Final night on the Mississippi

We are anchored off the tip of the Angelo Towhead, at mile 1 of the Upper Mississippi River (map). Tomorrow morning, just a mile from here, we will "cross our wake" and close the loop. That will make us "Gold Loopers" and we will have completed the Great Loop, but in reality we will be on the loop route and in and out of the company of other loopers all the way to Mobile, and perhaps beyond.


Last night's anchorage view: Cape Girardeau behind the Bill Emerson Bridge.

We had a quiet night Monday on the floating guide wall of the Kaskaskia Lock. The lockmaster had told us we could stretch our legs, just don't climb the ladders off the wall, and we took a stroll after dark, when the temperature had dropped a little. And by "a little" I mean it was in the low 80s, rather than 90. We had a quiet night on the wall.


Vector on the floating guide wall at Kaskaskia Lock. The wall rides up and down on rails; one of the support piers is astern of us.

In my last post I mused that we'd have to time our departure so as not to end up in a pack of boats. That turned out to be a non-issue: when we staggered upstairs around 7:30 the next morning for coffee, we were alone on the wall. The other boats were so far downriver, I could no longer see them on AIS. I think many loopers detest this river so much that they just want to get past it in as few days as possible. By contrast, I rather enjoy it and prefer to take my time.


Sunset over the CoE campground from our deck.

We had a very pleasant cruise downriver yesterday. The river is wide and deep, and other than the handful of times we had to pass a towboat and its giant wake, or the handful of times we passed through one of the eddies on the outside of the sharper bends, Otto was able to drive most of the day. I did have to dodge a few large logs and one compressed gas cylinder that was floating mid-channel.

One of our more serene moments, looking downriver.

We arrived at Cape Girardeau, known locally as CG or just "Cape," around 2 o'clock, and tucked in between a pair of wing dams across from the riverboat landing. The river is so high and swift right now, however, that the wing dams are well submerged and not helping much with the surface current, and scouring had the river 40' deep almost all the way to shore.


Main Street, Cape Girardeau.

We gave up and headed downriver below the Bill Emerson Bridge, where the combination of the bridge piers and another pair of wing dams, one of them significantly taller, creates a counter-current eddy close to shore. We had to tuck in so far that the plotter showed us driving on what is often dry land before it shallowed out and we could drop the hook (map). We had just enough current to hold us parallel to the shore.


Painting murals on floodwalls seems to be a thing along these rivers. CG has them on both sides.

The lower current made it easy to launch the tender, and I headed the mile up to the landing to scout a way to get ashore. The riverboat landing was mostly underwater, but after a bit of head scratching I was able to nose the dinghy up to an enormous bollard and get a line around it, then step gingerly from there to the ramp without getting wet. I returned to Vector after a quick breeze down Main Street to make sure there were a couple of restaurants open.


These year markings on the floodwall opening to the landing show the high water marks from various floods.

We returned ashore together at dinner time and walked to Bella Italia in the riverfront area for dinner. Afterward we strolled the area around Main Street and Spanish Street before clambering back into the dinghy and heading home. The heat has been relentless and we had to run the A/C and the genny to cool the boat down when we got back.


CG fancies itself a riveboat city, as evidenced by the design of their bike racks. Just don't ride on the sidewalk.

This morning, in the relative cool of the morning, I headed back ashore stag to take a bit of a longer walk around. My landing spot was gone, as the enormous riverboat America was at the landing. No matter, because the river came up 8" or so overnight, and the dry spot near the bollard had also disappeared. That, however, meant there was now enough depth alongside a riverwalk overlook that I was able to tie to a stanchion and step right out.


Flux tied up at an overlook, in a counter-current. Rip-rap is just a few inches under her keel. Bollard I had used is where America's starboard hawser is tied.

I walked up the tall steps leading to the old courthouse and then strolled along the town's other main drag, Broadway, all the way out to the SMSU campus. Along the way I passed an eclectic mix of historic building and 70's-era architecture. The old grand dame of the city, the 1928 Marquette Hotel, has been restored into an office building, the Marquette Tower, with a rooftop bar called the Top of the Marq.


The lobby of the Marquette Tower.

I returned to Vector by 10 or so, and we decked the tender and made ready to get under way. We had the anchor up by 10:30 for a 3pm arrival; we are opting to travel in the hottest part of the day so we can get almost-free air conditioning while the midwest suffers through this unseasonal heat wave.


America at the CG landing. I snapped this from Flux on my way out.

With all of this hot weather, it's tempting to think that we should have just stayed in the Great Lakes a while longer and waited out the lock closures. Good thing, however, that we did not: the flooding has already delayed the opening of one of the locks from the scheduled 10/5 to a projected 10/10. The other lock is more of an issue and they are hoping by mid-month. The folks behind us will be struggling to find facilities still open if it goes much past that.


Passing Queen of the Mississippi on one whistle. A two whistle pass would have been better lighting. Her fake stack is folded down for bridge clearance.

Shortly after we left Cape Girardeau, we passed the Queen of the Mississippi, another one of American's riverboats, headed upriver. We watched on AIS as they slowed past the America, we assume for photo ops for the passengers of both boats. We were surprised to see America following us downriver some time later; apparently the port stop in CG was just a half day. I saw few of their passengers in town; most boarded tour buses for points elsewhere.

Looking toward the confluence of the Ohio from our anchorage. America is just headed under the Cairo highway bridge, the one I walked on when it was closed on our very first visit here.

We've been enjoying having a four-knot push downriver, but we only have another five minutes of that. Once we make the turn into the Ohio, we'll have 1-2 knots against us. It's a long slog upriver to Paducah, where they've built a dock since our last visit, and we have a reservation for tomorrow night.

Gateway meetup

We are underway southbound in the upper Mississippi River, whizzing along at over 11 knots while making turns for just 6.5. A flood crest is working its way downriver and we're surfing the front side of it. The river through here will be in flood stage by Wednesday.

