Saturday August 28, 2021.
Temp: 🥵 91/74, Humidity: 58/92%, Heat Index 103, Top Wind: S11 mph, Precip: None- sunny and HOT 🔥, Miles Traveled: 48, Number of Locks: 3!, down 80’ today
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You might think that’s a weird title for the day, but unless you’ve done the locks on the Illinois River, I don’t expect you to really understand. If you have done them, you totally get what a miracle this is!!
I got up at 6:00 and checked the US Army Corps of Engineers Lock Queue website for the Brandon Road Lock, which is the next one just a couple miles south of us. It showed that there was a tow in the lock coming up. Then I checked the Lockport Lock above us, and a tow had recently come through and was on it’s way down. UH-OH! I called the lock on the phone, and asked what he had in the queue, just to double check. He had what I could see, and said that if we got there before the downbound tow, he’d get us through first. REALLY? That never happens! Pleasure Craft (‘PC’ – also known as Plastic Craft) are the lowest priority for the locks. OK…. Captain, time to roll! We were up and on our way just after 6:30. There was no problem getting through the fifth of the Joliet bridges this early in the morning, so that was good, too. We arrived at the lock and were waiting by 7:00.
The lock master told us it would be 45 -60 minutes until the up bound tow was clear, so we pulled over and tied to a big round cement thing. I can’t remember if these are called dolfins, or bollards, or cells, or what they are. But I tossed a line and we were secure and out of the way to just hang out and wait.
It was about an hour, and soon we were through the lock and on our way. This picture didn’t come through on the blog very well with the low resolution that I use to save space, but it shows us as a “Rec Vessel” with a 68 minute wait time.
We tootled on our way, and saw this huge crop of … giant lily pads? I don’t know what these water plants are, but they are tall!!
There were a few duck blinds, and this one was brand new. With the price of lumber and plywood these days, this one is probably worth half a million $. 😉. There was a bright green film on the water everywhere. It looks like a huge bloom of duck weed.
A bald eagle flew above us, and we looked at where it came from, and there was another one! Just hanging out on shore.
There are not a lot of marinas on the rivers that will accommodate our size boat. This supposedly was one that could, but as we went by, we weren’t sure where? There were all these cute little house boats.
Just 15 miles down river from the Brandon Road lock was the Dresden Lock. I checked the queue, and it looked like we were the only ones around. Sure enough! There was a little go-fast day boat in front of us, and by the time we got to the lock, it was opening and we tootled right on in! THAT NEVER HAPPENS on the Illinois River!! Woo-Hoo!!
We settled right in. We’ve been surprised that the lockmasters have come out and stood at the floating bollard where they want us, and have taken our line and looped it around the bollard for us! They’ve been friendly and helpful. I don’t remember that from 2018. However, when we came through in September 2018, we were with about ten other boats, so maybe that’s why?
This is how we do floating bollards with Island Girl. Most boats have a nice mid-ship cleat on the boat that a line can come from, to loop around the bollard, and bring back to the boat. The bollard “floats” with the water level, so as the water goes down, so does the bollard or “pin” as the lock masters call them. By having a line mid-ship to the bollard, the boat stays put on the wall pretty well. But on Island Girl, our “center” cleat is forward, almost where the curve for the bow starts. So if we only tie to that one, our bow kisses the wall, and our stern sticks out in the middle of the lock. So the procedure for us is that I run a second line from the stern to the pin, and between the two of us, we keep her parallel with the lock wall.
We each hold the ‘bitter end’ of the line, so that if anything gets stuck or malfunctions, we can drop the line and not hang Island Girl from a cleat. 🤪
The locks aren’t huge drops. I think Brandon Road was 34’ and Dresdon was 22’. They aren’t small, but we’ve been in bigger.
There is a lot of industry along the river. We were talking with the lock master and he said he has only seen a few loopers so far. We told him that most of them were still up on Lake Michigan, with an overall general goal of getting to Chicago by Labor Day. We mentioned that it seems like there is less tow traffic than when we came through in 2018. He said we are ahead of the grain harvest this year. Ah-HA! That makes sense!!
There was a lot of people camping along the river in this area. We saw lots of RV’s and boats.
And I mean A LOT OF BOATS. Of course, it is Saturday, and it is in the 90’s today, so anybody with a boat is out in it today!
These people have it figured out – just belly up to the sand bar!
And more! We saw lots of people swimming. I don’t know. This is the very same water that we were warned about up in Chicago. Not sure I’d really want to be in it. 🤷♀️
We were getting close to the Marseille Lock. This one is notorious for being a big giant pain in Looper butts. We were following a tow with a GIANT load of fourteen barges that was going our way. Oh NO! If he gets to go into the lock before us, we won’t get through until tomorrow, and it was only 1:00. We could see on AIS and on the Queue report that there was also an upbound tow at the lock. Captain radioed the lock to let him know we were here and wanting to go down. He said to come wait at the lock.
