M/V ILLUSIONS                          YEAR 2000 CRUISE

TRIP 7 LOGS
CHICAGO, IL AREA TO HOUSTON, TX
SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 11, 2000

Fly to Chicago, IL Area, Friday, September 29, 2000

     Angela and I flew to Chicago’s O’Hare Field on September 29, arriving just in time to experience the rush hour on a Friday afternoon.  We counted over 30 limousines in the next two hours, proving there were more rich people in Chicago than anywhere else in the world.

     We arrived in Kenosha, WI about 6:30pm.  The high for the day was 76 degrees F, with a cool breeze; the evening was much cooler.  We wisely ate dinner before buying groceries, and we unpacked and prepared for our departure the next day.

     We had asked the Carver dealer there to make some repairs for us, and they did most of them, but not all.  I wanted to change out the other shift cable and throttle cables, and they did that.  They caulked the salon windows to stop our water leaks, repaired some parquet floor in the aft head, repaired the glued sections of countertop and storage bins, and tightened some oil fittings on the starboard engine.  They reconditioned the props, adjusted the door on the microwave, replaced one of the control pads on the air conditioning system, replaced a leaking valve on the refrigerator, etc.  They did not replace the Glendinning shaft or the belt guard on the starboard engine, and they did not replace the broken closures on the chain locker door.

Kenosha, WI to Hammond, IN, Saturday, September 30, 2000

     We had to turn in the rental car on Saturday.  Hertz charged us three prices to drop the car in Kenosha but they were the only car rental company we could find who would even rent to us with a drop-off in Kenosha.  We spoke to the Carver dealer about a few overlooked items, and we pulled out at 11am.

     The lake was not bad, with 2 – 3 foot seas and a mild chop.  Winds were 20 – 25 mph out of the SW, so the fetch was short.  Skies were blue with an occasional cloud; temperature was 76 degrees F, and the humidity was 37%.

     We arrived in the Chicago area about 2pm, and we cruised around the lock and the Navy Pier area for a while.  We took photos and enjoyed the scenery as we had in the past.  The buildings and the skyline were very attractive.  We thought about staying at Dusable Marina, which had been recommended to us; but we really did not plan to do anything in downtown Chicago.  We decided to make more progress in the direction we were going, and we moved on down to Hammond, IN.  Fuel in Hammond was less expensive, and we knew and liked the buffet at the Empress Casino next door to the marina. 

          

     The girl doing the cash register at Hammond Marina’s fuel dock mixed up the credit cards, and in straightening it out we lost our $0.10 per gallon BOAT US discount.  We fueled up, pumped out, tied up, and went to eat.  The casino was remodeling, and the buffet was not as good as usual.  It still filled us up, and we went to sleep satisfied we were on our way down the rivers to Houston.

Hammond, IN to Wilmington, IL, Sunday, October 1, 2000

       We left the marina at 8:10am.  The entrance to the Calumet Channel was not far from the Hammond Marina, which is part of the reason for staying in that area.  We were quickly in the Industrial Canal and started going under bridges with clearances of 18 and 19 feet.

     The weather was windy, 15 – 25 knots with higher gusts.  It was sunny and 82 degrees F, and partly cloudy.  I was glad we were inland and not on Lake Michigan.  The first lock (Thomas O’Brien Lock) had practically no elevation change at all; we rode through in the middle without tying up to the wall.

     The Lockport Lock was a different story, however.  Several of us in pleasure boats (wonder why they call them that, since they’re so much work?) were told to tie up to the “long wall”, yes, the one with the “No Mooring” signs on it.  We waited for a tow with empty barges to approach and drop half his load, which went down the lock.  The drill was the lockmasters, or the crew from the tow, or both, attached a steel cable to the load and pulled it out of the lock chamber.  Then they could fill up the empty lock (37 foot lift) and take the balance of the load and the tow down.  Then the tow reconnected to the first part of his load, and moved off into the sunset.

     We waited three hours for all that to happen.  The lockmasters were not nice or courteous, and the procedure was unbelievably slow and inefficient.  If they had had an auxiliary, smaller lock chamber for us smaller boats, we wouldn’t have had to wait.  That tow had a load three barges wide and five long; the lock would only take the tow with two barges long or the load of three by three barges.  There were many more tows waiting behind all of us, too.