Shortly after my last post, we arrived at Lock 27, the final lock on the Mississippi River (from here it flows unimpeded all the way to the Gulf of Mexico) and again had no wait, heading directly in to the main chamber. We exited the lock into the swollen river, where the separation structure dividing the canal exit from the end of the Chain of Rocks was completely submerged.


Passing the Gateway Arch, with the Old Courthouse centered below.

From the moment we left the lock all the way through St. Louis I was very busy at the helm. Immediately south of the canal exit begins a gauntlet of seven bridges. Each has support piers in the river, and each of those piers creates a set of eddies and other hydraulic anomalies in the swift current that demand constant attention and hand steering.

The St. Louis riverfront and its famous arch are south of the worst offender in this regard, the historic 152-year-old Eads Bridge, an "impossible" engineering marvel of its day. This was the first bridge across the Mississippi below the confluence of the Missouri, and is the oldest bridge still standing on the entire river. While the longest fixed span ever constructed at the time, by modern standards the massive piers are closely spaced, and no part of the river is unaffected.


Approaching St. Louis. The arch is visible at right behind the graceful Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge.

Of course, immediately after this bridge is where we made a hard turn to port, in the hopes of being able to anchor across from the arch and take in the spectacular nighttime view of the city. Much of the Illinois bank here is working waterfront, a loading terminal for Cargill. But there is an unused spot where the Casino Queen gambling "boat" once moored, before they rebuilt the casino on dry land, as I described on our last visit there.

In calmer river conditions we might well have been able to pull it off. But with the high water, the river was still 50' deep nearly to the mooring cells, and with 250' of chain out in the strange currents south of the bridge, we could not be sure to not swing out into the secondary traffic lane for the east span, or maybe even swing into the pilings. On top of that I was concerned about a foul bottom, which would have been a much bigger problem in 40' than in 20'.


The old pilings for the casino barge, where we had hoped to anchor. Eads Bridge at left; new casino right.

Ultimately we decided the safest course of action was to skip it and continue downriver to a safer anchorage. Ironically, the same conditions that made anchoring iffy would have made it a cinch to get ashore right downtown, as we could have pulled the tender right up to a paved ramp to the now submerged parking area, and tied off to a sturdy railing.

The river is industrial on both sides from downtown St. Louis for another dozen miles or so, with nary a place to anchor. As we were looking ahead for a place to get a bit out of the current and also well clear of the traffic, it occurred to us to call Hoppie's and see if there had been any cancellations. We had a reservation for tonight (the 30th), which was the "first available" when we called them from before Grafton.


Looking back upriver at the historic Eads Bridge. Behind it are the truss spans of the Martin Luther King Bridge.

As it turned out they did, in fact, have a cancellation, and could take us immediately and for two nights. This is unsurprising because they can fit only 2-3 boats, yet hold no reservation deposit. So boaters reserve for their expected arrival, knowing they can wave off at the last minute if need be. With the river running four knots and anchorages scarce, we told them we'd take it.

In hindsight, we should have just agreed to take one night on the following day, and anchored Saturday night, perhaps in the Meramec river, but that did not occur to us at the time. We arrived at Hoppies and were tied alongside the downriver barge (map) by 3:30. A 39' Mainship, Alegria, was on the upriver end when we arrived. A huge eddy just off the dock made for a challenging tie-up.


Vector tied alongside the dilapidated barge that is Hoppie's Marina. At least the power worked.

I hauled the e-Bike through the deep sand of the riverbank and rode into the small town of Kimmswick, Missouri, just a half mile or so away. I was surprised by how touristy it was, with two or three restaurants and gobs of tchotchke shops. There was a small music and food festival going on in the town park, and a few dozen tourists milling around. A historic log structure houses the offices of the resurrected Delta Queen steamboat operation.

Even with the dozen or so stores, there's not so much as a mini-mart in the historic downtown that is walking distance from the dock. For that you need to go another mile or so to the freeway interchange for I-55, where a couple of gas stations are located. A small grocery and even a hardware store are most of the way there as well. The e-Bike made short work of it and I replenished the beer supply.


The Delta Queen office in Kimmswick.

Since we had figured on anchoring we were already set to grill a steak for dinner, and we ate aboard with a nice view across the river. I caught up on some route planning and turned in. With friends not expected until mid-day or so, we looked forward to sleeping in.

That was not to be; at 6:30 I awoke to horns close aboard on the starboard (river) side. At first I thought I heard the "departure" and "astern" signals, and figured it was Alegria  doing due diligence departing the dock. But just a few seconds later I heard the five-blast emergency signal, and when I stood up I could see them out the port light just off the starboard side.

I hurriedly put on shorts and shoes and raced out to the dock; apparently they wrapped a line around their port propeller and were struggling to get it back to the dock By the time Louise made it out behind me we had them tied off and secure at the dock. They spent the rest of the morning working on trying to get a diver.


One of the lines holding the barges ashore is tied to this pickup truck, which they use to take the slack out of the lash-up.

We walked over to the well-rated Blue Owl restaurant when they opened at 10 and had a nice Sunday brunch. By the time we got back, the Hoppie's staff had cleared out a tree from the inboard side of the dock, and lined Alegria around to the inside to make room for two boats scheduled to come in that afternoon. That turned out to be Carolina Dream, whom we had met before Joliet, and Seas Today.

Our friends Cherie and Chris arrived around 2, just a hair ahead of the two boats. There was some brief chaos as some of us scrambled to catch lines and squeeze the two boats into the space available ahead of Vector. It was a tight fit; Chris got some good video of the arrival. After catching up briefly in the comfort of our air conditioned saloon, the four of us piled into their car and headed off to St. Louis.


