Under Attack Again - Peoria IL

(Wednesday Aug 29 - Dist: 74.3 mi; Avg Speed: 9.7 mph;
        Locks: 1; LWT: 40 mins; TTT: 7:50 hrs)

This is our worst encounter with the Asian Carp.  As you can see we just passed two up bound tows and I guess the fish objected.  We were hit at least 7 times.  The slime and sometimes blood is left behind.  Periodically, throughout the trip we could hear and feel the fish hit the boat.  Here at the Illinois Valley Yacht (IVY) Club they are plentiful in the harbor and often jump onto the dock scaring the bejeezes out of us, well Linda anyway.

The Club is quite nice with an excellent pool and bar.  We will be staying here until after Labour Day.  We are taking another vacation... and waiting until Isaac passes and the rivers clear of debris and small pleasure crafters.  That is not my term but what the tow captains call all non commercial boaters: Pleasure Crafters.

We were very fortunate on this travel day.  When we arrived at the sole lock (Starved Rock) for the day, there was a tow directly in front of us.  We were told we would have to wait until "Sugarland" cleared the lock and then they would see.  That was not good because I knew that there was another down bound tow only a few miles behind.  That was when luck struck.  Sugarland's head office told him to stay put and not move until further notice.  He was just about to enter the lock but backed off to the holding area and that is when we were invited into the lock.  Many hours were saved by an executive in New Orleans were Sugarland was headed.  We later heard that he was to take his load to somewhere else further north so he had to turn around.

The River is changing, becoming a lot more scenic and with more birds.  Above are thousands of American White Pelicans.  They are prettier than their brown cousins that we see in Florida.  This next photo may be starved rock after which the lock and dam are named but I am only guessing.  It is a much better view than the industry of a few days ago.

With the low water levels dredging is a common sight.  This dredge was working on the narrow channel just before the lock.  The US Army Corps of Engineers manages these waters and this is one of their units.

There will, I am sure, be more photos and info from the IVY Club but I just wanted to get out a quick note so that people would know where we are spending the Holiday Weekend.  Please enjoy yours.

Well I did say that the River is becoming more scenic.  This bone yard is near Upper Peoria Lake at Hamms Marina.  Oh well.



Heritage Harbor, Ottawa IL

(Saturday Aug 25 - Dist: 45.3 mi; Avg Speed: 8.0 mph;
      Locks: 3; LWT: 40 mins; TTT: 7:25 hrs)

We are taking a mini vacation here because it is so nice and the people here have been great.  Of course Linda loves the pool and we are getting in at least once a day.  Tracey's Restaurant and Bar which is on-site is not bad as well.  I can honestly say that I tried all of their draft beers (about 7) and only found one that I did not care for.

The highlight of the stay however was a visit to the Bade's estate, where we were privileged to have a meal of his "competition" style ribs.  It takes most of the day to prepare and they were superb; better than many that I have tried at different Rib Festivals.  We liked them a lot. 

We got lucky on the river once again.  The Brandon lock was ready for us when we called from Joliet and the trip was good although the river was very busy being that it was Saturday and the weather was perfect.  The tows cooperated but we are starting to see larger configurations now that we have left the narrow canals.  At one point we were following a tow pushing three 379 x 54 foot barges in a very narrow area.  I called the captain and asked him to let us know when it would be safe to pass and I added that there was no hurry.  Well he told me to come on up closer "he ain't throw'n much sweat".  I creeped up assuming he was not going to bash me with his prop wash.  At that point he had all of the channel covered.  Sure enough though he called and said as soon as I clear the corner of the stationary barge on the side you can swing on by.  I had about 30-40 feet so I dipped around him and immediately ran into a tug coming out of a side channel so I backed off and followed him and eventually passed the tow.  That was the closest yet that I have needed to be when passing on of these monsters.