     As we remembered, when we joined the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal, from downtown Chicago, the canal actually got more narrow and congested.  In addition, that area is a fleeting, or staging, area for organizing the barge strings.  There were barges on both sides and no room to pass in either direction.  Several lagoons lay off the north side of the canal, and the tows were moving into and out of those lagoons.  It was frustrating to wait and go slow and hang back behind a tow with barges.

     Another boat named OUTBACK decided his time had come to pass all of us slower boats and tows, and he blasted around us and down the channel at a high rate of speed.  On a bigger river that would not have been a problem, but this channel was narrow.  The sides were concrete, and his wake went to the sides and back again to the middle.  Then it went to the sides again and back to the middle.  We were still rolling in his wake a mile later, because the large wake had nowhere else to go.  We called him on the radio, but he was not apologetic and denied any responsibility for the problem.  During the rest of the day and all the next, we heard others calling him on the radio about his wake.  He always had some excuse; it was never actually his fault.

     We idled our way through the crowd of tows and barges, and we occasionally drifted in neutral through some debris on the surface to protect the running gear from any possible underwater debris.  During one of those episodes we picked up some trash on the port prop.  Even though it was narrow, I managed to run the port engine forward and backward, trying to spin or shake off whatever was on there, with no luck.  I could build up some RPM in forward, but very little in reverse.  And we couldn’t plane off at all.  I got on the phone, trying to locate a diver.  I didn’t want to be the diver, and it looked like the trash was going to stay until it was forcibly removed.

     The only diver I found wanted $500 minimum, so a quick-haul was the next and less-expensive option.  I now believe several marinas in that area overstated their capabilities and the depth in their harbors, but we located one that could lift us out the next morning.

     The next lock was the Brandon Road Lock (35 foot lift), and we were delayed two hours there.  A double load was being brought up that time.

     We ran in the dark for more than an hour, but by 8:30pm we were tied up to a 20-foot long fuel dock with very little electricity for the night.  Fortunately it was cold, and we didn’t need any air-conditioning.  We covered about 65 miles and three locks in 12 total hours, 9 running hours, for the day.

Wilmington to Henry, IL, Monday, October 2, 2000

     Our contact with Three Rivers Marina was Harry, and his mother, Mary.  Harry promised he would lift us out at 10am, and he was ready for us.  The location of his travel-lift in the marina was as far from the IL River as a boat could go, and we wondered if there was going to be enough water to get us in there, but we made it.  His travel-lift would pick us up, but the travel-lift had a bar across its top that was right above our radar arch.  That meant he could not lift us enough to get the boat above ground level, so he worked on the troubled prop from a dinghy in the water.

     What we found when we saw the port shaft was unbelievable.  The mess on that prop included large-diameter towing rope, about 2 inches in diameter, plus a smaller nylon rope, plus some electrical cable, plus some wire rope about one-half inch in diameter.  The whole mess was about 2 feet in diameter and 3 – 4 feet long.  How we had moved that prop at all was a mystery.


     It took Harry about an hour to cut away the mess; then we paid our bill and started down the river.  It was then about noon.  The high for the day was about 80 degrees F, but there were some cool and cloudy times, too.  It was windy, and sometimes we thought it might rain, but it did not. 



        

     We ran downstream until 6:30pm and stopped for the night at Henry, IL.  There was a marina there which utilized the old lock wall of an ancient lock as part of the marina.  I was pleased to be able to see it, so I elected to stay in the old lock.  The area was populated with geese, and they were noisy.  Sometimes they sounded like a group of people talking to each other.  We walked up to the restaurant to pay for the slip, but we chose to eat on the boat that night. 

      

     We had gone through three locks during the day: Dresden Island (25 feet), 40 minute wait; Marseilles (24 feet), 15 minute wait; and Starved Rock (18 feet), no wait.  All these locks were down; we were on the way from Lake Michigan at 577 feet above sea level to our home in Houston where the water was at sea level.  Our trip total was now 6 locks on the IL River.