A meetup of good friends. Photo: Chris Dunphy

Since the last time we were here, the park surrounding the arch and its subterranean museum have been completely renovated, removing an unsightly parking garage and extending the park across the freeway to connect to the Old Courthouse. The park is now a much more inviting space, and the additions and improvements to the museum make it a whole new experience. We've been looking forward to seeing it.

We parked at LaClede's Landing and strolled the new park grounds, then headed into the museum. One of the new sections is a map of the rivers inlaid into the terrazzo. Some of the rivers are notably missing, like the Tennessee and the Tombigbee, and the land borders are rather stylized. Nevertheless, Louise and I shuffled around the Great Loop route, starting from St. Louis (the center of this map's universe), while Chris videoed, making a rather hilarious sped-up clip.


We re-create our great loop by shuffling along the route. Video: Chris Dunphy.

We manged to arrive just in time for the ranger-led tour of the museum, whose theme was "why is the Arch in St. Louis," and we joined in just for fun. The tour ran about a half hour and I can highly recommend it. Afterward we walked back over to LaClede's Landing for dinner, drinks, and conversation at Más Tequila Cantina.

Chris and Cherie were also kind enough to swing us by Walmart on our way back to Kimmswick, where we stocked up on all the bulky items I was unable to transport by bicycle back in Peoria. It was quite the haul. We had quite a bit more conversation back aboard Vector before calling it a night; we're very glad they had a car and were willing to make the trek out to Kimmswick and back.


This walking path used to be a street, and the trees used to be a parking garage. Early on, before I started blogging, we tried to get to the waterfront down this street in Odyssey, only to encounter the "12FT 2IN" sign that still remains on the rail bridge. We had to backtrack through LaClede's Landing.

This morning the two boats in front of us dropped lines and headed downriver just as we were finishing our coffee. We gave them a bit of a head start and did the same ourselves. Alegria was still awaiting a diver for their fouled prop. It's been a pleasant cruise, a little bumpy when we pass a towboat, but otherwise calm. I've had to dodge a handful of large deadheads, but mostly Otto has been driving.

Update: We are tied up to the outside of the guide wall at the Kaskaskia Lock, near the mouth of the Kaskaskia River (map). This is out of the high current of the Mississippi, and at this water level, the tainter gates on the dam are full open and there's really no current coming out of the Kaskaskia, either. From here one could lock through and navigate up the Kaskaskia as far as Fayettville, Illinois, passing Evansville and New Athens on the way.


Bluffs along the Missouri bank.

The Corps of Engineers allows pleasure boats to tie up for the night on the outside of the guide wall, and has even installed some smaller, more closely spaced cleats in a couple of sections. We're on the big cleats, leaving the others for the smaller boats. Carolina Dream and Seas Today were already here when we arrived; since then, four more boats have arrived, including Alegria. The diver found no damage other than the line around their shaft, which was quickly cleared.

This, of course, now puts us squarely in a pack of boats. I suspect if we stayed another night it would just be a different pack, so surfing the gap now will mean making a later departure and anchoring in some atypical place. My goal is to get ashore in Cape Girardeau if it's possible, and I have a couple of anchorages picked out in the vicinity; we may make a stop before that, too.

Back on the Mississippi

We are under way southbound on the Mississippi River, headed for the Melvin Price Lock and Dam. The river is high, just below flood stage, and fast. We have 2.5-3 knots behind us. In river parlance, we are actually on the Upper Mississippi River; the mile numbers count down to zero at the confluence of the Ohio, where the Lower Mississippi River begins.


Approaching the suspension bridge at Alton.

We had a nice stay at Mel's Riverdock in Hardin. Only one other boat showed up that night, a sailboat with its mast gone (sailors doing the Loop often have their masts unstepped in Chicago and shipped by truck to Mobile). I made a quick run to the grocery store, the dollar store, and the mini-mart for a few items, and we had a decent dinner at the restaurant. I did have to kick an Asian carp off the steel dock after it committed suicide right in front of me. The town is quaint but dying, no small thanks to inundation earlier this year.


Vector at Mel's Riverdock.

In keeping with the theme of surfing the gap, we were the last off the dock Tuesday morning, and we had a very pleasant solo cruise down the remaining 20 miles of the Illinois River. The Illinois here is a lot like the Mississippi, surrounded by flood control levees almost everywhere. We saw a touch of fall color and the river was serene.


This enormous group of pelicans (many off-camera) were feeding at this outlet from a pond.

With the current behind us we were in Grafton by noon, and power-slid into the marina. We headed immediately to the "fuel" dock (they haven't sold fuel since the last flood) to pump out, and were in our berth (map), tied alongside a 44' dock, by 1pm. As is often the case when we have power and water, Louise immediately caught up on laundry.




We had a productive stay in Grafton on the 4-for-3 deal, but the town itself lacks any real services. We ate at all four of the decently rated restaurants, which all have identical pub-grub menus. There is no grocery store, no hardware store, no chandlery, and no interesting diversions. Well, there's a "chondola" installed just this season, a zip line, and a water park, but all are closed for the season.


In the men's room at the bar...


Also in the men's room, right below the above sign. Cognitive dissonance.

The marina has a courtesy car available for $15 for a three-hour stint (payable in gasoline), but the nearest grocery store or other services are in Jerseyville, more than a half hour away. We needed just a few items to get us through the next few days, and we made do with what we found at the gas station mini-mart rather than tag along with someone for three hours to go to a real store.


Passing Our Lady of the Rivers, Portage Des Sioux, Missouri.

Not long after we got settled, we heard a familiar calliope, and realized the our old friend the Spirit of Peoria had beat us downriver, no doubt passing us in the night, and were tied up at The Loading Dock, a casual restaurant and music venue just a little downriver. They ran day trips from here for three days before heading back upriver to Peoria.


Locking down at Mel Price. They only raise the upstream gate until it breaks the surface.

