Before I take you away from the Great Lakes and Michigan in particular.....we spent a couple of days at the Marina taking care of 'business'. As we went into the City on Thursday, we didn't want to go back the following day (Friday) and then Saturday would have meant we would be too exhausted before going down the River on Sunday....so we stayed home!
I wont bore you with too many details of our home days, but we did lots of walking, spent some time doing basics, like baking!! yes...I made more cakes to put in the freezer. That way we don't have to eat it every day, and it is available for consumption after 35 seconds in the microwave:) Easy peesey!
We did go into the Casino for Coffee (Starbucks brand)and dessert (treat!) on Saturday afternoon, which was rather nice. We shared a cheesecake with our Latte. It had Pecans on top, so it was good....isn't everything with Pecans good??:)
Waz spent time in the engine room doing what he does down there in preparation for our Sunday departure. We also walked over to the Walmart...after being told we couldn't get there but for a Taxi..."There is no way to get there, unless you call a cab" they said...yes? well, if you look on google earth, you can clearly see that there is a sidewalk that goes over the bridge and along the highway, cut across some brushy looking unpaved parts and bingo! you are in the parking lot of Walmart...Food! tada!
So, armed with the little red cart, we walked...taking all of 10-15 mins, and purchased our goodies and walked back! simple! and we didn't risk life or limb to do it. The Marina is in Indiana, in actual fact, just over the road from Chicago (as I have said before). This is South east of the city. We were told not to walk on the streets at night, and we didn't, but at no time did we feel uncomfortable...ever!
As I have said before, putting away all those groceries is a chore and time consuming...especially when the fridge is not large, but we manage.
The bridge takes you to the road the Marina and Casino is on. It crosses the amazing maze of railroad tracks. That is the casino in the background.
Going over...it got quite hot out of the wind...and we took our jackets off.
The road that goes over the bridge to the casino and marina...We cut the corner and walked over the grass and down the hill, instead of taking the sidewalk all the way around...on the descent, but coming back with a full cart, we had to walk the whole arc.
Once again provisioned, I made meatballs for dinner, with some lemon-pepper linguine and creamy mushroom/spinach sauce. Yum! There were plenty of meatballs left over for whatever we felt like. Good to have!
The boat was ready for departure, and though we had planned on getting fuel on Saturday, and pumping out at the same time, the wind was up and it would have made returning to our assigned dock a bit challenging (no help to tie up, and all that). We were in no hurry to leave on Sunday morning, so there wasn't a problem doing it all then.
Sunday morning dawned clear and beautiful....'
Sunrise over the Hammond Marina.
Our last look at Chicago City, as the sun rises. No wind!!! the windsock is slack:)
We are off and making our way into the Calumet Harbor and the Canal. Goodbye Great Lakes. We fuelled up and pumped out. The fuel dock didn't open until 8.30am...why? This is the weekend, its a fine day and all the fishermen are wanting fuel!!! why so late? beats me! No self respecting boater is going to wait until 8.30am to fuel up. 6.30 maybe!
Our first view of the Cal/Sag Canal...and the first of the 48 bridges we had to go under.
Goodbye Chicago and Michigan...and clean green water!:)
So many different bridges in this industrial part of the city.
Some had to open for us, the rest we slid carefully underneath with only a couple of inches to spare. Often holding our breath, because from a distance, the bridge did not look nearly high enough for us to go underneath, Talk about stressful, Trev! (kiwi colloquialism). It was a windless day...cool in the morning, and with the wind we were creating with our speed, Waz and I had our jackets on and off, depending on how fast we were going.
Salt mountains and ice-bergs
and idiots creating huge wakes. The bridge is opening for us.
Some of the bridges look historic, and are crumbling, as you can see
We had been following the progress at 106th Street bridge where a tug had gone down, for the past three days, on channel 16 and 22A. Coast Guard do not always know what is going on, on their waters, we have found. Waz called them to find out the REAL story and they hadn't realize that they were broadcasting old news! We were told there was plenty of room for us to pass, and that was true. The yellow boom was in the process of being replaced, this morning. It had moved in the night. The tug is under there somewhere. Not sure how it managed to sink!! because it was nowhere near the bridge.
You can tell the size of this huge complex below, by the barges at the bottom.
