M/V ILLUSIONS TX
TO MN TO TX CRUISE 2003
TX TO MN TO TX CRUISE
TRIP 3 LOGS
In the Twin Cities Area
July
31 – August 8, 2003
Fly Houston, TX
to Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, Thursday, July 31, 2003
Angela and I flew to the Twin Cities area
in hopes the repairs would be completed on the boat.
We knew the props and the rudder were ready; the shafts had been
straightened and were ready to reinstall, also.
What we didn’t know was the strut repair was not complete.
The struts had to go back to the press for a second time before
they were perfect.
We rented a
car and stayed at the Fairfield Inn near the airport.
As soon as the Courtyard next door had a room for us, we moved to
the Courtyard. I like eggs and
bacon for breakfast; the Fairfield Inn had only carbohydrates.
Someone at
the marina had unplugged the extension cord that was keeping the
refrigerator running. So, the
meat in the freezer defrosted and spoiled.
Missy was given the job of cleaning up the mess, and she did a
pretty good job. I thought I
could still smell it, but Angela was satisfied, and that’s what counts.
The outside of the boat was a mess as well, and Missy said as soon
as the repairs were made she would clean it up.
I drove out
to 3M Company after dropping Angela at the hotel.
I wanted to see a friend there while we were in the area.
We traveled around the area over the next few days, as the marina
did not finish the repairs on Friday and they did not have the staff to
work on our boat over the weekend.
Work on the Boat, Friday, August 1, 2003
We
located the CAT dealer before we left Houston, and Angela and I drove out
there Friday morning. I wanted
to replenish our oil supply, and I got some oil for the generator, too.
I bought some oil filters for the generator while we were in Houston.
The boat came
with one key to the doors, and we decided to try and get duplicate keys
made. It was an unusually
small key, but we found a hardware store that said they could make four
copies for us. We met my
friend Dick Larson for lunch and then went back to the hardware store for
the keys. Seven Corners
Hardware seemed to have everything; and we were learning our way around SE
St. Paul, particularly West 7th Street.
We tried
the keys in the door, and they did not fit.
Back at Seven Corners Hardware, Brian tried to file them down so
they would not be so thick. He
said if that didn’t work we’d have to go to Kat Keys.
I went to Kat Keys right away and asked for four copies of our door
key. He made them for us,
using the same blank that Brian at the hardware store had used; and I
headed back to the marina. Along
the way I dropped Angela at the hotel.
Two keys from the hardware store and two from Kat Keys worked, so I
went back to Kat Keys in downtown St. Paul.
He filed them all down, except one that was made wrong; and back I
went to the boat. Five out of
eight worked, if you were careful. That
was good enough for one day.
Pete and
Keith and Adam were putting the shafts in, after getting the struts back
from the press the second time. This
time the alignment was perfect; the shafts could be turned by hand.
The 3M 5200 used to seal the struts had to set, the props had yet
to be installed, the rudder was in position but was not yet bolted into
place, etc. They could not
finish on Friday.
We got a
couple of rugs from the boat and took them to the hotel for washing.
We got some shorts from the boat to wear, since we only brought
enough clothes for a couple of days. After
dinner we drove to downtown Minneapolis,
which was larger than downtown St. Paul.
We drove north on the Mississippi River Parkway, and we eventually got to
some interesting nightclubs and restaurants with outdoor eating areas.
Flowers in hanging flower baskets were seen in every area of both
cities throughout our stay there.
Downtown
Minneapolis and the St. Croix River Area, Saturday,
August 2, 2003
Since we
had a car, we drove over to see the St. Croix River area.
On the way we took some photos of downtown Minneapolis,
and we ate lunch there. I
wanted to see the Mississippi River and its uppermost locks, as we planned to take our
boat the last 12 miles up the river as soon as we were able.
Lock No. 1 was one of two locks on the Upper
Mississippi River with a hydroelectric plant, built by Ford to supply
power to their assembly plant. Both had lifts of 38 feet.
Minneapolis was a very attractive cosmopolitan city, with interesting tall
buildings, covered connecting walkways (it gets very cold there in the
winter), and interesting older buildings right next to the new and modern
buildings.
We stopped at Wal-Mart in Stillwater,
MN and arranged to have some film developed.
It had been left on the boat at the end of our last trip.
Getting
into Stillwater’s waterfront area involved a minor traffic jam.
The town was small and had only a two-lane road coming into it.
There were several scenic spots there; one was the vertical lift
drawbridge, with a normal clearance of about 17 feet.