I knocked out a few projects while we were here, including adding a rack to the e-Bike and making yet another power adapter in case we run into any more 30a/240v outlets like we did in Joliet. More importantly we tracked down the source of a water leak that made its way into the center bilge; an obstruction in a weep hole in a Portugese locker backed enough water up into the locker to overtop the metal spigot that protected a vent pipe. We had to pull the headliner down in the forward stateroom and dry out the overhead.


Canal left; rapids and dam, right.

As I wrap up typing we are in the Chain of Rocks Canal, on our way to Lock 27. This canal and lock bypass the eponymous section of rapids; an enormous sign reminds traffic to take the canal and not the main river. Just upstream is the confluence of the Missouri River; visually unremarkable, but our tail current increased from 2.5 knots to 4 knots and we got pushed around a bit on our way into the canal.


The Mississippi is swollen and full of debris. Yesterday we saw an entire tree float past the marina, from the root ball all the way to the leaves, maybe 80' or so. I generally don't dodge logs, but I would have dodged this one -- 2' diameter and 20'+ long.

My next post will be under way from Hoppie's "Marina," really just a barge on the riverbank, where we will meet up with good friends and fellow nomads Cherie and Chris, aka Technomadia.


We passed this fake paddlewheeler in the Chain of Rocks Canal.

Neapolitan anchorage

We are under way southbound on the Illinois River, our penultimate day on the Illinois Waterway. We are still "surfing the gap" between very large clusters of loopers ahead of us and behind us.

By the time we arrived near Havana Saturday afternoon the wind had picked up a bit and was coming directly up the river, making for a challenge anchoring. We dropped the hook at the downriver point of Quiver Island (map), outside the main channel buoy line but also out of the way of the pointway channel leading to the coal docks.

There's a free dock in Havana, just a quarter mile or so from our anchorage, but too shallow for Vector. We had hoped to tender over for dinner and to replenish the beer supply, but the rain started just as we set the anchor and did not let up all night. We had plenty of food and a comfortable evening aboard.

Yesterday morning I again hoped to splash the tender and go ashore at least to stretch my legs, offload some trash, and maybe pickup beer. But the wind was now blowing 15 steady and gusting higher, and it was not worth the considerable hassle to launch and retrieve in those conditions. Instead we weighed anchor early and continued downriver.

After lunch we arrived at the LaGrange Lock and Dam, where the wickets were up and we had to lock through. They had the lock ready on our arrival and we were through in a half hour or so, continuing downriver to a planned anchorage in Meridosia, where I again hoped to get ashore. Along the way we passed Beardstown, where a local towboat service sells space on their fixed barge to passing loopers. We could have gone ashore for certain there, but it was too early to stop and we saw no need to pay money to lash up to a barge.


Looking over the wickets from the lock chamber at LaGrange. They are doing a lot of work on the lock right now.

We arrived at Meridosia just as an enormous front arrived, stretching hundreds of miles north to south. Winds increased to 25kt gusting to 35k, directly upriver against the current, and we had 2-3 footers with whitecaps on the river. Not good conditions for anchoring in a narrow spot, and the boat ramp dock where I had hoped to land the tender was nowhere in sight anyway. With our momentum and stabilizers keeping us comfortable, we decided to continue downriver at cruise speed until the worst of the front passed us and we would have better conditions for anchoring.

That put us just a little south of Naples, where we were able to get outside the buoy line in a comfortable depth between two wing dams (map). The wind kept blowing us sideways to the current, first one way and then the other, and we horsed 180° for a few hours, until the wind laid down enough for us to just lie to the current. After that we had a very comfortable night, and another nice dinner aboard.

We were one of only a very few pleasure craft moving yesterday; the weather had most of the looper crowd remaining comfortably in marinas. This morning, however, the weather has been gorgeous and I expect most of the group behind is is now moving and will catch up with us over the next couple of days. And so we weighed anchor first thing to snag a spot at the next dock.

That would be a 250' face dock at Mel's Riverdock Restaurant in Hardin, Illinois, at river mile 21. We called underway to make sure they can take us. Dock-and-dine is free, but they charge only $25 to spend the night, regardless of length. That's a bargain for us to run a few errands in town. We could just tie up for dinner and then go anchor, but it seems unfair to take up space that they could sell to someone else.

From here it's just 21 miles or about two and a half hours to the Mississippi River, and also to Grafton, Illinois, where we will find the last real marina we can access until Paducah, Kentucky. We need water, a pumpout, provisions, and to receive some packages, so we're taking them up on their "fourth night free" deal. There is another marina a few miles downriver in Alton, a much bigger town with more services (and a better "buy three, get three" deal), but they told me they can't take anyone drawing more than 4.5'. The water must have been higher when our friend John brought this boat down the rivers back in 2007, because he spent several days there.

Update: We're docked at Mel's (map). We've put in our Amazon orders for shipment to Grafton, and I'll be taking the e-Bike into town on a hunt for beer and a few other items. Just as we finished tying up a 28' Rosborough tied up at the other end of the dock; between the two of us we probably represent the upper and lower ends of the displacement scale for loopers. I will not be surprised if another couple of boats tie up here before dinner time. My next post here will be underway from Grafton, headed toward St. Louis.

Ride your own ride

We are underway southbound on the Illinois River, after an unscheduled five-night stop in Peoria, Illinois. The problematic locks north of us closed yesterday morning, and we are now at the very tail end of the migratory pack, at least until the locks reopen in October.

We had a very pleasant evening and night last Saturday anchored just south of the Ottawa rail bridge. As we expected, the free city dock emptied out in the morning, and we later learned from the lone looper who was there that most of the boats were on a local "pub crawl" event. They passed us downriver en masse.


Our cozy anchorage downriver of the Ottawa rail bridge.

When I last posted here I had speculated that "the pack" would catch up to us early in the morning, after a scheduled 5:30am lockage. We awoke at 4:30 to an enormous thunderstorm close by. When we staggered out of bed for coffee later, I learned that the lock had closed down for the storm and was not yet reopened.

