TRIP 3 LOGS
Chicago, IL Area to Alton, IL
August 30-September 5, 1997

Grand Haven, MI to Hammond, IN, Sunday, August 31, 1997

     The crew of ILLUSIONS, along with our friend, Wally Moore, flew to Chicago on August 30 and drove to Grand Haven.  Along the way we stopped at the Calumet Harbor channel (95th Street and Lake Michigan) to see the condition of the lake and to get our bearings. We stopped at the Hammond Marina and got a slip assignment and a map.  In Grand Haven, we paid our bill, took the rent car back to the airport in Grand Rapids, drove the loaner car there and back, bought fuel for both vehicles, bought groceries and dinner, and loaded the boat for departure.

     When we left on Sunday, it was more windy than we had expected from the weather forecast.  We went down the coast to Holland to see the lighthouse and check out Lake Michigan.  Getting out through the jetties at Grand Haven proved to be rough because the
wind was on the nose (from the west).  It was making a transition from SW to W to NW for the day.  Once we turned to the SW, the wind came at us on our starboard side, making it a little rough.  But, we decided we would do it, and the wind actually moderated as we got within 1 hour of Chicago.  Also, the water got green on the west side of the lake. 

     We got into Chicago around 3pm, and there were a lot of boats out and about, sailing in the lake, going all different directions.  We went through the Chicago lock to show Wally
downtown Chicago.  We only went under the Lakeshore Drive bridge and then turned around--and got boarded by the US Coast Guard!  While waiting for the lock on the way out, the USCG was pulling people over for these spot inspections, which we passed.  Locking through was a madhouse with no real order to the wild pack of mostly small boats.  Everyone had to wear a life jacket, which no one wanted to do (this was the first lock we had been through which required us to wear life jackets).  We would have gone through Chicago on our way south, but we were told the bridges on the Chicago River would not open for us, and we could not clear the lowest bridges.

     The Navy Pier was jumping with music and restaurants and amusement park rides.  The last big weekend (Labor Day) of the Summer of '97 was in full swing.

     We turned south and eased by the aquarium and the planetarium and Soldiers Field.  Chicago does look beautiful from the water, and the water was beautiful, too.  Chicago looks good in many places downtown from a road tour.  One impression I had of the city from way out in Lake Michigan was how wide the lakefront was - much more than I expected - more than Cleveland, which is very attractive as well, and more than Detroit.

     We ran down to the Calumet channel and in behind the breakwater to the Hammond Marina.  That was a first class place-fairly new, and next to the Empress Casino, which was 1 year old in June.  We fueled up and got into our slip and went to eat at the Casino buffet.  The food was surprisingly good--everything I tasted was well prepared.  I think we all ate too much, probably partly due to the cook not wanting to spend much time in the galley on the trip across the lake—we had another one of those healthy lunches, fruit and nuts.  Maybe we can also blame it on the food--it was good.  We gave the Casino a miss and walked back to the boat.

     On the day we covered about 125 miles in 9.8 running hours.  We bought 207 gallons of diesel, which covered the trip and whatever the mechanics used, which wasn't much (0.1 hour).  We left the high sand dunes of Michigan and prepared for the inland, and initially industrial, Illinois canals and rivers.

Hammond, IN to Seneca, IL, Monday, September 1, 1997

     On Monday we left Hammond Marina a little after 8am, and we pulled into Spring Brook Marina at 8pm.  So, it was a long day even though the engine hours only totaled 9.8, same as the previous day.  The reason for this is we were delayed at one of the locks while the lockmaster tried to put an extra tow in the lock that wouldn't fit.  He had to back out after they had one door closed and decided not to close the other one all the way.  While we waited we checked the sea strainers on both engines.  They were clear.  We had a little overheating episode, complete with the sounding of the overheat alarm (it was good to know it worked), probably due to some plastic getting caught on the starboard engine cooling water intake.  We stopped, backed up, went forward with only the port engine, and that seemed to clear it.