It opened for boats on the hour or on the half hour, depending on
the time of day and which day it was.
Others included the spectacular river scenery, the town itself, the
outdoor restaurants and flower baskets, the surrounding hillsides with
trees and caves and curving roads, etc.
After
driving around the town and seeing the marinas, we crossed the lift bridge
and drove south to Hudson, WI, another scenic river town.
In 25 miles of St. Croix River, there were seven no-wake zones.
One of the reasons was the large numbers of boats that were moored
along the sides of the river in spots like Hudson,
WI. It had marinas, too, but
the demand for boat storage and usage must be greater than the marina
space available.
At
Interstate 95, about Mile 16 on the St. Croix, we crossed the river again into MN.
We drove north  three miles to Bayport,
MN, which I had identified as our marina of choice since they had 50-amp
power. Most of the marinas in
that area only offered 30-amp power. We
toured the Bayport Marina and met Allie, the young lady I had spoken with
on the phone. She wanted my
credit card to make a reservation, but I was not sure when we would be
there. We left thinking we
would return soon, by boat the next time.
We
continued north to Hwy 36 and the Wal-Mart store to pick up our film.
It was not ready, so we did some shopping for staples and non-food
things we thought we needed for the boat.
On the way back we shot some photos of St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota.
The capital building was at one end of a grassy mall, like the mall
in Washington, DC; and the Cathedral of St. Paul was at the other end.
It got dark about 9:30 in the evening, later than we were used to
because we were so far north.
Shopping, Sunday, August 3, 2003
Convinced
we would be back in the water the following day, we decided to shop for
perishable foods. Our
refrigerator was once again plugged in and working, so why not fill it
with meat and produce? Our
rental car was due back by 1pm
on Monday, also. We went to
the grocery store on West 7th Street and bought produce and some
other items. We went to
Sam’s Club for meats and other goodies.
We went to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Target; we spent the day
shopping. Most of those stores
were south of the airport, where the large Mall of America is located.
We did not go in there (had been there once before), and we did not
get to the Mississippi
River Visitors Center
in the Minnesota Science Museum in downtown St. Paul.
I had wanted to see that place.
To get from
the airport to Watergate Marina, you took Hwy 5 out of the airport.
You immediately crossed the Mississippi River,
and you turned right and went around a bluff and down the hill to the
marina. To get from there to
our hotel, you drove back across the Mississippi River and immediately did a
loop taking you to the left onto a bridge crossing the Minnesota
River. That
bridge, on Hwy 55, was a long bridge above a vast marsh on both sides of
the Minnesota River. All of
the rivers’ banks were high and rocky.
Those bridges had clearance of 88 feet (Hwy 5) and 74 feet (Hwy
55). The gorges formed by
those rivers were deep and wide. (One
lady told me the Mississippi
River gorge was formed by a glacier, not by the action
of the river.)
We had
called the St. Paul Yacht Club while on our way into the area and looking
for a marina with a repair yard. We
were not able to get an affirmative reaction to our inquiries the previous
month, and their Taste of Minnesota Festival had been going on at that
time. So we tried again.
We called and left a  message on their answering machine about
dropping by for lunch. Our
Quimby’s Guide said they had a café there.
We got no response to our message, ever; so we drove down there and
looked around. A nice lady
told us the café had been closed for a couple of years.
She recommended Joseph’s Grill nearby, so we ate there instead.
Angela’s
sister, Susana, was in Miami,
FL; and she was ready to make a change.
We arranged to have her fly to MSP and join us on Monday.
Launch the Boat, Monday,
August 4, 2003
We were
sure that was the day; everything would be fixed and we would sleep on the
boat. We checked out of the
hotel and planned to turn in the rental car.
We took our luggage out of the car and loaded it onto the boat.
The oil we bought at the CAT dealer was removed from the trunk of
the car and left in the marina store until the lazarette was ready to
store it. We reran the
extension cord over the threshold instead of through the engine room.
We started getting ready to go cruising.
At 12:30pm
we bought fuel for the rental car and drove it back to the airport.
Susy’s flight was due at 2:20pm.
I thought we would have lunch at the airport while we waited for
her to arrive. That’s what
we did, but it was a sandwich in a bag instead of a sit-down lunch.
To get to the nice restaurants at the airport, you had to have a
boarding pass. So we ate
quickly and waited. When Susy
arrived, Adam came over from the marina and collected us.
Pete was
the main man in charge of getting us going.