As tempting as it was to go a few hundred yards back upriver to the now empty dock in Ottawa for a night, we decided the better course of action was to take advantage of the delay at the lock to make some more progress downriver alone. We weighed anchor shortly after 11 for the Starved Rock lock, the final trouble spot. When we arrived at the lock at 12:30 we had to wait, so we dropped the hook just behind a mooring cell.



Vector looking quite diminutive at the Peoria dock with the towboat "City of Paducah" pushing hard upriver.

We were not alone for long, as three more boats arrived before the lock opened for pleasure craft. We're typically the slowest boat, and so even though we locked through at the front of the lock, it was not long before all three passed us on the river. That was relatively short-lived, as a pair of them slowed to bare steerage right in front of me for a towboat that was shuffling barges.

My bare steerage is considerably faster than these small boats, and I called the towboat on the radio and quickly determined I would safely pass behind him. That left me with calling the other pleasure craft for a pass, who later chatted with each other about how annoyed they were. Once they got themselves sorted out they passed me again.

They had the last laugh, as they arrived at our intended destination, a free dock in Hennepin, just enough ahead of us to snag the entire dock. We nosed into a side channel off a grain dock behind Hennepin Island and dropped the hook instead (map). We tendered ashore for dinner at Spratt's Tap, right above the river. It was surprisingly good.


Vector at Hennepin Island. The dock, which is actually an old barge filled-in, is at left.

Right next door to the restaurant is a small market, which may or may not be associated with the nearby "boat store." That moniker belies the actual function of such a business, which is to provide underway replenishment to towboats on the river. We peered in the darkened windows and decided it was worth a return visit in the morning, so we left the dink in the water.

The market turned out to have a very nice meat counter, a good selection of groceries, and even a hardware department to rival some small-town hardware stores. Hennepin is a tiny community, and this well-stocked store with a large selection is what makes me think they are part of, or at least supplying, the boat store. We heard at least one tow getting groceries from the Hennepin boat store.


The mother lode of Vector engine parts! We passed this Komatsu America facility on our way into Peoria, here, no doubt, to be close to their #1 competitor.

The dock emptied out in the morning, but we'd had plenty of Hennepin, so we weighed anchor and continued downriver to Peoria. We arrived downtown at the "free" dock to find a pair of boats tied up in the only section of dock usable for Vector. Instead we went across the river and dropped the hook, in the protection of the Murray Baker (I-74) bridge (map). We tendered ashore for dinner at Kenny's Pub, downtown.

By this time, the logjam of looper boats upriver had broken, and a clot of some 26 boats were headed downriver towards us. Peoria is the last city of any real size for at least a couple hundred miles, and we decided that this was as good a place as any to hunker down for a few days and let the pack pass us. It would also be a good place to connect with a couple of people we keep missing, run a few errands, and stock up for the next segment of the journey.


The view of Peoria from our anchorage, with the free dock and the Spirit of Peoria paddlewheeler in the foreground. I'm sorry I did not get a night shot, as the city is nicely lit.

We were perfectly comfortable anchored in the river, although temps have been climbing into the 90s in the afternoon and we'd likely have to run the genny a few hours a day. So when the two other boats left mid-morning, we weighed anchor and headed to the dock (map). We overhung the downstream end and left as much space in front of us as we could for another boat to squeeze in.

The docks and cleats are in poor condition, but there are power pedestals. I hunted a bit for a working 30-amp, which is enough for us to charge batteries and run our two air-cooled air conditioners, and a couple of fans to move the cool air to the other rooms. It was very comfortable.


Vector at the city dock in Peoria.

I had put the word "free" in quotes earlier, because faded old signs on the dock stipulate an hourly rate. You're meant to pay using a parking-meter type device at one of the slips on the dock. The meter has been gone for years, and it appears the city is neither maintaining the docks nor collecting fees. The same sign directs you to go to the city's other marina, to the north, for overnight dockage, but it's too shallow for Vector, as are all the other marinas near Peoria.

In the course of our four days at the dock I made three trips to Walmart across the river, two by e-Bike with a backpack on one by foot with a Lyft return to pick up a new automatic litter box we ordered site-to-store (the old one failed a few weeks ago). This last item necessitated an extra day's stay, and when I got it home we found it unusably damaged in transit and I had to march it right down to the post office (fortunately on the closer side of the river) to send it back anyway.


Had we remained at anchor we might have tendered across to this old powerplant foundation, now an East Peoria city park, and climbed the straight ladder through this manhole to access Walmart, just a few steps away.

While I was on the left bank I also stopped in to the Bass Pro for some boat accessories they turned out not to have, but the stores are always a fun stop. We both took in a sky show at the Dome Planetarium, and I spent an hour or so at the Caterpillar Visitor Center and Museum; Peoria is home to Cat's worldwide HQ. We had nice dinners at the Blue Duck, Los Cabos (excellent and inexpensive Mexican food), and Two25, and I took in the whole town by e-Bike.


Uncle Buck's restaurant inside Bass Pro sports these funky bowling lanes. I like the shark ball returns.

This morning we strolled the Farmer's Market which was right outside our flybridge, enjoying a brioche from one of the vendors for breakfast. Last night began the annual Oktoberfest festival in the park just upriver of us. It was a little loud, and we figured it would be even louder today. Neither of us had an interest in going.


The Saturday Farmer's Market was this close.

Last night was also the first night we'd had other boats at the dock with us, a few local go-fasts in town for Friday evening or maybe the festival. Late in the evening we heard one start its excessively loud engine and then putt past us out of the marina, follow by five shrieks of the steam whistle on the local tour paddlewheeler that docks here.

