We were up at 6am again. A long day ahead. If we travelled 112 miles yesterday, we have 121 miles to go today. We didn't have breakfast before taking up the anchor. It was cold and damp and overcast this morning.
We pulled anchor at 6.38 as you can see.
Some of the debris gets hung up on the markers in the river...this marker was Waaaaay out of place and had obviously been dragged by the tree trunks.
A cup of coffee kept us going until 8.30am when I went down stairs to make an omelet...the easiest thing to eat on the run. Waz had the opportunity to sit and eat, for a change. He ate first and I made mine afterwards when he took over the helm again. Note the jacket? It was COLD!
I have lots of photos of the swollen river, but seriously, there wasn't much to see. The sky was overcast all day and it was plain cold. We were rugged up in our warm jackets, track pants and even scarf.
We think this building has seen one too many floods.
The next Lock was also open...well, closed, but the Wickets were down and we motored on through this Lock and Dam also. Yes, it is under water!
There was more debris in the water the further south we went.Sometimes great rafts of it in our path. Fortunately the river is wide and we have options for going around them. We did hit something submerged with a loud clunk, but no damage done.
There were real hills!! and cattle!!!:) good to see these farms and the maize and other crops. Some of the maize fields were very close to the water.
This casino boat is actually built on a barge, but advertised as a Rebuild. It looked more like it was a collapse job!
We see some interesting homes and decorations on them. We couldn't count the stars on this roof and the stripes were a bit off too:)
As we got closer to St Louis, Missouri, and the Mississippi River, we found ourselves waiting for the car ferries.
A boat that had passed us the previous day, again caught up with us today. They didn't give us a slow pass today though, which wasn't very pleasing. We wonder why they are in so much of a hurry. They are Loopers too. Travelling at this speed in flood waters isn't too smart, we don't think. We also aren't too sure how experienced they are as boaters...we do know they don't have any binoculars! They couldn't identify us, even though they were familiar with our boat, and they also made a mistake in passing a tow....the tow captain reminded this boat captain that he had the instructed passing side wrong. Hmmmm.
Pere Marquette Park, as we entered Grafton, is flooded too. These docks are not useable.!
A lovely home on the 'knob' as we came towards the Grafton Marina.
It has a lovely view over the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, at this point.
With much relief, after such a long day, we arrived at the Grafton Marina. We decided to get fuel first up. It saves us time when we leave. This is a 180 boat Marina, and we have been instructed to go way to the end dock.
The place is packed with Loopers who cant go anywhere because the Mississippi is not open to river traffic, apparently. The only other marina, downstream is also not taking any Loopers...they are full also.The river in flood has created a lot of problems all around. There are more than 20 Looper boats in this marina...waiting! The river is supposed to peak on Tuesday.
The light house at the crossroads at of the two rivers, at Grafton.
It was a relief to turn off the engines and settle in. We walked the long walk over to the office to pay our way, and decided to get pizza at the Big Kahuna Restaurant. There was enough left over to give us a lunch tomorrow.
We were so tired we hit the sack early. Thank goodness!:) It was so cold, I couldn't even get warm with a hot shower. These are record cold days and nights, for this time of year. 54 was the high today! October weather in September.
More cold weather expected tomorrow! Lets hope it is fine! Too much grey weather in the past week.
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