Riverside Marina, IL
September 6

We left St. Joseph, MI at 5:45 in the dark.  The wind had been blowing from the south most of the night, so there was a slight chop, but not uncomfortable.  We traveled straight from St. Joseph to Hammond Marina for fuel.  The weather picked up once for a little while, and then settled nicely for a great trip across.  

We picked up 191 gallons of fuel for the trip to the Mississippi River.  Caper is riding better on her lines with the added 1600 lb. of fuel.  The fuel dock at Hammond is large and easy to access.  They don’t rush you while you are fueling.  They do provide discounts for bulk fuel. 

Web of bridges in the Calumet Channel

Louise with lots of tomatoes

When we left Hammond to enter the Calumet we followed some private navigational aids.  We needed to find numbered markers and could not find the numbers, but turned and followed another boat (Rule 3) into a local Yacht Club thinking it was the river.  Our Capn and GPS were telling us that we were heading in the wrong direction, but of course we knew better and went to the yacht club.  Finally we decided we were heading in the wrong direction. 

As we entered the Calumet we passed under bridge after bridge.  Due to low water, the lifting bridges marked at 17 ft. actually had clearance of 19.5 feet.  Dozens of fast pleasure boats were going in both directions.  At one time we had probably 15 coming toward us.  We had 2 – 3 ft waves between 2 walls for about 500 ft. at one point.  When we got to the lock, we realized that it was because they all get out of the lock at the same time.    

The lock was sort of like a lake.  We just laid against the wall and didn’t tie up at all.  We don’t even know if we went up or down, but the gate closed behind us and about 2 minutes later it opened in front of us. 

We had reservations at Riverside Marina – noted in Quimbys as Triplex Marina.  It is open under new ownership.  Lots of upgrades are underway, but one of them is not electricity.  It took us 2 hours to get them to run extension cords so we could have a fan.    

Terraced waterfalls on the upper Illinois

Chicago Sanitary and Ship Channel

The go-fast boats go all night long, however they do seem to slow down at the marinas.  This stretch is very bad on weekends.   

We covered 150 miles in 2 days.  When we got there, we had to defrost the refrigerator, fight with the electricity and make dinner.  It was very hot and we were cranky and exhausted when we finally went to bed. 

Harborside Marina
September 7

We left the marina at about 8:00.  We probably needed to move earlier, but were pretty tired after yesterday.  Don’s newest fun is to get under the bridges where people can’t see him and honk the horn.  He thinks it scares the truckers. 

We had a great time reading the bridge graffiti.  We know who loves who and who is a real hunk.  Surprisingly there were lots of birds on the Calumet Sag Channel on the way to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Channel.  Some of the waterside businesses have really done beautiful things to the waterfront with terraces, foot-bridges and waterfalls.  One even had a lighthouse in its little waterfront park. 

We had to wait well over an hour at Lockport Lock and Dam.  The lock had a floating bollard and Don held the front of the boat toward the dock with the engine.  These locks are huge, so they are fairly forgiving. 

On the second lock, they dropped lines to us so we could just hang on. 

We traveled only 47 miles in about 9 ½ hours or so.  We did encounter several barges and we do talk with the tug guys.  They are just great about telling us which is the best way to handle passing or following.  

We spent the night at Harborside Marina.  It was a nice place with real electricity and everything.  We found that we can tie at the locks in many cases if we ask the lockmaster.

Back to Illinois River List

Sheehan Island
September 8

We left the marina at 7:45.  As we were leaving, some guys from another boat came by to chat and ended up buying our downrigger for $100, so I guess our 2 nights as marinas worked out to be free.  

We added 2 hours to the trip for each lock and planned 3 locks for the day.  We planned leaving the first lock (Dresden Lock) at 10:00 and managed to make it by 8:30.  We had a nice run to the second lock and saw lots of campgrounds, egrets and herons as well as some white ducks and farms.  It made for an interesting trip. 

