The Travels of "Fruition": The Long, Tiring Illinois River

South of Chicago, we pass bridge after bridge
after bridge

We pushed hard to get all the way down the 330 miles of the Illinois River in 6 days, which was one day longer than most boaters take. We had really bad luck at 6 of the 8 locks, waiting an average of 2 hours at each of the six. That amounted to taking a day longer. Most days, we traveled for 10 hours to try to make up for the delays at the locks, and it still took us 6 days.

The pathetically narrow Chicago Ship & Sanitary Canal

Each day was long and tiring, especially waiting for the locks to finish with their upbound or downbound tows (a tug boat with anywhere from 1 to 15 barges), which have priority over pleasure craft. Another frustrating aspect of this trip was not knowing how long we had to wait (the lock operators would just say “I’ll get to you when I can”), and not knowing where we’ll spend the night until we finally make it through the lock. Each day, we had to come up with 2 or 3 options for spending the night, including some questionable marinas and some really dicey anchorages.

Some highlights:

The elevation of Lake Michigan is 579 feet above sea level. Eventually, we’ll end up in New Orleans, at sea level (or maybe even below sea level). All the locks along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers will lower us down. Then on the Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, the locks will take us up. Finally, on the Tenn-Tom Waterway, we’ll be locking back down. Kinda like a roller coaster!

At some locks, we waited so long that we could
watch the leaves changing on the trees!

The first day leaving Chicago was busy and stressful. Numerous bridges to keep track of, calling for an opening when we didn’t think we could get under them. On at least 2 bridges, I stood on our dinghy deck sighting under the bridge to determine whether we would clear or not, and as we passed under the bridge, I reached up to touch the bridge steel. We cleared by mere inches.

And there were so many tows you couldn’t count them all. The Chicago Ship & Sanitary Canal was so narrow that at one point when we met a wide oncoming tow, we had to turn around & go back ½ mile to a side harbor to wait until he passed us.

"Winds of Change" a 30' Lyman from Sandusky

As we waited at the first lock that day, another Looper boat joined us, a wonderfully restored 30’ wooden boat built in 1967 by Lyman from Sandusky Ohio. I was on Lake Erie during that time and saw many Lymans, with their distinctive bow rake. Turns out that the owners home-ported their boat in Sandusky, which is only 15 miles from Middle Bass Island, where we home-ported our boat. Small world! We ended up traveling with “Winds of Change” for several days on the river, since they too had been held up in Chicago for over a week due to bad weather on Lake Michigan.

At the Caterpillar Visitor's Center, in Peoria IL, I learn how to
operate a front-end loader (I know, don't give up my day job!)

A replica of the largest truck that CAT makes, for the mining industry

The "City of Peoria" has a river boat, in case we want
to take a ride on the river!

The bridges are more fun to cruise under, if they
have a train going across!

Tending to the navigation aids along the river

The one day I DON’T want to re-live is the day we had to travel on the river after dark. We had been held up at the lock for 3-1/2 hours, and were trying to make a marina (and a poor excuse for a marina, at that) for the night, because there were no acceptable anchorages along the route. We knew we were going to be out after dark, so I’m re-installing our topmost navigation light, caulking and splicing wires, as Sue is driving the boat. We had taken down that light to reduce our height, so we could fit under the low bridges in Chicago. Meanwhile, our friends on “Winds of Change” went on ahead of us into the destination marina. Night falls when we’re about 5 miles from the marina (remember that we only travel at 10 mph), so we’re struggling with the chartplotter and radar to pick out the red and green buoys to mark the channel. That’s when our friends call us to report that a tow just passed the marina & is heading our way! As we round the bend, we are blinded by the towboat’s searchlight, which he uses to find his buoys. Then we go way outside the channel into shallow water to avoid the tow’s propwash. Then we can’t see the entrance to the marina, even with our searchlight, and need our friends to talk us in using their cell phone. Yes, we had some special elixirs that night to calm our nerves.

We were surprised to see so many white pelicans
this far north.

It's getting cold in Illinois!

So now, we’re spending 2 nights at a marina in Alton, Illinois, on the Mississippi River. As we passed the junction of the Illinois and MS Rivers, the river was very wide, calm and pretty. Much better than I had expected. We depart tomorrow for hopefully a 5-day trip down the Mississippi 200 miles, up the Ohio River for 50 miles, and onto the Cumberland River about 40 miles. At that point, we can breathe a sigh of relief. The Cumberland and Tennessee River should be a lot less stressful. We’ll let you know.