we pumped out the holding tank. Nathan, a 20 something dockhand, helped us. He's one of five or six musselers--professional mussel fisherman--that were put out of work by this year's moratorium.
He said mussels were a good living. The season is long and runs from Spring to Fall. On average a crew of two splits about $800/day. He's seen mussel prices oscillate widely from a low of 75¢/pound to a high of$10/pound. With a sparkle in his eye he said the single day record was by a two-man crew who managed a $20,000 haul.
Commercial musseling is done in about 20' of water. Fishermen can either dive on the mussels and collect them by hand or fish from the surface using brail hooks. Nathan described descending into a current laden, inky blackness, wearing 80 pounds of scuba gear, to grope the bottom in hopes of finding mussels. Depending on current, temperature and other factors only about 1% of mussels are on the bottom's surface at any one time. The rest bury themselves up to 7' into the bottom's mud. Apparently the mussels can move fairly quickly. Nathan was harvesting a rich area when a sudden current change caused the mussels to bury themselves. "After that", he said, "there wasn't one to be found."
Brail hooks have been around since 1897 and resemble one of the legs on a kid's jack. When a brail hook is drug across a feeding, i.e. open-shelled mussel, the mussel slams shut. Then, like a blue crab that won't let go of a chicken leg, the mussel's fate is sealed by the brail hook it captured.
Nathan is ready to go back to musseling but he's unsure when, or even if the the fishery will open up. "It may take a lawsuit." is one of the last things he tells me.
Patti's Restaurant a Local Favorite
Not All Wild Flowers Have Gone to Seed
Now Those are Bird Houses!
Lake Barkley, the first of two Lakes we'll transit on the way up to Nashville, starts off every bit as big as Kentucky Lake. However, by the time we get 60 miles up the Cumberland River it has narrowed considerably. The 1mph current is still light, but now it's noticeable.
Tonight's Anchorage Behind Dover Island, Looking East Up the Cumberland River
Nellie's thermometer hit 102°F today. I'm happy to report that an old dog can learn new tricks--we anchored in the shade! It took 120 feet of chain in the 40 foot deep water, but it was shady water ;-) It's 59 miles from Green Turtle Bay, Kentucky to Dover Island, Tennessee, Cumberland River MM90. The Journey's total is now 2,855 miles. DBH