He arrived early and pushing everything and everybody to get us in
the water. They bolted up the
new rudder and started cleaning out the lazerette where the floorboard
had been removed. Missy got
down in there with a vacuum cleaner and a bucket of soapy water and some
rags. Later the floorboard was
reinstalled and the battery boxes and electrical cable storage compartment
and the tool drawers were rebuilt.
We got the
idea that the marina staff thought the running gear was the main thing,
and it was – no question about it. But
the other things on our list of things to do had not yet been addressed.
A few of them had reportedly been fixed, like the oil leak under
the port engine. We heard it
was the stabilizer system, and that it had been repaired.
It did not sound right, because the oil leak was black oil, and the
stabilizer uses a milky colored fluid.
We had requested the marina look up and order for us the correct
tools to open the five sea strainers on the boat.
It had come to us with no tools to open them.
That item was not done – ever.
Anyway, virtually none of that list had been done, but “we’ll
fix those little things once you’re in the water.”
One item
that had been addressed was water pump number 2.
The pump had been removed and checked on their workbench.
It had a timer switch that was burned out; a new one had been
ordered and was due in on Monday (retail price $275.
The whole pump was $900. If
you bought the parts individually, it was probably $2,000.)
When they installed it back in the boat, it ran for a little while
and then quit again. It would
run on their test bench but not on the boat, unless you got down there and
helped the little wheel to turn one time.
The conclusion was the motor had a dead spot in it.
We packaged it for a comfortable ride back to Houston.
Pete was
Keith’s father, and Keith was the owner of the marina.
Pete was a commanding guy, and he was moving fast to get it done.
He got the truck and the hydraulic trailer and maneuvered it under
the boat. The boat had to be
lifted up in order to put the props on.
(The old props had been removed only after a hole had been dug
under each prop. Holes had to
be dug to get each shaft out of the boat, too.)
The shafts were reattached to the backs of the engines, and the
dripless couplings were reinstalled.
Launching
required the truck and trailer be assisted by another truck, in case the
first truck could not handle the weight; or perhaps it always required the
two trucks to get us into or out of the water.
Anyway, they got us into the water and I started the generator.
The engines would not start; someone had turned off those battery
switches. Once they were
turned on, the engines started fine.
Pete had
not been sure which prop was right and which one was left.
Keith said he remembered which one came off which side, so they
looked at the old ones. But,
they asked me to carefully put the engine in gear to see which direction
it would go – forward or reverse. It
was correct, and we got into the same slip we had used before.
It was after five pm.
Now that we were in the water, they would look at those other
“little things”.
Work on the Boat, Tuesday,
August 5, 2003
Missy said
she would come down early and help clean the boat.
All of us cleaned and cleaned, all day; and it began to look decent
again. The wind-blown dust,
the spiders and spider webs, and the other insects and rain, etc. had
really made the boat look bad. The
mechanics had left the cockpit open to the lazerette, and rain and dust
had accumulated in various low spots in the cockpit and on the swim
platform. Grit from the ground
around the boat had been deposited on various surfaces; the boat was
dirty.
Adam came
by to replace the float switch on the engine room forward bilge pump.
He also brought pump number 2 back to the boat, and he brought down
the oil we bought at the CAT dealer and left in their shop.
Adam brought our invoice, and he tried once again to get the deck
wash down pump to work. It had
some corroded wires that apparently he could not replace.
I asked about the hum in the radio, but they apparently did not
have anyone who could repair a radio or an antenna.
Terry came
by to check on the oil leak. He
was a diesel mechanic working a second job at the marina.
He was also Missy’s father. It
was a family operation in more than one way.
Anyway, Terry checked our lights in the master stateroom – three
bulbs apparently all burned out at the same time.
The marina got us some new bulbs and some spares for next time.
I learned how to replace them.
Terry found
the water pump was loose where it was bolted to the block on the port side
of the port engine. Some
engine oil had leaked out around that connection.
He removed the pump after deciding the gasket was blown, and he
planned to get another gasket from the CAT dealer the following day.
Another loose item was the connection block for the throttles.
I was getting a diagnostic code that said to check the throttle
connection. He checked both
sides and tightened them both. The
whole boat could have benefited fro someone going through it and
tightening all the connections – wires, cables, hoses, and fittings.
I had with
us the membership directory for America’s
Great Loop Cruiser’s Association. On
Monday I called two names from the booklet – one in the same town as our
hotel (Mendota Heights) and the other in the town where we had been having
our evening meals (Eagan). Both
called back, and I enjoyed speaking with each of them.