     To say the Calumet channel is industrial is to call a camel kind--it is heavily industrial, with low bridges, laker-type ships, barges and tows with retractable pilothouses, lots of stored ore with conveyor belts going all over the place carrying coal for the power plants and steel mills, sand and gravel, etc.  The bridge operators wouldn’t answer your calls unless they wanted to know something about you, and they wanted you to go under their bridges.  After a while you realized the rest of the bridges are fixed and they are low, too, so you might as well be prepared for low bridges—that’s what they have.  We were told we could clear an 18-foot bridge.  We actually went under a couple that our charts said were 17, but we didn't know exactly what the height was since the levels are controlled by dams and do fluctuate.  We looked for a place to determine what our height was so we would know in the future.

     Once the Calumet Channel joined the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal, I was surprised to find the width of the canal decreased.  Also, there were barges tied up for loading and unloading on one or both sides.  There were tows moving these barges around, and they were in each other’s way, it was so tight.

     We went through the Calumet River, then the Little Calumet River, then the CAL SAG Channel, then the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, then the Des Plaines River, and then the Illinois River after the Des Plaines merges with the Kankakee River.  It's the Illinois River until it merges with the Mississippi at Grafton, Illinois, just above St Louis.

     The town of Joliet, IL was particularly attractive with a riverside park on the RDB (right descending bank) which had a background of a hillside going up away from the river.  On the LDB was the town proper, which was lower than the river.  They have a great bridge system, in which each bridge opened for us in sequence as we arrived.  We had no lost time waiting for a bridge to open, and no communication was needed.  These bridges, 6 that opened, were all the same design and looked like they were constructed at the same time.  All were painted a dark green and were attractive (and low, about 16-17 feet clearance).

     The water skiers were out in full force in the last 30 miles of our trip, and we saw fishermen and other cruisers, too.  There was one group of 4 Canadians in small sailboats heading for the Bahamas.  The weather was clear and hot later in the day.  We were heading into the sun, which made it seem even hotter.

     After paying our overnight bill at Spring Brook Marina, we inquired about groceries, and they loaned us an older Suburban to go to town.  It was about 2 miles and across the Illinois River, so we got to see the river we had been traveling on from the bridge.

     That day’s trip covered 80 miles in 9.8 hours, including 4 locks and numerous bridges.  We tied up at the local Carver dealer and (nice) marina, hungry for Angela's spaghetti, which she delivered about 9pm.

Seneca, IL to Peoria, IL, Tuesday, September 2, 1997

     This day started overcast and got worse from there, with rain and not too much wind.  It rained 0.86 inches at Peoria, which was a good place to stop for fuel, at least, if not to spend the night, which we did.  We stayed at the new Eastport Marina operated by Skipper Bud, as you may have seen advertised in Heartland Boating magazine.  It was so new that the restaurant was not open yet, but they did have fuel (a little pricey) and plenty of slips in floating docks.  It was as shallow as we want it coming off the river channel (LDB)-about 4-4.5 feet.

     We decided to stop there after our 6.5 hours run because we wanted to fuel up, there were no more nice marinas downstream until Alton (another Skipper Bud place), and it was raining.  Angela and I had waked up with sore throats, and she was not feeling well at all.

     Wally did most of the piloting for the day.  We went through 2 locks, bringing our total drop since Lake Michigan to about 150 feet in 6 locks, averaging 25 feet each.  At Starved Rock Lock and Dam, we experienced a first for me.  The tow was downstream, just outside the lock gate.  Half of his load was in the upstream chamber being pulled out by a winch and cable on the lock.  Personnel from the tow were managing this effort with the help of the dam personnel, the US Army Corps of Engineers, which operated all these locks on the Illinois River.

     There was room for us to just barely fit between the closest cell or dolphin and the chamber, so we got into the lock and they took us down.  There was just enough room between the end of the barges and the lock wall for us to get out.  Then the tow pushed the rest of his load into the chamber and up he went.  At the top, the towboat pushed the half-load up against the barges taken up earlier and tied them together.  Then the reassembled load moved on upstream.  The total group consisted of the tow plus 15 barges--3x3 in the first load, and the tow plus 3 wide by 2 long in the second load.
 
    The Starved Rock State Park on the LDB was nice looking, with high walls of exposed rock visible as we passed.  Also, at Henry, IL, we passed an old lock, which is not used any more.