Henry to Beardstown, IL, Tuesday, October 3, 2000

     We left Henry Harbor Marina at 7:45am.  Fuel was less expensive at Eastport Marina, in Peoria, IL.  We had spent the night there in 1997.  The marina was new then, and several nice changes had been made.  However, the diesel pump was very slow.  The young lady attendant said it was due to plugged filters, so we may have picked up some bad diesel there.

     It took 1.5 hours, from 9:30 until 11am, to pump and pay for 207 gallons of fuel.  We then went through the Peoria Lock with a drop of 11 feet with no delays.  We ran 76 miles after filling up with fuel (88 miles for the day), and we tied up to a barge at Beardstown about 4:30pm.  We spoke to the LTS office (VHF channel 10) to obtain permission to tie up.  Logsdon Tug Service said they were at the height of the harvest season and we might get moved during the night, but we could tie up.  There was quite a current, so we used several ropes and fenders.  We did not have to move in the night.

     The area after Peoria was mostly rural with quite a number of grain elevators and barge loading and unloading facilities.  There were no marinas or fuel stops, and we could not reach any of the anchorages we knew about further downstream.  So, the tie-up at Beardstown seemed like a reasonable alternative.  We had rain and wind during the night.  

Beardstown, IL to Kimmswick, MO, Wednesday, October 4, 2000

     I was up at 6am, and Angela was up shortly after, so that we could leave the barge at 7am.  Our ropes cleaned the cleats on the barge, and there was a black dust all over our boat from the wind (coal dust, we think).  It was humid and about 52 degrees F.  We went through the LaGrange Lock (10 feet) by 8am, and we merged with the Mississippi River a few hours later (there were 8 locks on the IL River).

     Coming down the Illinois River, we saw tall, rock bluffs on the RDB (Right Descending Bank), or the west side of the river.  Upon reaching the Mississippi River, The RDB of the Illinois became much lower, with more marshy areas.  The LDB of the Mississippi River was beautiful, with high walls of rock. 

    We cruised down the Mississippi to the Alton Marina, on the LDB, where we had stayed in 1997.  Just upstream was the Alton Belle, a gambling boat, which had a new, wild paint job.  Just downstream of the Alton Marina was the very attractive bridge over the Mississippi River and the Melvin Price Lock and Dam.  We contacted the L & D on the radio, and they filled up the smaller, ancillary chamber for us.  In short order we went down 23 feet and headed for the Chain of Rocks Lock.  A canal leads to the L & D, bypassing a natural chain of rocks about 4 feet higher than the river in the natural Mississippi River channel above St Louis.  The Chain of Rocks Lock, also known as Lock 27 (12 feet), was a delay for us of about an hour.

     At 3:15pm we were at the famous arch on the St Louis waterfront.  We took several photos, as our 1997 pictures were not all that good.  Part of the problem was we were looking into the sun, which happened because we passed through the city late in the day.

     Our friends, Norm and Vivian, had told us to call them the next time we came through St Louis, since we did not see them in 1997.  We planned to have dinner with them, and they knew how to get to Kimmswick, MO, just below St Louis.  We pulled into Hoppie’s Marina, which was right on the river and occasionally rocky due to passing tows and barges, about 4:30pm.  We got the last space they had alongside their floating barges, which they had saved for us.  Our mileage for the day was 147 miles and three locks.

     For some reason, the Alton Marina had a very high price on diesel fuel ($2.09 or so), so we filled up at Hoppie’s for $1.65 per gallon.  Hoppie and his wife were very nice, to us, and to all the other cruisers there, who were generally headed for the Ohio River, then the Tennessee River, and on to Florida via the Tenn-Tom Waterway.  They were full of advice about places to anchor and tips on meeting and passing towboats and their barges.  The greatest hazard to cruisers is the danger of hitting a log in the water, or some other floating or partially submerged object.  Cruising below planning speed and keeping a sharp lookout are the best ways to be safe; not passing too close to the stern of passing tows is another piece of advice.