Doug Lassey invited us to dinner, and he and Denise came to the
marina to pick us up Tuesday evening.
We went to
the Pool and Yacht Club, a private club we had seen on our left as we came
up the Mississippi River in St. Paul.
We had a very relaxed and enjoyable dinner.
Both Doug and Denise were very good company, and we enjoyed our
time with them very much. We
watched the traffic on the river while we ate, and we could see the nice
sunset as well.
More Work on the Boat, Wednesday, August 6, 2003
If the
gasket had been fixed early enough, we could have left the marina and gone
up and down the Mississippi
River through Minneapolis.
I gave Terry my CAT parts book, and he bought the gasket; but it
was the wrong gasket. The
parts book was wrong. That
time, he took the water pump with him to the CAT dealer to get the correct
gasket. In doing so he noticed
the water pump impeller; it was all torn up in the center.
I told him to get a new one and install it.
He came
back, seemingly hours later, and said they didn’t have an impeller and
it would take four days to get one. The
nearest location with a water pump impeller was Australia!
I still have trouble believing that; CAT’s headquarters were
right there in the Midwest.
I had bought two spares while in Ft. Lauderdale, so we used one of
them. The gaskets they gave me
in Ft. Lauderdale
were the wrong ones, so he had to reuse the old one, which was still good.
He checked the starboard side and the impeller was in good shape.
Then he went to his other job about 3:30pm.
One of our
neighbors noticed Susy crocheting on the back deck.
He asked her if it was tatting.
She got us to speak with him, and we got a nice surprise.
Tom was a charter pilot, and his wife was an expert at needlework
and tatting. She had written a
couple of books and articles for magazines; and she had taught classes and
given lectures on those subjects. Tom
brought Jan and their two young daughters to see us that evening.
Susy and Angela were thrilled to meet and discuss their favorite
subjects with Jan. I was
interested to hear Tom describe going to Cancun the previous day – in
three and a half hours. We
planned to make it t Houston
in about three weeks!
Tom and Jan
owned a 38-foot cruiser that was built in that area in 1960.
Tom had known the owner and the boat for a long time.
It had twin Chrysler engines, V-8s replaced in the 1970s; and it
would run 40 mph! We toured
their boat and appreciated many things about it.
Their girls were about 11 – 14 years old, and shy; they did say
they liked spending time on the boat.
While we
were in that slip we met Bob and his wife, Mike in the houseboat next
door, Bill and Nancy, Tom and Jan, and a couple others.
Later, Rick allowed us to use his 50amp power connection for the
night. The people were as
friendly and nice as any we have met anywhere.
They all seemed to be bright and fairly serious, too, which I
equate to living in a climate where you will freeze to death in the winter
if you do not prepare ahead. Those
people helped each other, and a sense of community existed there that was
not found in many of the large marinas we have visited.
Tom’s
boat had V-drives, and he had just added a 12,000 BTU air conditioner.
The boat was 43 years old and just got its first air conditioner!
The marina offices were not air-conditioned.
The weather some days appeared to be hot; it was 85 or so degrees
F. On other days we had such a
nice breeze that even 85 did not seem hot.
And our mornings were glorious – temperatures in the high 60s and
low 70s with a cool breeze. Wednesday
was one of the worst days in that it was overcast all day.
Picture taking in downtown Minneapolis
would not have been good.
Cruise to Minneapolis and Back, Thursday, August 7, 2003
I was up at
6:30am, ready to finally get moving on the water again.
We ate breakfast and left at 8:30.
Lock No. 1 was only three miles above our location, and the river
was not wide going up to it. I
was slowly moving forward, determined to not hit anything again. Our
marina was at Mile 845.
At Lock No.
1 we had to wait until they dropped the water in the chamber, and it took
longer that I would have expected. There
were floating bollards in those last three locks, and we tied up to what
the lockmaster called a “timberhead.”
The lockmaster was friendly; he said the Upper St. Anthony Falls
lock was the highest lift (50 feet) of any lock on the Mississippi River.
We also read that Lock and Dam No. 1 was built in 1917, while the
Upper and Lower St. Anthony Falls locks were built in 1963 and 1956,
respectively. All three of those last
locks were 56 feet wide and 400 feet long. Locks 3 – 26
were built from 1931 through 1940, and Lock 27 was built in 1964.
All the locks on the Upper Mississippi River totaled 29, although there were a Lock 5A and no
Lock 23.
On the St.
Paul side of the river, there was a Ford assembly plant.