We came across a ??? trailer park of houseboats.  I guess that is the closest thing to a gated community that Phred and Candy can belong to.  lol

Then another first at the Marseilles (pronounced Mar-sells) lock.  There were three tows waiting to go down, one waiting to come up and one already in the lock.  After talking to the captain of the third tow in line and almost resigning myself to the fact that the afternoon would be spent anchored near some dam, he convinced me to get closer and call the lock master.  I did and lo and behold the lock master said 30 minutes.  Wow.  When we got to the actual lock, there was a tow with three barges in the holding area to the the left and six barges, 3 across, being winched out of the lock.  Sorry Lisa, Linda was too stressed to take any photos.  When they were clear we were given the go ahead to enter the lock.  We could not see any opening.  We worked our way between the barges, a long narrow chute of rusty steel, to the end wall of concrete where we could finally see that the barges were pulled about 25 feet past the wall of the lock.  Linda kept saying that we can't fit, we won't fit, oh s!@#.  After two 90 degree turns we squeezed between the last barge and the wall and then into the lock.  No worries.  It saved us a whole day.  Thank you Marr-selllsss.

Mmm, Mmm good!!!!

Chicago's Cess Pool

(Friday Aug 24 - Dist: 49.3 mi; Avg Speed: 7.7 mph;
        Locks: 2; LWT: 45 mins; TTT: 7:10 hrs)

I have introduced a couple of different statistics for the rivers: the number of locks traversed and the Lock Wait Time (LWT).  Both influence the travel day dramatically.  But so far so good.

There are two ways to enter the river systems; through downtown Chicago which is impressive but limited by vertical clearance and the Calumet River.  We have to take the latter and it is not pretty what-so-ever. 

  

The entrance here looks not bad, industrial, but not bad.   

Then you see many scrap metal places and lots of coal transfer points.  This goes on for miles. 

The water is dirty and has lots of garbage floating in it.  With the current drought the algae is flourishing.  Here are some disgusting views.  I bet Headquarters does not stop for a swim again for a very long time.

 

One must also take a deep breathe to get under all of the bridges.  We spoke to the first bridge attendant and we were borderline on vertical clearance.  The guaranteed clearance was 18' 4" and I figure that Q needs 18' 6".  The attendant said the water was down so we should be OK.  Hmmm!  Linda said no way.  We approached slowly with people looking on from the bridge towers and Linda watching from the front deck.  Nothing hit; whew.  That was the lowest bridge so we were good to go the rest of the way without requesting that each bridge be opened.  Judge for yourself, this is what Linda saw.

The other concern in this stretch is the number of barges and tows being shuffled around.  On this day we were fortunate; whenever we encountered one there was plenty of room to either pass or wait for him to turn.

This is where the Chicago's Sanitary and Ship Canal and the Calumet River meets up with the Illinois Waterway. 

The last issue in this section is the electrical fish barrier designed to stop the Asian Carp from getting into the Great Lakes.  Really a non event to cross this section of the canal.

After a long day we stopped along the free wall in Joliet, had a nice BBQ steak and met the Harbor Hosts from the area.  We are glad that the worst is behind us and that it only gets better from here on down... as long as there is enough water.

 

  

Winning and Losing in Hammond Indiana

(Wed Aug 22 - Dist: 40.4 mi;  Avg Speed: 10 mph;
        Seas: calm; TTT: 4:20 hrs)

The huge flat building behind us is actually a floating casino.  The three storey building was built on a barge evidently to get around some rules about gambling.  It is quite impressive but the rest of the area is much less so. 

I tried the Wayne method of earning some extra cash and it seemed to work for about 20 minutes.  My $1 investment in a penny machine got all the way up to $38 but... much to Linda's chagrin it was gone by the time we had to meet the others for dinner.  You can tell that we are not gamblers by our excitement, and disappointment, with $38.  I may have to try again.

On an even more depressing note, we are getting very concerned with the water levels on the rivers and in particular the Mississippi River.  There is not enough water in the usual anchorages to get off the river and spend the night.  This is especially true of the ole Miss' as one needs to spend at least 2 nights at anchor because there are no marinas in a 160 mile stretch.  Other marinas on the other rivers have insufficient depth to enter the harbors and many of their slips.  We are not sure what we are going to do if the situation gets worse.  We will keep you posted... in the meantime we will hope for rain.