     We were fueled up and connected to electricity and water by 5:30pm or so.  We showered and changed and met Norm and Vivian at the boat at 7pm.  We were told to go to The Old House for dinner, and we did.  It closed at 8pm.  The town of Kimmswick was a cute, historic town; but almost everything there closed early.  Norm and Vivian drove us to Arnold, MO in their van so we could buy a few groceries.  Rain began while we were eating a good meal at The Old House, which was over 100 years old.

     It was great to see them and talk about cruising.  Their version might be in their RV, which they were preparing for the road.  Norm said he was ready for retirement, but we’ll see.  We compared notes on the similarities and differences between the boat and the RV.

Kimmswick, MO to Hickman, KY, Thursday, October 5, 2000

     Compared to our earlier trips down the Mississippi River, we were off our schedule and forced to find new places to spend the night.  At Hoppie’s we heard about Hickman, KY, a harbor that we had not previously known about.  We planned to stop there for the night after a run of 191 miles for the day.  We left Hoppe’s about 6am to insure we could anchor if necessary during daylight.  The sun came up a little after 6, and we had a nice sunrise.  We ran without the generator after 9am.

     By 8am we were in some fog, which caused me to announce our location on the VHF, and I’m glad I did.  Immediately a towboat with barges started telling me which way to turn to get out of his way and still stay inside the buoys, for which I was grateful.  The fog only existed from Mile 127 to Mile 115, and I was able to pass that information on to some downbound tows behind us, for which they were appreciative.

     About noon, by prior arrangement, we met Charles Brown at Kidd Fuel in Cape Girardeau, MO.  We first met him in 1997.  He had a floating fuel dock upstream of the floodwall there.  He would pull up to the floodwall and connect his diesel truck to some permanent piping there, which led down the riverbank to his floating dock.  We took 111 gallons of diesel at $1.65 each (plus tax, for an effective rate of $1.76) to help us make it to Memphis, TN, our next anticipated fuel stop.

     About 3pm we were at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.  The Mississippi had been 25 feet deep and one half mile wide at the most.  After the Ohio River, we observed depths of 35 – 50 feet, and the width some places was three quarters of a mile.  As was the case in downtown St Louis, the stretch of river below the Ohio was a fleeting area for tows and their barges.  The tows on the LMR (Lower Mississippi River) were larger than I had seen any other place.  Their loads were being held down, due to low water in the river, to five barges wide and 6 or 7 barges long.  The towboats themselves were enormous, and their wakes could be felt for almost a mile after they went by.  (See http://www.ktis.net/~wzumwalt/bigboys.htm  for a good reference on large towboats and barges.)

         

     We came into Hickman about 5pm, and we saw the US Coast Guard boat there, just as we had been told at Hoppie’s.  They permitted us to tie up alongside, and they gave us a tour of the 70-foot “cutter”.  Attached to the bow of the cutter was a barge with all the gear they needed to place the red and green buoys in the river.  We were told the buoys were attached to “sinkers”, which were blocks of concrete weighing 1000 pounds, by steel cables 90 feet long.  They were placed in waters 14 - 26 feet deep, which knowledge we were to use later when we needed to go outside the channel and the buoys.

     The Coast Guard guys were very nice, so when our generator wouldn’t start, we tried to plug at least our refrigerator into their power system.  We found out their grounding was opposite ours, so we gave it up.  One of the men said the last time they used shore power all their fans turned backwards.  The cutter, CHENA, had just returned from Memphis, where she had been hauled out for a bottom job and refit.

     Our generator had been giving signs of a bad starter or a bad battery, and I had been able to get it started only by jumping it off one of the 8D batteries on some occasions.  On that Thursday night it wouldn’t even turn over.  The young engineer from the cutter, Nick, came over and checked the power source.  He thought the starter was bad, and he offered to take it off for us.  We accepted his offer, thinking we would get a new starter the next day.  He had a bigger job than he had first thought.  The lower of the two bolts holding the starter was so difficult to get to that he had to remove one of the engine mounts.

     We had called around for a mechanic to assist us, and we obtained the name and number of a local man who could probably help us.  We called him several times during the evening, but could not get him or leave a message for him.