The paddlewheeler had been out on an evening cruise and was returning to the dock when this moron pulled out right in front of him. Unlike many such tour boats, this one actually uses its twin paddlewheels for propulsion, so it neither stops on a dime nor turns with any alacrity. Making matters worse, the little boat panicked and immediately killed his engine, so now he was adrift just upriver of a heavy tour boat with momentum. All's well that ends well; the tour boat adjusted and missed the small boat by mere feet, which soon afterward it got its engine restarted and took off upriver.


Paddlewheeler Spirit of Peoria, her stage bearing down on the adrift power boat. Best shot I could get on no notice.

The river dropped a foot while we were in Peoria, even though there is flooding elsewhere in the state. We had just a foot under keel at the dock when we left. While that pool was low, the next one, which we are in now, is high, and the dam between the two has the wickets down and we did not need to lock through.

There are still perhaps a dozen looper boats behind us, many of them docked at the Illinois Valley Yacht Club just upriver from Peoria (another marina inaccessible to us). So there is some chance we will still end up in a pack at some point. But as I type, we are blissfully alone, as we prefer it.


Sunrise over the I-74 bridge in Peoria, on the only morning we had another loop boat at the dock.

Don't get me wrong; while Louise is a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, I am more than happy to meet other boaters and lift a few beers at the marina bar. Maybe have dinner, even, if we hit it off well. But as I mentioned in the last post, actually traveling in a pack presents a number of challenges, and piloting and navigation both become more demanding. Also, as we saw in both Hennepin and Peoria, the sorts of docks we need can be committed before we arrive.

For now, we have the river to ourselves, and we like it that way. Tonight we should be anchored near Havana, and we're hoping to get ashore there. In another two or three days, we'll be at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.

From the Lakes to the Rivers

We are anchored in the Illinois River, just upstream of the Marseilles Dam (map). The bottom here is a thin layer of silt over rock and we are considering it a lunch hook while we wait our turn for the lock. If that ends up being overnight, we might have to find alternate accommodations.


Navy Pier, the Ferris wheel, and half the Chicago skyline from Anchorage A.

It has been an eventful week since my last post. I had hoped to post here southbound out of Chicago, but we left in thick fog and I could not divert my attention from the instruments. The following two days were something of a goat rope, and this forced stop at the lock is my first chance to type.

The rest of our cruise into Chicago last Saturday was uneventful, although I had to dodge and weave through a number of sailboats out enjoying the day as we got closer to the city. We cleared through the outer breakwaters a little after 6pm, made a hard left and dropped the hook in Anchorage A, at the northeast corner of the breakwalls (map). Had we made a right we would have been in Anchorage C, locally known as "the Playpen," and as you might imaging with that name, on a pleasant weekend it was full of go-fast boats enjoying water sports.


Approaching Chicago from the north. Navy Pier at left.

Anchorage A, by contrast, is a lonely place. We had the enormous anchorage to ourselves, although the harbor tours circled around behind us on their evening cruises. From this vantage the city lights form a backdrop to Navy Pier and its enormous Ferris wheel. We enjoyed the view over dinner aboard, and we had a mostly pleasant night, with swell moving in the following morning after a wind shift. After dinner some radio traffic from the tour boats revealed there would be fireworks, and we were treated to a nice display over the harbor.


Fireworks from Anchorage A.

In the morning we weighed anchore and moved to the south Grant Park anchorage inside the inner breakwalls, in an area locally known as Monroe Harbor (map). The entire inner harbor was once full of mooring balls, but the city pulled them out of the southern half as demand dropped off. We were just a few hundred yards from the Chicago Museum Campus. It was a perfect spot for seeing Chicago, and we had already arranged with a nearby yacht club to use their docks to land the tender.


The view from our nice, protected, unusable anchorage. Field museum at right, Shedd Aquarium at left.

We had a relaxing afternoon aboard in mostly rainy weather. It was too wet and choppy to want to splash the dinghy until we were ready to go to dinner, at the aforementioned yacht club. Instead I got a few things done around the house, including some preparations for the upcoming river trip, such as making up a masthead and anchor light we could deploy while the mast was lowered.

Just as it was coming up to 5 o'clock and we were thinking about having a beer, I got word from one of our online resources that anchoring overnight is not allowed in Monroe Harbor. It's a federal anchorage, but rulemaking in the Federal Register turns administration of it over to the Chicago Park District (we've come up against this elsewhere as well, notably the 79th Street anchorage in NYC). Harumph.


Cloud Gate, known by locals as The Bean, in Millenium Park.

It is very likely we could have stayed there overnight without any issue. But the risk is always the 3am knock on the hull from the marine patrol, and neither of use wanted to be weighing anchor in the middle of the night and trying to go elsewhere. We decided to pull up stakes and move before dinner.

Our choices were to go back out to the outer harbor, where the feds have not ceded control, take a mooring ball in Monroe harbor for (gulp) a dollar per foot (launch service included), or go to a dock for at least three times that much. The outer harbor was now very rough, and in addition to being uncomfortable, we'd be stuck on the boat or else bashing two miles through the chop to get ashore.

Right at 5pm everyone was closing for the night, but the harbormaster gave us a ball assignment if we wanted it. Apparently there are only a couple of balls in the whole harbor for boats larger than 50', and, as luck would have it, they are right next to the entrance. It would be even less comfortable than the anchorage. In the end, we decided on docking at the Columbia Yacht Club (map), which was much more protected and an easy walk to town. They charge $3 per foot, the lowest their landlord the Park District will allow them to go. The adjacent Park District docks, known as DuSable Harbor, are $3.25.


Buckingham Fountain.

We were finally tied up and shut down by 5:45; the yacht club's dockmaster gave us a couple of key cards as soon as our lines were on before taking off for the day. I spent the next few minutes repairing their pedestal to get our shore power working. Exhausted by the last minute scramble, we just went inside the club for drinks and dinner in the member bar, which was quite nice.

