We met some loopers last night who had lots of information and ideas for our challenging journey. We stayed on the wall in Joleit, IL where we had power but no water. Right next to Harrah’s Casino & Hotel where we ran to pick up a few bottles of water for the drive tomorrow. We are running a bit low on groceries and bottled water. It was a nice stay but we did have the wake of several large barges and their tow over the course of night. It is a 24/7 job with the commercial traffic here. We were so tired from the 8 hour day in 90+ degrees hot sun that we barely noticed them. We did have a beautiful lightening storm as well with a reported tornado touching down in Chicago. No wonder those winds were so bad yesterday.
We were up at 5:00 and called the next lock to find out when we could lock through. Waiting for an hour or several hours for locking is very normal on this waterway. It’s all about the timing for when a recreational vessel can lock through. We were very happy to find out that we would fit in with our new friends in 15 minutes. So we packed up and headed to Brandon Lock. I was so happy to find out that the locks actually have bollards that go up and down with the water level. Why didn’t we have that yesterday in the wind? It would have made all the difference!
After that we headed down the Illinois River to the next lock where we waited for about an hour to be locked through. Our friends caught up to us so again we were able to lock through together. We were on the ropes again with no bollard to carry us down. I wasn’t happy to see that again. As the doors were opening after a non eventful lock through, the tug and his 12 containers were stuck in the lock. He couldn’t give her because of the two of us were behind him. As I was on the bow holding the front line and Aiden on the back, my line snapped due to the turbulence in the water causing our bow to go up and down. I was at the end of my rope too. It freaked me out having the snap and and line fall beside me. The fellow who works there heard me yelling and threw me another line from the top. Since the lock was no longer draining we tied off mid line to a metal cleat inside the wall, added another line prepared for the push by the tug. Then after about 20 minutes the tug gave the heave ho and out she went. Finally!
We locked through 3 locks today on our way. It was our plan to hopefully get the 3 done and stop at a Starved Rock Marina but when it was only 1:30. So we kept going into the start of the flood areas. You could see where the water line was and how devastating it must have been. The debris was everywhere so we had to slow it down with the 3 of us in constant watch for logs. We stopped at Henry’s Marina where we sit on the old canal lock wall. The spot is in a beautiful setting, under a tree helping shade us from the setting sun. It does have 50 amp power but we had to secure the lines as they kept shorting due to the pull from prior boater’s lines. The electrical box is over 6 feet high on a telephone pole so if you don’t wrap your line around the sign the entire weight of the line is on the adapter and box. I guess some people don’t think of that and just let it hang.
Apparently the water is still at least 4 feet higher than normal. Henry’s does not have any gas or diesel anymore. Not sure if they will be rebuilding. If you are coming through call ahead and don’t rely on Skipper Bob. They are very out of date. Helpful as a guideline but it carries very old information.