     There was a seafood restaurant next to the marina, so we went up there for an early dinner, which was good--Jonah's, if you're in the neighborhood.  Since we appeared to have gotten past all the low bridges, we put up the radio antennas.  Wally spliced the anchor rope, which would be needed to anchor in the future.  And we changed hoses--the water hose split and blew out, again, and the plastic threads became stripped, so we pulled another one out of stores and put it into service.  The current plan is to buy a new metal (not plastic) hose barb to make up the new end.  Why don't they put something on the boat connector (or the water pressure regulator and hose connection) to grab onto and turn?  If your hands are slick, you can't turn it!

     The rain stopped by the time we got to the fuel dock, so we fueled up without getting wet, about 4pm.  It was humid and about 75 F, the high for the day.  After dinner, the sky cleared a little, and we got a good look across the river at Peoria.  It looked nice, with a number of tall, lit-up buildings.  We also enjoyed the lights on the I-74 bridge crossing the river just downstream from us.

The statistics from Tuesday were:

6.5 hours/day, 26.1 hours/Trip 3
88 miles/day, 293 miles/Trip 3
184.56 gals of fuel purchased, 392 for the trip
1.34 gals per mile
11.2 mph
     The cutest thing seen on Tuesday was two fishermen (men?) fishing in the middle of the river in a boat, each with his own umbrella. This was in the rain, right, it rained all day.  The umbrellas were stripped, blue and white!

Peoria, IL to Hardin, IL, Wednesday, September 3, 1997

     Wednesday was as clear as Tuesday was overcast.  After the frontal passage the sky was blue with a few clouds, the wind was brisk from the north, and the temperature was cool, though it warmed up in the late afternoon.  We went through Peoria and the Peoria lock (1 hour delay for a split load--double) and Pekin just below the lock, and then there was nothing--for pleasure boaters that is.  There were commercial sites and bridges and grain elevators and a few campgrounds, but no marinas, no fuel stops, and generally rural landscapes.  The river was 1000 ft wide, usually, and buoyed to show the channel.

     The last lock, LaGrange, told us we would have a 1-3/4 hour wait while they brought up a split load.  They did not have the ability to take us down in between the first and the second parts of the load, as we had experienced at Starved Rock L&D.  So, we waited, and just idled around the area above the lock.  There was a fair current at both of these locks.  There was no place to tie up.  We considered anchoring, but decided not to, because we hoped they would let us through earlier than they had predicted, which was the case.  Also we didn't want any trouble getting the anchor up and delaying us getting into the lock.  There was a tow with chemical barges behind us.  If he caught up with us, he would have priority and could bump us out of the lock. 

     It was interesting to me to see how the engineered lock and dam system works to make river travel possible, and how adequate, or appropriate, it is.  As we left a lock, proceeding downstream, I noticed the depth to be 13 or so feet, and never did it get very deep.  Both of those last two locks had "wickets", or moveable barriers (dams) which are rotated up to make the water go over them, raising the level of the water.  During high water, roughly October--April, the wickets are rotated down because they are not needed.  The water is above the wickets anyway, and traffic just goes around the lock (over the dam, which has been lowered).  Also, in the stretch of the river from Mile 32 to 55, there are "wing dams" which have been built out from the shore to the level of the black or red marker, their purpose being to raise the water level in the channel.

     Another thing I saw for the first time was a lock gate which moved up to close instead of two gates rotating in from both sides.  We had seen one on the Erie Canal, the highest lift lock in that system, which had a gate which opened up and closed down.  When we entered the lock, the gate was above us like a guillotine, and it was dripping water as we went under it.  This one on the IL River closed up after we entered the lock.  It leaked all along the bottom, instead of at the middle.

     The river was low, which was probably good for us, as there was a lot of debris on the bank--logs, trees, and driftwood of every size.  If the river had been high, I imagine that debris would have been in the flow with us.  We saw many trees growing along the water's edge with apparently no topsoil left after erosion--just the roots showed below the trunk.  Of course, many had fallen, and many more will fall due to the lack of support.

     We saw another abandoned lock built into the side of the river.  It was made of rock, like the old lock we saw on the Erie Canal.  It's interesting to notice that mankind has been here a long time, managing, or trying to manage, the flow in the river.  The IL River had levees here, and the charts indicated a 1943 flood which was 20 feet higher than normal pool.  That was hard to imagine just looking at it, but floods are hard to imagine.