     We grilled our dinner and ate on the aft deck before it got too dark to see there.  We turned in early and saved one battery for starting the engines the next day, as we usually do.  (We ran one of the engines twice, 2 hours each time, to keep up the charge on the 8D batteries.)  We slept without power and air conditioning, but it was not bad.  During the night a cold front came through with lower temperatures, wind, and rain.

Hickman, KY to Memphis, TN, Friday, October 6, 2000

     We made contact with Gerald Harris on Friday morning, and he came right over.  He took the starter and went off to find a new one like it.  We had been told we might get breakfast on the cutter, but the cook left for the weekend.  We asked and received permission to cook our own breakfast in their galley, with supplies from our boat.  That worked out very well.  It was cold enough for a jacket while outside, with North winds 15 – 20 mph.

     Gerald returned with good news and bad news.  He could not replace or rebuild our starter in one day.  He did remove the cover and lubricate it, however; and it ran on his test bench. So, Nick and Gerald reinstalled the starter; and it worked.  Gerald said to tap on the side of a starter that seems hung up, while holding in on the start button.  Sometimes that would free it up to go ahead and start.  He thought we should just let it run until we got to Houston, but I anticipated six more days of travel and hoped it would start additional times after that Friday.

     To reinstall the engine mount, it was necessary to get a hydraulic jack and jack up the engine.  I’m glad they were doing it rather than me.  I would not have known how to do a job that complicated.

     We left the cutter about 12:00pm, and ran 186 miles to Memphis.  The last three and one-half hours were in the dark, which wasn’t too bad except for worrying about logs in the water.  The picture of the bridge at Memphis didn’t come out too well, as we couldn’t hold the camera still.  Upstream of Memphis, it was very dark; and when we saw all those lights, we were very relieved.

        

     We wanted to fuel up that evening so we could leave early the next day, as is our usual practice.  The Memphis Yacht Club was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  We tied up at the fuel dock and took 303 gallons of fuel.  The attendant said he had a problem with his pump, but it would be repaired early the next morning.

Memphis, TN to Greenville, MS, Saturday, October 7, 2000

     When we woke on October 7, it was 41 degrees F at the airport.  It was my birthday; I turned 57 years old.

     The problem with the diesel pump was no fuel.  They had had a run on diesel, plus they said they didn’t sell that much of it anyway, and we had pumped all they had.  Wonder if we got bad diesel there?  They had asked for more right away, but they were not optimistic it would be there soon.  We had enough to get us to Greenville, so we started out.  The generator did start, as I had hoped it would.  We got a few nice pictures of Memphis as we left, about 8:30am. 

        


     The temperature gauge for the port engine had been showing low temperatures, in the 150 – 180 degrees range.  We had a new 180-degree thermostat, which I thought must have been defective.  But the temperature seemed to be very erratic, and it began to drop below 150 degrees.

     The next weather report we heard on Memphis said partly sunny, 45 degrees F, and winds at 16 mph with gusts of 23 mph.  We had a little heater on the flybridge, and it provided all the heat we needed, as long as the generator was running.  I thought back to when my father had purchased heaters like that for me and my sisters; it must have been 35 – 40 years earlier.

     The day was nice, as long as we had the heater, with the brightness and clarity of a sunny fall or winter day.  My mother and most of my children called me to wish me a happy birthday.  We ran 203 miles to Greenville, MS, arriving at 6:40pm.


     The Mississippi River is unpredictable, with strange and powerful currents and whirlpools.  We tried to take some pictures to illustrate that, but we got more than a few photos where whirlpools used to be.  We got one of a very smooth circle in the water, surrounded by water rippled by the wind.  These appeared as if a large bubble from below rose to the surface.  We could often feel the boat being pushed and turned by currents that were unexpected and unexplained.


     The slow fuel pump of two years earlier in Greenville had been replaced or repaired, they said.  It only took one and one-half hours to pump about 300 gallons.  The dock attendant was also the cook at the yacht club, so a security guard watched the dock while he went inside and cooked.  When he returned, they moved the boat, with the help of the engines, as we were moving into the wind, about 100 feet along the dock to our berth for the night.  On the way, the boat was gouged by a steel fixture welded to the dock.  Angela asked them to help push the boat away from the dock, but they didn’t.