I have to tell you something about barges, if you don't already know. I have copied the following from an article on Mississippi River Barges.
A typical barge carries 1500 tons of cargo, which is 15 times greater than a rail car and 60 times greater than one trailer truck. An average river tow on the Upper Mississippi River is 15 barges consisting of 5 barges tied together and moving 3 abreast. The same load would require a train 3 miles long or line of trucks stretching more than 35 miles. In 1995, 321 million tons of cargos were moved on the Mississippi River. Barges carry many different types of goods with coal, petro-chemical products, and grain constituting most common commodities moved.
The following is information that I think you will find interesting...I did!
Why is a towboat called a towboat when it pushes the barges?
The word "tow" comes from the canal age when a draft animal walking along the bank of the canal pulled a barge. As rivermen gained experience with moving barges, they found that, by lashing barges together and pushing them, they could control the barges better and move more of them. The control was especially helpful when navigating the smaller rivers and tight bends in a river.
What is the size of a barge?
The standard barge is 195 feet long, 35 feet wide, and can be used to a 9-foot draft. Its capacity is 1500 tons. Some of the newer barges today are 290 feet by 50 feet, double the capacity of earlier barges.
What is the size of a towboat?
Towboats range in physical size from about 117 feet long by 30 feet wide to more than 200 feet long and 45 feet wide. They draft anywhere from 6.5 feet to 9.0 feet. The boat's diesel engine can produce power from a few hundred horsepower to 10,000 horsepower. A few are in excess of that, but not many. The larger boats operated on the Lower Mississippi where the water is freeflowing and wide.
How many barges and towboats are there?
There are approximately 26,000 dry cargo barges, 3,000 tanker barges, and 1,200 towboats operating today.
How many barges are there in a tow?
The average tow has 15 barges, but flotillas can go up to 40 barges, depending on the type of cargo, the river segments being navigated, and the size of the towboat. Smaller tributaries, such as the Alabama River, can support only a four-barge tow because of the meandering nature of the river and varying width of the river itself. In addition, the Alabama's locks are only 84 feet wide and 600 feet long.
The reason for putting up all this information is so that you can imagine what we might be confronted with as we travel down the rivers.
Now...here is a list of Vessel Priority....as you can see, we come last in the scheme of things. This is very evident when there is a lot of river traffic. The pleasure or recreational vessels may have to wait hours to go through a lock. When there is a large Tow, it may take two lockings for the whole tow to come through...sigh! We know our place!
The name of this boat tickled our fancies!:) I want to rename our boat to say "NO WAKE PLEASE!"
We could see the winterization of boats taking place all along the Cal/Sag canal, at the various Marina. The boats are 'wrapped' or Vacuum wrapped. Some have custom covers.
The outfall from some of the power plants have been landscaped to make them into pretty stepped waterfalls.:)
These docks were bare and so was the fuel dock...cute little house tho!
Passing a 4-Pack going the other way. Not a lot of extra space to pass, I might add. We had to gun the engine when we came to the tug. Their wake can be deadly! Like a Washing Machine, and we have LOTS of experience with those!:)
We were held up for 50 mins after this boat (right) came out of nowhere on the river with lights flashing, horn blaring and racing up and down the river like a crazy person...well, people. Waving wildly as they came back to tell us that there was a boat upside down in the river and we had to wait while they ascertained whether there were people underneath. Later when we asked our other boater friends who had traversed the canal before us, if they had seen the boat...they said YES! but nobody had done anything about it...but, someone did, and called the authorities! The others had just passed by and done nothing. What's with that? Patience is a virtue! It looked like the boat had actually been there for a while.
FINALLY, we were able to pass the tow in front of us, and proceed. The tow operator held back so we could pass to port.
But wait...look what is ahead!! There really wasn't much room for two tows to pass each other, however. We didn't stick around to find out what happened. But I think they precluded any other boats from getting around them.
Down river a little way we found the Fire Dept. Dive team preparing to go and see if any bodies were underneath the upturned boat.
Underwater Search and Rescue dept.!