The big tow that we were following had pulled over and parked. Then we figured out what was going on. There is a channel to the left that goes under that bridge, and is about two miles long. The upbound and downbound tows cannot pass each other in the channel! So the lockmaster wanted us at the lock, and he could get us through while the downbound one waited for the upbound one to come up the channel and get out of the way before he could go down to the lock! SWEET!
So we tootled down and tied up to a bollard roundy thing and waiting. Man it was HOT!! 🔥🥵
We were tempted to start the generator and turn on the A/C, but it looked like the tow could clear at any time, so we just tried to sit in the shade and catch whatever breeze there was.
This lock report shows that we had to wait an hour. That’s amazing for a pleasure craft at the Marseille lock!
Unbelievable! We are living right! Oh! And then, right as we were getting ready to go into the lock, we got a text message from loopers on Liberte. (We met them back on Lake Huron at Presque Isle.). They were at the Ottawa free dock, and said there was room for us. SWEET DEAL LUCILLE! We had just been talking about it while we were sitting waiting for the lock, and wondering if we should try it. Last time we stayed at Heritage Harbor marina, which is just two miles below the lock, and very nice and protected. The free dock is another three miles down. But it’s FREE with power! We were leaning towards going to the free dock, and if it didn’t work out, we could back track to the marina (and hope they had room for us!). So it was really cool that Liberte texted us to let us know to bring it! Thank you!
As we motored on, there were boats everywhere in this stretch, and a whole pile of them just hanging out in a little cove.
There it is! Just to the right of the bridge, a free wall with power. Liberte, Somewhere, and SeaTrek were all rafted together on one spot, leaving a second spot available for us. YAY!
We got all tied up and hooked up and took nice cold showers to cool down. Then, since we’re staying for free, and we’ve never been to Ottawa before, we headed into town for some dinner and refreshment.
This is looking back at the three that are rafted together. Some of our redneck friends can relate, right?
OH this was fun. I had just received some pictures of our two-year-old grandkids at a farm where there were sunflowers, or “sunshines” as they called them.
So I needed a picture to send back to them. Goofy Grama.
OK – so it’s not a very impressive picture of Ottawa. 🤷♀️
This was a cool old stone building. It’s the LaSalle County Courthouse, but that is all I know.
Welcome to Ottawa.
Dude. We found a brewery. Can you believe it? Tangled Roots brewery and The Lone Buffalo restaurant. Sounds great!
They had two stout beers on tap. I tried one and didn’t care much for it…. not enough chocolate or coffee. Kenny ordered the other one, and it was real hoppy and not my cup of tea. So I settled for a glass of wine.
We sat at the bar and had dinner while watching a new guy learn on his second day. There was a lot of new staff learning new jobs. Our food was really good, so we called it our anniversary dinner. Tomorrow is our 40th Wedding Anniversary, and I’m not sure there will be a restaurant to go to where we are going. Our newbie bartender hadn’t cashed anybody out yet, so he gave us the charge slip, but it had our neighbors food on it too, so Kenny handed it back to be fixed. We got a new slip, but this time it was missing one of our beers, so Kenny gave it back with his credit card and said he could run it like that, or fix it and charge us for the beer. So the guy ran it again, and this time it looked right. Whew! I felt bad for the guy, but he didn’t get flustered at all.
We meandered our way back home, and we saw some real neat murals on buidings on our walk.
It seems like a nice little town! Too bad we aren’t here long enough to explore. That, and it’s still 250 degrees outside!
I‘m really not sure what this was…. I think a bench? HA!
We also saw this big fella on our walk back, down by the river. He stood so very still in his statue mode, so that we’d think he wasn’t real. He was pretty big, but you can’t tell from the picture.
Back home, there was no good TV, no internet, and our bellies were full. Tomorrow will likely be another early morning, and a LONG day, so we didn’t stay up late. The next lock is Starved Rock Lock, which is about eight miles from here. I’ll get up early and check the Lock Queue Reports. Just one lock tomorrow, and after it we’ll have another 63 miles to go to Peoria. Earlier today I made a reservation at the Illinois Valley Yacht Club (IVY) for tomorrow night. Our next night after that will likely be at anchor, so we want to be picky about our weather. It’s supposed to start cooling down, so we’d like to stay at IVY for a couple three nights, but they only had tomorrow available. OK – we took it, and we’ll figure it out when we get there. Often once you’re on site, they can figure out a way to let you stay longer.
Happy anniversary!