Down River Journey Begins Thurs 9/19 and Frid 9/20/12

The down river journey begins – Thursday 9/19/12

We studied the weather charts in Chicago. Nothing but wind and bad weather coming up. It was windy as heck on Wednesday. At times I thought Rusty would be blown off the dock. We had a tiny weather wind to get out of Lake Michigan early on Thursday morning. We decided to go for it. We planned to travel with Judy and Mike on One September and Sareanna. They left promptly at 7am. We were a little scrambling but made it out without argument or problems at 7:10am.

The sky was a little cloudy with a touch of sun peeking through – a good way to start the day. Winds calm. In fact Lake Michigan was like a mill pond.

 

 

We headed out of the harbor south towards Hammond. We noticed the other two boats stayed more to the shore at about 6 or 7 miles per hour. They were not planning to stop for fuel at Hammond so we scooted ahead to Hammond  Marina for fuel.

We arrived at about 8:30, just as they were opening and left at about 9am. We put 60 gallons in each side at $4.49 a gallon – a bargain!! At least compared to the $5.99 at Burnham Harbor in Chicago!! Such a deal. Engines are at port 603 hours and starboard 604 hours. We started our boating year at 516 and 517 so we have put almost 100 hours on the boat this year. We will schedule an oil change this weekend. It is amazing how little gas we use running at 8.5 to 9mph (about 1600 rpm) – we are using about 7 gallons per hour.

A note to Mike Mikulka from the EPA. We commented to the dock master that we needed a gas pad in case the pump leaked. He responded he appreciated our interest in keeping the lake clean, which is his number 1 priority! Isn’t that great?

The other two boats went on ahead up the Calumet River while we gassed up. We thought that was odd because in the group we usually travel with on Lake Erie, everyone stays together and waits. But we learned something. These folks think we are grownups capable of taking care of ourselves and making our own decisions. They leave at 7am. If you are ready, fine. If not, that is fine too. You are responsible for yourself and your boat. They help and are really nice but there are clear lines. It is interesting! We like it!

So we entered the Calumet River and began our river journey alone, just the two of us, with very nervous stomachs. Kermit in particular was very jittery about the bridge height and the amount of industrial traffic.

We need an explanation of mileage markers. On the Great Lakes we use longitude and latitude to know where we are. We get find this information on our GPS and then look on our charts. On the river, it is different. Everything is measured by a relative location to the shore, like a bend or a street or an entrance to a river. Downbound means you are going with the current and upbound means you are going against the current. The Illinois River is measured according to the miles away from the Miississippi. We started at Calumet River at Mile 333.4, which coincidently is 333 miles away from the Mississippi. Kind of cool, huh?

So anyway, at Mile 332.7 is the first bridge. Skipper Bob (the name of the guide book we are using now – more on that later) says this bridge is 7.3’ off the water. Bull. It is pretty darn high looking to me. I don’t know what Skipper Bob is talking about. We are 17’3” tall. Too tall to take the Chicago River but we should be just fine on the Calumet. Traveling alone just makes it scarier. Anyways. Kermit called to have the bridge lifted because maybe the 7’3” refers to the bridge in the down position. The bridge tender came on the line and scoffed that we were just fine to go under this bridge and all the bridges on this river, thank you very much. Kermit didn’t like it but we proceeded to move VERY SLOWLY under the first bridge. Much bickering on the bridge, “we’re not going to fit” “yes we are, no problem” “it will be a problem when the radar gets knocked off the boat” “it won’t happen, we will be fine” “no we won’t” “yes we will” “slow down” “I can’t go slower” “look we made it!” “Yeah!!” “Boy we are good, aren’t we!” "You are a great captain!"

This is a picture of Good Karma going under the first bridge - plenty of room!

We made it through all the bridges, even the 19 foot fixed bridge we worried about. I guess the drought has its benefits for boaters after all.

The Calumet River is bridge after bridge and barge after barge. The guidebooks say it is a working river and they are not kidding. Frequent waves from working folks along the water made it a friendly, albeit industrial trip.

You can still find marinas on the water!

  Barges

 More barges

 Water treatment centers can be pretty!

 See how pretty?

This is the place where the Calumet River meets the Chicago River.

 

By the way, the red and green markets are reversed!!! It is no longer Red Right Returning. The red is on the port side!!! I guess we are not in Kansas any longer.

We made our first lock at Mile 326.4 (333.4 – 326.4 = 7.0 miles down river for those of you keeping score at home). This is the Thomas S. O’Brient Lock. I think they installed this lock just as a warm up or practice lock for novices like us. With a 2 foot drop, it was not a big deal but exciting since it was our first. The historical note in Skipper Bob says this lock was constructed in 1960 to reverse the river flow downstream to the Mississippi. In other words, send yet more Chicago crap downstream to New Orleans! Anyway a good practice with locks. We had our first experience with “bollards” – floating metal posts. You wrap your line around the bollard and attach it back to your boat. Then when the water goes down the bollard goes down with it and your boat goes down smoothly with the bollard. Effortless and simple. So far so good. We have lots of pictures in Kermit's camera that we will load later.