     We went to the nearest casino (there were three nearby) to eat at their buffet and celebrate my birthday.  It didn’t have a buffet, but it had a restaurant on an adjoining barge.  We checked it out, and it seemed pricey; plus it did not have a no-smoking area.  The next nearest casino was closed.

     We walked to the third casino, which had been recommended by the cook.  It was a 10-minute walk in the cold.  We sat down, checked out the menu and the buffet, and decided to leave.  The staff definitely recommended against the buffet, and our waitress did not seem to be capable of answering any questions about the food and the menu.

     We walked back to the yacht club to see if we could eat there, but they were closing their kitchen.  So we went back to the first place and had a decent meal before someone came in and smoked up the place right next to us.

Greenville to Vicksburg, MS, Sunday, October 8, 2000

      Sunday was warmer (mid-50’s), and the heater was not necessary, generally.  It was mostly sunny with N winds of 15 – 20 mph and occasional gusts of 25 mph.  We slept late and left at 10:45am.  We ran the generator all day, and planned on running it all night in Vicksburg.  We only had 107 miles to go, but we needed to get fuel there in order to get to Morgan City, LA.  The delivery truck did not run on the weekend, so we had to wait until Monday for fuel.  

     We arrived in Vicksburg at 4:30pm.  The tie-up there was to a barge run by a tour company that gave tours of the waterways near Vicksburg.  We were actually on the Yazoo River, and we learned that was where the Mississippi River used to be.  Right after the Civil War it changed course, and Vicksburg had no river and no port.  A decision was made by the US Army Corps of Engineers to dredge a channel up to the Yazoo River, connect it to the Yazoo River, and force the flow down the diversion canal.  The last step was to block the flow from the Yazoo to the Mississippi River a few miles above Vicksburg.

     We walked up the steep concrete revetment to the floodwall.  That was where the Harrah’s riverboat casino sat, in a shallow pool of water, which was 20 feet or more above the level of the river.  Seeing a riverboat on the bank like that emphasized the silliness associated with legalizing gambling; imagine a riverboat that cannot move at all.  We saw several more of them in that area.  

     The food at Harrah’s had always been good, and our dinner that night was enjoyable.  My son, Daniel, who was in London for a few months with the theatre there, called as we were leaving.  He wanted to wish me a happy birthday.

     Back inside the boat, Angela made some brownies and some fudge for my birthday.  I wrote some notes on our trip reports.

     We were making good time coming down the river.  With the additional 2 knots from the current in the river, we sometimes saw speeds of 20 – 22 knots.  More usually we saw 18 – 20 knots, and we averaged 17.8 mph for the day.  That was very good, because we counted all running hours, including idling through the Yazoo River Diversion Canal, slowing for tows and barges, and warming up the engines in the morning, etc.  Our total miles for Trip 7 stood at 1147 at that point, or 127 miles per day for 9 days.  Our overall average speed was15 mph.

Vicksburg, MS to Morgan City, LA, Monday, October 9, 2000

     We called the fuel supplier, and they sent a load of diesel at 7:30am.We took 166 gallons, which was enough to get us to Morgan City.  I pumped all the diesel into the starboard side and transferred fuel to the port with our onboard transfer pump.  The driver handed me the fuel handle, and before I realized it, I was holding the dirtiest handle I had ever seen.  He had gloves; I asked him to get a rag for me, and he did.  He said they weren’t used to fueling yachts; they mainly fueled tractors.  I didn’t want to drag that dirty hose over the forward deck of our boat to use the fuel-fill on the other side.

     The weather continued to be very cool, but warmer in the sun.  Under the dark blue bimini top over the helm, we were often warm enough to open the plastic windows and get some cool air.  It was in the low 40”s in the morning and the low 50”s for the daily high.  Winds continued from the north, but not as strong.  We had more clouds than the previous days.