And when I say "inside the club" I mean up the gangway from the guest dock into the MV Abegweit, the retired 1944 icebreaking rail, vehicle, and passenger ferry that serves as a floating clubhouse. The ship is affectionately known by the members as the "Abby" and houses a bar, a formal dining room, sailing school classrooms, and lots of sails, sailmaking, and other materials. Another pair of gangways connects the ship to the DuSable Harbor walkway.


Vector (partly obscured by a rack of tiny sailboats) is dwarfed by Abby.

Before arriving in Chicago, I had envisioned casually hanging out for a full week, going ashore occasionally for exploration by foot, bicycle, or el, and generally having a relaxing visit anchored in the harbor. At $156 a night for the dock, the dynamics of a visit change somewhat (OK, so call me cheap), and Monday morning I immediately put the e-Bike on the ground to explore.

There is a very nice bike bath along the waterfront, and bikes are also allowed on the Riverwalk as well as in Millennium park. None of these things existed when I lived in the metro Chicago area three and a half decades ago. Downtown, however, bikes may not be ridden on the sidewalks on penalty of a $250 fine, and actual bike lanes are few and far between. I found it impossible to get around to anything interesting.


80th floor view to the west, dominated by the Willis Tower.

The yacht club was closed Monday, as was the nearby Chicago Yacht Club, where we had intended to land the tender and where, consequently, I had addressed an eBay package. Of course the package arrived Monday, or so said UPS. We went to dinner at Acanto, a nice Italian place across from Millennium Park. We were going through a warm spell and we were able to eat outside on the patio.

Tuesday morning I strolled over to the Chicago Yacht Club to pick up my package. It was not there, nor was it delivered to their other location, and I ended up spending a good part of the morning trying to track down why UPS said it was delivered but no one could find it. Eventually they determined the shipper's hand-written address label did not make it into the system properly, and the delivery was re-scheduled for Wednesday.

Tuesday afternoon we had something of a busman's holiday. Vector is too tall to make it under the downtown Chicago bridges. When we planned to anchor, I had intended to take the tender through the lock and explore both branches of the river a bit. Instead we sprung a few bucks and took one of the numerous river tours; we chose the "architecture" tour as being a bit more interesting.


On the Architecture Tour aboard the mv Wendella.

The last couple of times we stopped in Chicago, we ate at our affiliate club on the 67th floor of the Willis Tower. Now there is a second affiliate with an even better view, on the 80th floor of the AON center, and we walked there after our cruise. The service was nice and the view was spectacular, so we enjoyed it at the time, but Louise got food poisoning, marring the experience.


Looking north from the Mid-America Club, right from our table.

Wednesday morning I made an e-Bike run to the nearest Jewel grocery store for provisions; it's a bit of a haul but on bike path most of the way and bike lane for the last two blocks. In the afternoon I obsessively clicked on UPS tracking in hopes my package would arrive before we had to shove off. The Columbia Yacht Club was very gracious to let us stay at the dock until it finally arrived at 4:30. We cast off the lines and motored out to Anchorage B, which was now calm enough to spend a night.


The view from Anchorage B. Not too shabby.

Anchorage B is the closest to Monroe Harbor, and we tendered back to the Chicago Yacht Club for dinner. They had been nice enough to receive my package (and pull out all the stops looking for it), and we figured we'd spend a few bucks there in return. We had a nice dinner on the patio. After we returned home and decked the tender, a thunderstorm moved through, with 40-knot winds. Before we could secure everything, the wind pressure against my new anchor shape support snapped our burgee staff in two, and the day shape and it's pvc base went to Davy Jones' locker.

Thursday morning we awoke to dense fog. No problem, since we only had ten miles to go to Calumet Harbor, where we planned to spend the night and stage for our run down the river, lowering the mast and dealing with all the other details of getting under the low bridges. The fog only burned off a little bit by mid-morning, but we knew seas would be growing, and we opted to get under way, with a close eye on the radar.


I walked the longest section of the Chicago Pedway, a network of underground walkways running through downtown.

We dropped the hook in Calumet Harbor right around 11:30, and relaxed over lunch. The fog had mostly lifted and I was looking forward to getting the boat ready for the bridges and then getting a blog post done before dinner. With a whole day ahead of us, we were not rushing anything, and a check of the water level at the low bridge pool showed we had a good foot to spare.

All of that changed in an instant when, after lunch, Louise called up a weather report and saw a flash flood warning for the Des Plaines River in the north. The river was expected to reach flood stage overnight and crest the next day. That would mean downstream pools would be rising faster than the dams could drain them.


The neoclassical City Hall is at the end of the Pedway in this direction.

With the 10am pool reading still a foot lower than we needed, we opted to get an immediate start down the river and hope to make the low bridge in Lemont before stopping for the night, a run of some 35 miles, or six hours, not counting lockage time. The next half hour was a mad scramble to lower the mast and antennas, remove the wind sensor, and rearrange things for the bridges and get underway. We weighed anchor at 12:45.

I cleared through the first two lift bridges before the bilge alarm went off; when it rains, it pours. Louise ran down to check it, and even now we still have not locked down the source. It's slowly dripping down the starboard side hull plating from somewhere behind the wall; most likely some rainwater forced in someplace. Once we determined the boat was not flooding, we pressed on to the T. J. O'Brien lock, which lowered us from the insanely high lake level down to the controlled pool of the river system.

We had a couple of bridge delays, but overall a good cruise and we made good time to Lemont. Unfortunately, the river gage web site run by the Corps of Engineers went down sometime after the 10am pool reading, and remained down for the rest of our cruise. All we could do was hope that the level remained below limits when we arrived.


Locking down at Lockport, after the infamous low bridge. We tied to the only pin available with two huge tows in the lock. Smaller boat on our port is rafted to us.

Sadly, that was not the case. The gage web site came back on line literally minutes before we arrived at the bridge, and we were aghast to find the pool had risen over a foot and a half between 10am and 6pm. Theoretically we should have had a couple of inches to spare even at the new reading, but the gage is well downriver, at the dam, and the level can be a couple of inches higher at the bridge. I pulled up close and sighted along the top of the flybridge top, as luck would have it just as a train went over the bridge. The sighting was too close for comfort and we made a quick about-face.