We started seeing lots of barges. They will be our constant companion for miles to come. Kermit got to use our new AIS system which displays the name of the oncoming commercial vessel. So Kermit was able to call the oncoming barge by name on Channel 16 to ask which side he prefers we pass. He responded by saying pass on our starboard. He might have said pass on the 1s or 2s. We are still working out what that means. But it was mighty exciting this time when the captain responded and we complied like we knew what we were doing!!

I know our friends are curious about the electrical field on the Illinois River. We passed through it at miles 296.7 to 296.1. Plenty of dead little fish in the water. We noticed the birds did not land in this area and both sides of the canal are lined with barbed wire. This is a picture of the river at the start of the electrical field. It lasts through the bridge in the near distance.

We passed a really nice barge captain going down river who asked if we were part of the big group of recreational boats that passed a while ago. We guessed so. He advised us to speed it up a little to catch up with them so we could go through the lock with them. He was pushing barges full of fuel so would not be able to lock through with us. He would get priority so we would have to wait. With that good advice, we sped up and caught up with the other loopers. We knew One September and Sereanna would be up there but we were surprised that there were 5 other boats total!
The next lock was late in the day at Lockport IL, Mile 291.0. This was a big lock with a 40 foot drop. We had to wait a long time for the lock to open. Once it did we realized why. It was huge!! It takes 25 minutes to drain and 25 minutes to fill. Floating bollards again. The lock workers were really nice. We were there at shift change which caused some more delay. When we lock through on a bollard we only use 1 line at mid ship. We are lucky we have 4 cleats on each side so we can use the mid cleat which balances us nicely as we go down the wall

By the way, everyone leaves fenders hang out all the time! We would look really funny on Lake Erie outfitted like this!! So when we enter a lock the fenders are already in the right place and the lines are stacked on the back of the boat. Very easy!! So much easier than we thought it would be.

When we arrived in Joliet at 4pm we had been traveling for 9 hours. Although we are sitting all day and eating pretty frequently, we are always at attention watching the markers, checking the charts, noting gauges, checking fuel, are we making too much wake? So when we stopped last night we were tired. Kermit was hungry. I was not feeling good. I started to behave like a three year old who needed a nap. Mostly because I felt like I just wanted to go to bed. No pictures of Joliet. My camera, my phone, and Kermit's camera were all out of power. No loss. Not much to see.

All six boats docked for the night on the wall in Joliet across from the Harahs Casino on Jefferson Bridge. We sailed through 3 bridges to find the spot. We thought we try the generator for the evening since we haven’t actually used it yet. Kermit flipped the switches. All the lights went on then the entire port side went dark. Nothing. No power. OK, so let’s plug into shore power and figure out what went wrong.

Tom Houser ALERT: Damage report. The microwave is toast. Evidently when we turned on the generator it blew up the microwave! So this was the first boat damage. We need to replace the microwave. More important. We need to figure out WTF is going on with the generator. We need expert help with this so a stop at a mechanic is in order – hopefully this week. Otherwise we will be anchoring out in the dark. EDITORS NOTE: We had a mechanic check it on Friday and told us it was operator error. He showed us again how to use it. We will eventually figure this out.

After a short visit to the docktails to be sociable (very very hard for me in my 3-year-old-needs-a-nap condition) we went to bed. Straight to bed and straight to sleep for me. I hope I can kick this cold and feel better soon.

Friday AM departed Joliet 7am on the dot. First thing on the agenda – the Brandon Road Locks immediately upon leaving Bicentential Park in Joliet. It is not very bright at 7am any more. Here is a barge passing Good Karma.

 

 

Leaving Joliet - we were just about the last one out.

 

We did 3 locks today. Brandon Road lock at Mile 286, down 34 feet was a big one, immediately after leaving Joliet, with a bollard for looping a line around. It was really really fast to go down, especially for such a deep lock.

Dresdon Lock at Mile 272, downn 22 feet also had a bollard for looping. In this lock we had 6 boats and we all had to be on the same side, the Port side so we had to double up. We had One September hung on our side so we had someone else to talk to, which was fun!

The Marsailles Lok at Mile 245 was 24 feet down. This one did not have bollards but the crew handed out lines that they tied to railing at the top then they let us down very slowly. The sides were kind of slimey. Both Kermit and I had to stand and hold lines. The other two locks only required me to watch the bollard.

This is a picture of the Marsailles Dam, just before the lock. Check out how low the water is.

Most of the day looked like this.

 This is Kermit with Good Karma tied up at the Marsailles Dam while we waited for the lock to clear.

 This picture should be good for a funny caption. I just can't think of one right now!
 

Duck blinds on the Illinois River! It took us a while to figure out what they were...

 

 It started raining about noon and rained all afternoon on and off. Fortunately it did not rain at any of the locks and it stopped raining when we arrived at Heritage Harbor Marina in Ottawa IL. This is a beautiful marina, comparable to some of the best we have seen. And very friendly. They enjoy hosting loopers and have harbor hosts on many docks to welcome us and answer questions. They also have a courtesy car so we have big plans for laundry and shopping tomorrow. And Kermit wants to find a bar to watch the Ohio State game!! Go Bucks!!