     We ran 135 miles to the Old River L & D, where we were told to wait.  A large tow with three heavy loads of asphalt was coming up through the lock.  There was almost no place to wait, which was typical of locks in the USA.  (Locks in Canada always had a place for small craft and pleasure boats to tie up and wait.)  After a 30 – 40 minute wait, we went down about 10 feet to the Atchafalaya River.  That was about 3:30pm.

     Again, we had to run in the dark, arriving in Berwick, LA at 9pm.  We contacted Berwick Traffic, a Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) run by the US Coast Guard, as instructed by their manual (all vessels transiting that area are required to have on board a copy of the manual, which they will mail to you upon request).  We tied up at L & L Fuel, and bought 360 gallons of diesel at $1.07 per gallon effective rate.  Then, we tried our luck at the town dock in Morgan City.

     Both Berwick and Morgan City have town docks where boats like ours, and shrimp boats, too, can tie up for the night for no charge (first come, first served).  On previous trips through there we had usually tied up in Berwick and run the generator all night, but in 1998 we learned about a special situation across the river.  Morgan City had an area “reserved” for pleasure boats.  Our boat completely filled the reserved space, and it was empty.  Shore power and potable water were available there, all at no charge.  There was not a grocery store within walking distance.  We knew that because they had a bulletin board set up with a map and legend on the bulletin board.

     We had run 258 miles for the day and 1405 miles in Trip 7.  Again, we averaged over 19 mph for the day and 15 mph for the whole trip.

Morgan City to Lake Charles, LA, Tuesday, October 10, 2000

      The generator started again, and we had breakfast on board.  We were ready to leave at 8am, but Berwick Traffic held us up about 40 minutes while work was being done on the railroad bridge.  Once we went under the railroad bridge, we went slowly south down the Atchafalaya River to the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and turned west for Lake Charles.  The towboat traffic was busy, and the ICW looked narrow after being on those wide rivers.

     The weather was much warmer; we wore shorts on the flybridge later on in the day.  The 7am temperature was 48 – 50 degrees F, but it warmed up into the 70’s.  It was windy with some clouds, but overall a very nice day.

     We decided not to buy fuel in Intracoastal City, but to push on to Lake Charles.  We had two locks to go through, and both of them had caused delays before.  On the way, our Racor filters exhibited signs of becoming plugged up, so I changed them en route.  We had no delay at the Leland Bowman Lock.  We had to wait about an hour at the Calcasieu River Lock.

     We arrived at the casino marina about 6:45pm.  Our friend, John, was there to meet us and help us get tied up in the slip.  There were no other boats in the small marina.  We showered and changed to meet our friends, Bob and Sue, at 7:30pm.  All five of us ate at the casino buffet, which was good.  John said Harrah’s had bought the casino but had not renamed it yet.  Some of the food and dishware looked like Harrah’s in Vicksburg.

     I was tired after dinner (and full, of course).  After we said our good nights (it was good to see everyone and catch up on news about family and mutual friends), we retired for the night.  John was working all night and promised to come see us in the morning.

Lake Charles, LA to Houston, TX, Wednesday, October 11, 2000

    I slept a little late and got up at 6:15am.  We had told John we would be up at 7am.  Sure enough, at 7am John jumped onto our swim platform with a bang.  If we had been asleep, that would have waked us up.

     I cooked some breakfast, mainly for John and I, while Angela fixed her special for that morning.  We pulled out at 8:30am, and I soon realized the port engine had not started.  John left, and we moved away from the slip with only the starboard engine running.  Something to do with the need to be in neutral, I thought; but I could not move the gearshift in such a way as to get it started.

     After calling John on the phone, we pulled in at Bridgepoint, and met Johnny and his son, Tony.  Tony checked the power cables, while I predicted it would start anytime (it had done that at least one other day).  Sure enough, with no apparent reason, the engine started.  Since we were headed home, we left without finding out the reason for the malfunction.  (It was a starter solenoid.)  The time was 10:30am.

     We bought another 160 gallons of fuel, as it looked to be less expensive there than at home.  Then we headed west for Texas.  

     The weather was nice and warm.  The breeze was cool, but the temperature was in the high 70’s.  We wore shorts and enjoyed the improved temperatures.  Port Arthur, TX was clear and sunny; a lot of interesting things were happening there.  We saw several grass fires in the marsh on the way to Galveston.  We heard on the radio that the drought was blamed for some of them. 