We had driven by it on our drive up the Mississippi River Parkway.
Ford had put a power plant there at the site of Lock and Dam No. 1.
The power plant produced enough electricity for the plant and for
part of the local area’s needs. Lift
at Lock No. 1 was 38 feet. Added
to 50 feet at the Upper, and 25 feet at the Lower, St. Anthony Falls locks, we went
up 113 feet in those three locks. The
pool elevation was about 800 feet above sea level after passing through
the last lock.
There was a
long lake between Lock No. 1 and the next one, and we saw some boats
anchored there. The depths
were about 15 feet, and it looked appealing to anchor in that area.
We were surprised when we got to the next lock because they had to
let the water out of the chamber. Didn’t
Lock No. 1 tell you we were coming? No, they don’t communicate.
They do communicate between Lower and Upper though.
We went out of the Lower and up a ways and into the Upper, which
was waiting for us. The bridge
right at the entrance to Upper was the lowest, the least clearance, we had
encountered that day – 24 feet. The
50-foot lift was fast, 9 million gallons, the lockmaster said.
We ran up
to Mile 857, almost the end of the navigable waterway, before we turned
back and headed downstream. We
went into the first lock behind a towboat called Ugh The Tug.
Ugh was pushing a riverboat with sightseers on board.
We followed him into the second lock and then passed him after we
got out into the lake. He said
he was not going through Lock No. 1.
In the lake
we had room to plane off, and we did so.
We were all surprised and disappointed to feel a bad vibration beginning at about
1700 RPM. We called Keith and
went back to the marina after getting through Lock No. 1.
We had to wait at Lock No. 1 for a towboat with two barges.
The lockmaster would not let us go through with the load, so we had
to wait. I think he was trying to make
sure we didn’t get banged around by the prop wash from the towboat, and I appreciated that.
I spoke to
the towboat operator on the radio, and he later came to our marina and
spent some time with us. The
procedure they used going through the lock was called a knockout.
The two barges were secured in the lock.
The tow disconnected and went into the lock on the side of the
barges, where he connected again with his load.
Once the lower gates were opened, he moved the tow and the two
barges forward enough so he had room to get back behind his two barges
again, and away he went.
We pulled
into the gas dock to pump out our holding tank.
When that was done, we ran back upstream with Keith on Board.
He checked the shafts, etc. while the vibration was occurring.
Running up the RPMs on the starboard side did not give us the
vibration like the left side did. And
we had no vibration at low RPMs, which indicated to Keith our shafts were
okay. We went back to the gas
dock and spent an hour trying to get the holding tank emptied.
Then we
pulled into their launch ramp area. Keith
and Johnny both went swimming. They
checked the props for ropes, cables, or rags we might have picked up.
The zincs seemed secure. The
props seemed smooth (some of the people at the marina wondered if we had
hit something again). So, they
brought the hydraulic trailer again and pulled us out of the water.
Everything looked great, so they removed the props and took them
back to the prop shop,  which promised to drop everything and attend to the
potential problem.
We were let
back into the water of the launch ramp, and we connected to electricity
courtesy of Rick, who gave up his 50-amp electrical connection (and paid
for our electricity) for us for the night.
Keith took the props over to the prop shop about 5pm.
Chris said the hydraulic pump on the trailer just broke, so he
could get us off once, but he could not get us back on again until the
trailer was repaired.
Leave the Marina Again, Friday,
August 8, 2003
I like to
plan, and I was changing my plans almost hourly.
I had surgery scheduled in Houston
for the 27th, so I wanted to be home before then, preferably
well before then. I wanted to
spend a night on the St. Croix River, but that would take almost two days counting
travel through 7 no-wake zones and a 25-mile trip one way.
I gave up the idea of going up the Minnesota
River earlier in the week.
Keith and others said it wasn’t that interesting.
Now I was giving up the St.
Croix. I believed we had to
make it back to Houston in the following two weeks.
Friday was
the prettiest day of the week. The
weather was wonderful. People
in Houston probably did not want to hear it – it was 103 degrees F in
Houston on Wednesday and Thursday. But
we would be into the heat soon, as we moved south on the river.
I realized
we had water being pumped out of the forward bilge, and I thought it was
from the forward shower. That
morning I checked it out and found it was the master shower contributing
the water, so we opened up the shower sump.
The float switch did not work, but the pump worked when it was
turned on at the circuit breaker panel.
Chris brought us a new float switch.
We installed it and found no change.
Further investigation revealed a blown circuit breaker, so we saved
the old one for a spare.