Riiiiight. This is the 'Trouble Bridge' and the reason we have to have a boat no higher than 19ft from the water level feet.....preferably less. This is the reason we obsessively filled up with fuel and water, so as to present a lower height to get underneath it. It doesn't move, we do! We held our breaths, knowing that the boat had done the Loop before, but still....This is US doing it, and we had to know we were going under it no matter if we lost something from the top of the boat....like the radar or the light! No turning back, baby! It doesn't look that far off the water, does it?
TA DA! we made it!!!!well, you guessed that already, right?:) but by the skin off our teeth. I didn't look up as I usually do, to gauge the extra inches we passed under by.
This is the confluence of the Cal/Sag and the Chicago Sanitation Canal, on the right.
We think people do the 'mini-loop' in their boats...down one canal and up the other, for the day.
Going back to Chicago?? Go that way!
and we just made it before a barge went through!
See how HUGE these things are??
and yes, that is a barge on the other side of Waz, as we went under a bridge. Close enough for you?
and going, going .....
We are seeing tugs with accommodation at back...we cant remember seeing this in the Gulf States.
This is the front part of the one above.
We were waiting for the 6 pack in front of us to let us past, but instead he parked his 6 pack in a small space...when you looked at it, he was a miracle worker to get it in there! He is pushing them into place. There is almost no space for him to back, in this part of the '12 miles of Hell', as this narrow part is called. We had to hang out for a while for him to finish, then asked him to tell us when to pass. The wake was horrid! and we had to accelerate past him, but it took waz a lot of wheel turning to keep on the straight and narrow.
Next up was the Electric Fish Barrier. We went straight through.
This flashing sign warned us not to get off the boat....to what, where? nowhere to land!
Just past the Fish Barrier we saw a tow coming into the narrowest part of the canal. Our only option was to duck into this 'slip' as they call it, to wait for the tow to pass. We hailed him and he suggested we duck in. The tow was only doing 2.9 knots...snails pace...but it would have been folly to go faster down this narrow channel. We waited...in neutral except for making adjustments to our position...for another 50 minutes.
We were in a 'slip' where they service barges, fortunately, so there was plenty of water and space for us to wait.
If I had a fishing rod, I would have been casting it out on this corner. We watched HUGE fish in a feeding frenzy there. Didn't even capture it on film, as it were:( This is looking down the canal the way the tow is coming...some time. You can get an idea of how narrow the canal is.
Behind us what this little Fire Dept. boat. Another one arrived. I think it was attending the overturned boat.
This is what it looks like on the chart. It was getting late, already and we heard on the radio that most of the other boats that left before us, had already reached Joliet. Hohum!
and off we go, and off they went. As you can see, not much room for us to pass.
Grain elevators?...I don't know, but the sky is gorgeous reflected in the water.
Well, what else are you going to do while waiting for the lock to fill??
Even though the wall is new, it has been liberally scraped!...Tows lining up to take the lock.
The canal into the Lock is man made. It is also elevated 40 feet above the next level down.
And we sat and waited another 45 mins for the lock to fill.
Inside the lock and waiting to go down. It took us a good 30 mins to go down 40 feet.
We tied off to the bollard which went down with us. It was the most musical journey we have had yet:)
The gate at the end we had entered., as we went down. That gate is only holding back about 15 feet of water.
We heard this tow on the radio telling the lock that he had just picked up another barge...of joy! This is what greeted us as we came out of the lock at the bottom of the 40 ft drop.
Alongside the Dam.
He didn't slow down much as we passed and we had to accelerate through his nasty wake.
Lovely still water on the river makes for great reflections:) as we come into Joliet.
We could see the church spires from a long way out.
These lift bridges are works of art:) I will explain them in the next blog.
We motored past Harrah's Casino. We were advised not to tie up to the wall opposite the casino as three boats have been taken out by barges, recently. The river curves just down a bit, and I guess the barges over correct, or something.
We tied up just ahead of the tow on right, going through...just after 6pm. I had had enough, and I think I can speak for Waz by saying he also had finished for the day. We were exhausted. We had been up and doing for 12 hrs. We heard from the other boaters that they were also exhausted...by the waiting, by the narrow canals and the tows.
We ate the left over meatballs with left over pasta and I made another yummy cream sauce. We sat upstairs on the fly deck, which was great, after not doing that for a long while (too hot, too cold, too windy, too wet, etc)
Thankfully the day is over. We are going nowhere tomorrow. A day in Joliet!
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