             

     I had called almost everyone in the Clear Lake area looking for a slip for the boat.  It appeared South Shore Harbour was the least expensive, but they had a waiting list.  Also, with a 45-foot slip at South Shore, we would not have to have metered electricity, which every other marina had for all sizes of slips.  At that time South Shore only had electric meters on slips 50 feet and greater.

     I was on a waiting list at South Shore, and Shawn had told me he would call me if a slip opened up after October 1.  I called him October 4 or 5, and he had a slip, or at least a T-head at the end of a pier.  I agreed to take it at the 45-foot rate, Pier 15, Slip 60.  Over the next few days I called him a couple of times to check on the shore power, etc.  On that Wednesday, he told me he would have the power checked that day.

     We arrived at Pier 15, Slip 60 about 6:30pm, and there was a boat in the slip.  No one answered the phone at the harbormaster’s office, and the hotel front desk seemed to not be able to do anything.  They finally gave me a pager number for the harbormaster.  I paged him but received no reply.  One of the people on a boat there came to our aid.  We told him our problem, and he told us to use Slip 39 for a couple of days.  So we got into a slip and shut everything down.  We were finally back home.

     Trip 7 was 1712 miles, covered over 12 days, from Kenosha, WI to Houston, TX.  It was a long trip, but we had other plans for the rest of October, so it needed to be done when we did it.  We went through 8 locks on the Illinois River, 2 locks on the Mississippi River, 1 lock at Old River, and 2 locks on the ICW, for a lock total of 13 for Trip 7.

     We had completed the Great Loop in June, when we came by the Statue of Liberty in New York City harbor.  We were actually halfway through our second Great Loop at that point, having cruised over 5900 miles in 2000.  That cruise took us to 15 states and two different countries, which were The Bahamas and Canada.  The states were:  FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, NJ, NY, WI, IL, MO, KY, TN, and AR.  We visited two Canadian provinces: Quebec and Ontario.  We really enjoyed the cruising, even though we were tired at the end of Trip 7.  Canada in the summer was so pleasant, and the people were so nice, we wanted to go there again and again.  At the moment, though, it was great to be home.

Statistics for Year 2000 Cruise, Trips 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7:

             Engine   Generator                 Fuel        Fuel        Run     Lay    Travel  Total
              Hours      Hours      Miles    Gallons    Costs     Days   Days   Days  Days

Trip 1       39            11          500         940       $1542         7        4         2        13

Trip 2       59            44          815       1127         1476       10         1        2        13

Trip 3       43            13          530         844         1106        7         2         2        11

Trip 4       11            17          135         186           241        2         0         2         4

Trip 5       27            33          270         456           606        5         9         2        16

Trip 6      183          229        1780       2528         4087       30         3         2        35

Trip 7      109          103        1712       2395         3347       12         0         1        13

Totals      471         450        5928       8476      $12405       73       19       13       105


Average fuel price was $1.46 (high in Bahamas and Canada)
Average gallons per mile was 1.43
Average gallons per hour was 18
Average fuel price per mile was $2.09
Average speed was 12.6 mph

For all seven trips, changed both main engine fuel filters once and Racor filters six times  plus five changes of the Racor and engine fuel filters on the generator, plus four complete oil and filter change for all three engines, plus changed the oil filter twice and the fuel filter once on the port engine only (during repairs to the turbocharger on the port engine), plus a complete oil and filter change on the port engine during overhaul in NJ.

Replaced the turbocharger on the port engine (April).  Bored out cylinder number 5 on the port engine and installed new sleeve, piston, rings, etc; replaced all engine bearings and exhaust manifold at the same time (July).  Also, repaired the sea strainer on the port intake and replaced the raw water impeller; acid washed and flushed the heat exchanger (July).

We went through 137 locks, as follows:  Trip 1             0
                                                                 2             0
                                                                 3             1
                                                                 4             0
                                                                 5             0
                                                                 6          123
                                                                 7            13
                                                             Total         137