And there we were, in exactly the situation I had worked so hard to avoid: unable to transit the low bridge, at 6pm and with dozens of miles back to the nearest marina or anchorage. It was a particularly low moment, no pun intended.

We had done a little dance with a couple of very large towboats just as we came into Lemont, and one of them was moving barges in and out of one of the three enormous commercial "slips" there. I called the skipper on the radio, explained our conundrum, and asked if he knew a place we could tie up until the water level went down. He, in turn, supplied me the the name and number of the guy who ran a fleeting operation in one of the slips, and we gave him a call.

I explained our situation, and, knowing that the slips are under MarSec security protocol, I mentioned that I was a licensed captain with a TWIC, which theoretically allows me into secure ports. He was super nice, very understanding, and directed us to tie up to an empty styrene barge on the wall facing the channel (map). He cautioned us about visibility, and we spent the night with every light on the upper decks turned on. Other than the towboats rumbling by outside it was a calm night.


Vector tied up to a barge along the canal. The cleats were a little high.

Aware that workers could arrive at sunup to do whatever is done in such a place, we set an early alarm. The 6am gage reading showed the river had dropped nearly a full foot overnight, and we immediately dropped lines, shoved off, and squirted under the bridge with nearly a foot to spare. We were ecstatic to have this bridge behind us.


Vector on the wall at Joliet.

It was only a short run to Joliet, where we were tied up at the free wall (map) by 10:30. With a whole day ahead of us, I set out on the e-Bike to explore a bit. Joliet was once where the historic Lincoln Highway and Route 66 crossed, and, of course, was also the site of the Illinois State Penitentiary, infamously known as Joliet Prison.


One of two claims to fame for Joliet.

The prison, which closed in 2002, is the town's largest claim to fame, and they make hay of it. The local minor league team is The Slammers, whose tag line is New Team, Same Joint. And creepily, the local high school seems to have been modeled on the prison's architecture. As if high school students needed another reason to compare their stay to a prison sentence.


Joliet Prison High School.

Around 6pm the flotilla of loopers that had started their run in the morning all showed up together at the dock, unsurprising since lockage and timed bridge openings tend to bunch everyone together, even if they started spread out. I did my best to help a few get tied, but it was a bit chaotic. One skipper managed to slam his boat hard into the concrete wall, and I heard the unmistakable crunch of fiberglass that suggests a good deal of subsurface damage. We were happy to see a couple whom we had met way back in Schenectady.


The wall looks a bit different after arrival of the fleet.

While the flotilla was still getting things sorted and settling in after a long cruise, we slipped away and headed off to a casual dinner at the Chicago Street Pub. Chicago street is the main drag through downtown, and actually sports a handful of decent restaurants. A Harrah's Casino is on the riverfront for the buffet aficionados.


We're on a mission from God.

We are not good group travelers. That was true when we did a lot of motorcycle touring (where group participants are reminded to "ride your own ride"), it was true when we were in the bus (the caravan through Mexico was something we endured for an otherwise unavailable experience), and it's true in the boat, too. Mindful that locks and bridges force boats into groups for better or worse, we got up early and got a head start off the dock this morning, beating the bridge curfew and locking down at the first lock with just one other boat, the two of us crammed into the space leftover with two giant tows in the lock.

That put us ahead of the pack, so to speak, for the rest of the morning, and we had a very nice solo cruise down through one more lock and a handful of bridges. Our luck ran out when we arrived at Marseilles. This lock, and the next one downstream, have been closing for 12 hours each day to conduct repairs for the last two weeks, with unrestricted locking just starting a couple of days ago. Both locks are scheduled to close completely for two weeks starting in just a few days.


Tied alongside a chemical barge in Lemont. The infamous low bridge is in the background.

That combination has a backlog of tows stacked up in both directions for miles; when we arrived at the lock there were 20 downbound tows in queue. The lock told us they *might* be able to get a couple of us through after 5pm, but, if not, it would be 5:30am tomorrow. Which is how we found ourselves anchoring just upstream of the dam at 1pm. I did some chart work and started this post, and Louise did some sewing and started dinner. The pack of other loopers all caught up to us an hour or so later; most turned back upriver and found anchorages or marinas, with only two boats opting to remain with us.

Update: We are now anchored just downriver of a railroad bridge in Ottawa, Illinois (map). Before I could finish the post, the lock called us around 5:30 and directed us to move the two miles down the canal to the lock, where we could tie to a mooring cell or station-keep and be locked through after the next tow. We wasted no time and were at the lock by 6:20, where we tied up to a mooring cell with considerable effort in the propwash of the nearby tow. The other two boats chose to hover.


Another weird tie-up to a circular mooring facility.

And there we sat until 9:25, nearly three hours. I was very glad we took the time to tie up and shut the engine down. We had dinner while we waited, and researched contingency plans for making progress after dark and finding a safe spot to stop. We made it the last four miles in the dark without incident; the river is well-buoyed if not well lit.


Moonrise over the river as we await lockage. One of the hovering boats is at left; lights behind him are a downbound tow parked on the bank. We're using an old dowel and a piece of PEX as a temporary flagstaff.

We had hoped to just tie up to the free city dock here, but when we arrived it was full of boats rafted three deep. So we continued another few hundred yards to where we are now. We can get ashore by tender tomorrow, or if the dock frees up we can bring Vector over. I expect the pack to catch up to us early in the morning, since they'll all be locking through at 5:30.

The trip from here on down until we reach the Ohio will be busy, and I won't be able to type at the helm. I will try to update the blog every few stops, or whenever we can schedule a down day. Once we are through the next lock, we will be out from the pressure of the scheduled closure, and I expect things to get a bit more relaxed.