     As we got closer to the Mississippi River, the river seemed to get prettier, with greener grass and trees, and high hills in the background.  The water had turned brown the previous day--green water was a fond memory until we go north again--but the river was attractive anyway.  Here the river became even wider, with islands and tributary creeks and rivers flowing into it.  We pulled into an anchorage behind one of the islands, at Mile 22.8, a little before 7pm.  We had covered about 142 miles in 10.5 running hours, or 13.5 mph.  We left at 8am and arrived at 7pm, about 11 hours total, and 2 of those were waiting for the two locks.  Total mileage on this trip now was 435 miles in 36.6 running hours, dropping from elevation 576.8 at Lake Michigan to approximately 406 at this point-- a drop of 171 feet.

Hardin, IL to Alton, IL, Thursday, September 4, 1997

     We pulled up anchor at 8am, with the mist rising from the river and a 55 degree F temperature--cool.  In no time we were past the little town of Hardin on the RDB, with the last bridge of the IL River there, and on down to the Mississippi.  The islands must be plentiful; there are at least two numbered ones--Islands 525 and 526.  It was indeed an awesome sight to see the confluence of these two large rivers.  The LDB had high hills on the IL River, and the Mississippi had high bluffs with exposed rock on that same east side.  It would be a favorite trip of mine, if I lived in this area, to travel to this part of the river and see these high, rocky bluffs.  I imagined they would be particularly nice in the Fall when the leaves are turned all the different colors.

     At the confluence of the two rivers, there was a sand bar awash at that time, just a small one, but it could have been possible to get so involved in the scenery that you missed seeing that island.  Also, it was not everywhere deep, as one might expect; and it was not over 30 feet deep anywhere.  Close attention was therefore required.  We found this out by trial and error, of course, but our errors were not the expensive kind.

     Another point: the Corps charts we had did not show any buoys, which was different for us who were used to the ICW in Texas.  And while picking at the Corps, there were no labels at the end of a sailing line on one page telling you which was the next page.  You had to go to the index pages, which tell you, in graph form, which page overlaps the page you were on.  These had a logical sequence to them, like 39, 38, 37, 36, 35, 34 going downstream toward Alton.  But, the pages in the book were not in numerical order, for example, 30, 33,32, 35, 34, 37, 36, 39, 38, 41, 40, etc.  Also, the pages were only numbered at the bottom, so you had to open the book all the way up to see what number the page was!  And what's worse, there were "wing dams" all over the place on the charts, which were new to us.  We worried about the possibility of running over one.  The only guide the Corps’ charts were showing was a sailing line.  We found out later they positioned buoys at the ends of these wing dams to show the ends of those dams.

     We pulled under the I-40 (Clarke Highway) Bridge and made a 180 degree turn into The Alton Marina, our destination for that trip.  The marina was operated by Skipper Bud's, like the Eastport Marina at East Peoria, and they must have had a contest on to see which employee could be the nicest.  The marina only opened the previous year, and it needed and had plans for a breakwater to stop wave action from the south--water in the marina was up and down due to wakes on the river.  It was right next door to the Alton Belle Casino, which served us lunch and dinner.  Neither was very good; after having such good food at the casino in Hammond, we were disappointed.  But the prices were right, especially since not one but two employees of the marina gave us discounted coupons to use there.  The casino also had a shuttle running to and from their over-the-levee parking lot, which came by the marina to pick us up.

     The weather was grand, a sunny day; and we spent the afternoon changing oil in the engines and cleaning the inside of the boat.  Read this as Angela cleaned the inside of the boat, and she did a great job of it, too, especially considering she was sick.  She and I got colds a few days earlier.  Wally and I tried valiantly not to spill any oil on the carpet.  Barb at the marina got the oil delivered to our boat and asked if I would mind paying a $10 delivery charge, which I gladly paid.

Alton, IL to Houston, TX, Friday, September 5, 1997

     Friday's return involved getting the shuttle van ($30 per run by advance reservation) to go to the St Louis airport and flying to Houston via Southwest Airlines, ending Trip 3 of this Cruise.  Trip and total cruise statistics follow:

Trip 3

479 miles
39.4 running hours
626.8 gals of diesel
Hours since last oil change was only 73.5, but this seemed like a great place to change it, so we did.
9 locks (+ 1 twice, at Chicago)
1.31 gals per mile
12.2 mph

All 3 Trips

2134 miles
168.2 running hours 
2943 gals of diesel
47 locks (+1 twice)
1.38 gals per mile
12.7 mph