We will be leaving our friends from "downunder" but we did get in one final barbie complete with shrimp and steaks and some "chardy".  Did you ever notice that the Aussie's take a lot of short cuts: "chardy" for Chardonnay; "Uni" for university, "Abos" for Aboriginals, etc.  It was fun and I do hope that we run together again.
 

Phred and Candy, there are floating homes then there are FLOATING HOMES.





The Casino only needs 10 feet of water.



Hammond is a rather large Marina.



Gooood Times in New Buffalo, MI

(Sat Aug 18 - Dist: 49.3 mi; Avg Speed: 9.6 mph;
        Seas: calm; TTT: 5:15 hrs)

It was a perfect day for travel on Lake Michigan... except for the fact that we were watching a couple of waterspouts in the distance.  The photo does not do it justice other than to show that it was a beautiful sunny day with this one cloud showing some rain and to fingers dipping down into the water.  We were watching this when the Coast Guard came on the air with the warning to all boaters.  For those not familiar with waterspouts, they are, in effect, tornado's on the water.  Needless to say Headquarters and us decided to run and make some distance between us and the system.  Other than that the cruise was great.

It was not easy to get into New Buffalo and I will not rant on and on about the inefficiencies and laziness of the staff at the Municipal Marina but thank goodness for our personal cruise director Chris from Bade Boomer.  She got the two boats in and the party started.  Chris and Bruce own a dockominium next door in a beautiful marina.  We were even treated to a great roast pig meal on our arrival.  Well done Chris.

From the luau we carried right in to happy hour and well into the night.  For the next two days we golfed in the day and "chatted" the evening away.  The folks from "downunder" are very keen competitors when it comes to their golf.  I offered to play Shirley match play straight up since her handicap is better than mine.  She almost insisted on giving me strokes but being the gentleman that I am, I politely refused.  They use the Stableford scoring system however for all or most of their matches.  Well, we did learn to count 3 points for a net bird, 2 for a par and 1 for a bogie.  It did not matter which system we used, I received my winner's drinks on both days.  To be fair Tony did do better than I on the first day but unfortunately we did not have a bet on.

We did have a special occasion, Happy Birthday Bruce.  It was another excuse, as if we needed any, to party. 

Again thanks to Chris and Bruce the four of us from Headquarters and Q's End borrowed their car and drove to St. Joseph to the big marine store there called Wolf's.  I was somewhat disappointed because they did not have any of the items on our list but we did manage to spend a pile of money anyway.  Between there and the grocery store we ligthened our pocket books a lot.

St. Joseph was a neat looking town with pirates on every corner.  The beach there also looked phenomenal.  Oh well maybe some other time.

For Lisa:

Under Attack in South Haven, MI

(Wed Aug 15 - Dist: 23.5 mi; Avg Speed: 8.4 mph;
        Seas: calm; TTT: 2:50 hrs)

As we were approaching the harbor breakwall this pirate ship opened cannon fire on us. Fortunately the crew was not battle seasoned and we successfully evaded their cannon balls and made it to the channel and eventually our marina.

'Twas a beautiful day and after doing some exploring by dinghy and a quick dip we joined our new friends on Headquarters  on the deck of this old river boat.  These new Loopers are catching on quickly.

That first day was the end of our nice weather.  Rain, hard at times, hit us the next morning but allowed for plenty of strolling through the downtown area in the afternoon and evening.  BUT... shades of our bad experiences in Grand Haven, came crashing through the harbor that night and well into the next day.  I adjusted lines 5 times throughout the night in an attempt to stop us from banging against the dock.  Finally, at 4 AM I succeeded but now Linda cannot get on the boat.  It is supposed to calm down later this evening so we should be good although one dock line for sure is ruined.

It is now past 6 PM and we spent most of the day in town or at the beach.  Good news, Linda is back on board and things are calming down somewhat.  The next few photos were taken an hour or so ago.  You can still see the rollers washing down the channel directly to our boat... well all of us really.  My neighbour and I had a good chat at about 3:30 AM this morning.

These last photos show how pretty South Haven is but it sure does not feel like it at all.

No worries though, after a tasty dinner at the Thirsty Perch and some nightcaps with live entertainment at the Black River Tavern, we rolled down the hill just past midnight and the bouncing had all but stopped.