The prop
shop said the props did need balancing, and it took them until 4pm to
deliver them. They were back
on the boat by 5:30. We were
launched again and ran down the Mississippi River on plane. We
still had a vibration, although it was not nearly as bad as it had been
the previous day. I had to
decide whether to try and get rid of that remaining vibration.
I decided
to go on. It was Friday
afternoon, and if we stayed we would likely have to wait until Monday to
get anything else done. That
was our experience the previous week.
The shop had had two chances to get the props right; what else
could we expect from them if we stayed?
We had eliminated the shafts, struts, and sacrificial zinc anodes
– what else was there to balance? And
the worst of the vibration was at a RPM level below that of our normal
cruise RPM.
We went to
Treasure Island Marina, near Red Wing, MN.
We knew they had 220volt, 50amp power.
When I called for a reservation, the girl asked me for a credit
card, like the girl did at Bayport Marina.
I was not sure, and did not want to pay for a slip we did not use,
so I would not give her one. We
could see they had plenty of slips available when we got there. They
have been trained to try and get the credit card number so they can bill
you whether you show up or not.
On the way
we passed the Pool and Yacht Club, where we had enjoyed such a nice
evening with Doug and Denise on Tuesday. We saw, on the LDB, the City of St. Paul
again. The railroad bridges in
that area were all about 20 feet in clearance, so we had to ask for an
opening. If you did not use
the correct name for the bridge, the operator would ignore you.
I was getting tired of the game,  and I was anxious about getting
there after dark.
At Mile
835.7 we came to the Pigs Eye Railroad Bridge, also known as the Union
Pacific Railroad Bridge (there were several Union Pacific bridges in the
area). I called the operator
on several channels, with no response.
I blew the horn a couple of times.
Finally I noticed a guy out on the bridge, getting up from a
kneeling position, walking back to the control building on the bridge.
Nothing
happened after that for several minutes after he went into the building.
Then the operator made a general announcement, addressed to no one
in particular, “If anyone needs this bridge to be opened, they will have
to wait 20 minutes.” I
called him back and asked him if he had heard me calling him on the radio;
most of these guys have a walkie-talkie, or mobile VHF radio they can take
with them.
He came
back and said “I have better things to do than to suit around and listen
to the radio. If you need more
than 25 feet and 7 inches of clearance, then you’ll have to wait 20
minutes.” He was surly, to say the least. Another boater
called us on the radio and commiserated with us saying the railroad bridge
operators were usually like that to boaters - not nice.
The chart
said the clearance there was 20.6 feet at normal pool.
We had been told it had not rained there for a month, and the water
levels might have been down. So
I got on the flybridge and lowered the antennas.
Angela drove the boat under the bridge, and we clipped the anchor
light clean off, leaving the rest of the lighting intact.
If I had lowered the light, we would have made it fine.
In fact, we had been under bridges of 21’ clearance with the
light up, so the chart clearance of 20’6” was probably correct.
I called
the operator back and told him we had lost our anchor light because he had
given us incorrect information. I
asked him for his name; he refused to give it to me.
We reached
Lock and Dam Number 2 at 7:30, and we waited 45 minutes for a tow and his
load. Filling the lock was
slow because they used one lock attendant to pass two ropes down to each
boat as it reached the end of the lock wall.
There must have been 12 pleasure boats, or recreational vessels,
that went through the lock gates very slowly and made their way down to
the other end. I wanted to get
there before dark, and it was not going to happen that way.
A couple of
miles past Lock 2 was the entrance to the St. Croix River
and a number of marinas. It
was a no-wake zone. Boats
planning to turn left and go under the bridge when it opened were idling
around in the middle of the river, so traffic on the Mississippi
was reduced to a snail’s pace. It
was getting dark, early, it seemed to me.
The
turn-off to get to Treasure Island Marina was just upstream of Mile 798.
It was also just upstream of a wing dam.
I was taking no chances with the wing dam, so we were extra
cautious about getting into that channel.
We did get up to the dock and get tied up before they closed at
10pm, when I finally did give the young lady my credit card.
That was the end of Trip 3.
Trip Statistics
Running Hours:
10
Miles: 70
Generator Hours: 14
Fuel Used: 0 gallons
Fuel Costs: $
Running Days: 2
Lay Days: 6
Travel Days: 1
Total Days 9
Average Speed: 7.0 mph
Average Fuel:
Average Fuel Cost:
Average Miles Per Running Day: 35
Average Running Hours Per Running Day:
5.0
Locks 7
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