We got to Marsailles Lock at about 11:10 and left it at 1:15.  What a circus.  The Martha Mack – a tug was in the lock with us and had his props going.  He threw us all over the place.  Everyone was having problems and we finally let go and went behind the tug.  It was a pretty good fight with their current and a houseboat went crossways.  We held position until everyone went out and then we powered right out.  The lockmaster was whistling for us to leave.  We had to think of the safety of our own boat. 

A beautiful anchorage on the Illinois River

The bluffs at Sheehan Island

After we left the other boats were discussing our situation and said that the guy on that single engine boat did a “masterful” job.  It was a pretty exciting situation, but not lots of fun. 

We are eating our tomatoes now.  Had 2 for lunch and yesterday we had some.  We have 2 for tomorrow too.  Then it will be a little while before we have more. 

We met up with Floatboat, Marge and Dean Wiley, and he led us to an anchorage near a beautiful bluff behind Sheehan Island.  You line the red Daybridge Island Head daymark at mile 234.5 with the silos upriver in the little channel behind Sheehan Island and go straight in.  The minimum depth was 8’.  It is really a pretty place to be.  It was a little tight getting in, but pretty nice once we got settled.  The bluff was breathtaking at sunset and little birds were living on the walls of the bluff.

From what we saw from their time schedule they travel about 65 miles a day.

Henry’s Island, IL
September 9, 2003

We left the anchorage about 7:45 after a very pretty night although rather hot.  The river keeps you the direction of current and the breeze, if there is any, doesn’t necessarily come through the forward hatch like it does in non-current situations. 

We made the first lock from arrival to leaving in 45 minutes, which was a great bonus on our time schedule.  In the lock, we met the people from Sea Lyon who had e-mailed us before we left Lake Michigan.  They are from North Carolina. 

The day became overcast and quite hot and humid. 

We anchored behind the intersection between Upper and Lower Henry’s Island in about 12 ft of water.  The bottom is mud.  We entered after the green buoy after the Lower Henry Daymark below Lower Henry’s Island.  We stayed in depths to 15 ft. to the other end of Lower Henry and went through some 8 ft. water.  

We got to watch a Snowy Egret and a Great Blue Heron hunting.  The Egret didn’t catch anything, but we saw the Heron catch two fish.  The first fish was about the size of 2 silver dollars and it just flapped and flipped.  The Heron finally situated it and gulped it down.  You could see it go down his neck.  The second fish was bigger and you could see it flap and wiggle as it went down the neck. 

The anchorage is beautiful and quiet with a nice breeze.  I got to talk with Mama for a little while, but the phone kept going out.  Herman called and I talked with him a while.  He was pretty chatty.

Illinois River Boat

Bath Chute, IL
September 10

We got underway at 7:15 headed south again.  We were able to use our track on the Capn to get back out of the anchorage.  

We saw a huge bird colony with Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons and probably 300 Pelicans.  From what the book says, Pelicans do not occur in this area at any time of the year.  

Verizon came back on and now we have email – at least for the day.  That happened as we got near Peoria.  

Peoria Lock only took us about 45 minutes.  It was a quick trip though.  There were 18 tows coming upstream, so we lucked out with an empty lock except for one other “PC” as they call pleasure boats.  In the hierarchy of lock precedence, we are the last to be taken through. 

Today we are further south in the Caper than we have ever been.  We are also the farthest west and have gone over 2000 miles. 

We were heading for anchorage at Coon Island and it was full of sticks.  Bath Chute was too shallow to get in, so we had to head south.  The river was much shallower than above Peoria Lock. 

We finally found enough water for anchorage at Lower Bath Chute.  We anchored with another boat that had been traveling with us all day.  It was a very long day, made a little longer by hoping that we had places to anchor.  

We had gone through the charts to see which islands might work as anchorages and have found the river below Peoria Lock so low that only a few even looked possible.

One of the Illinois River
Duck Blinds

A very unexpected sighting 
of White Pelicans on the Illinois River

Buckhorn Island, IL
September 11

We left at 9:00 for the day.  We stopped in Beardstown, IL for groceries and such.  The lady at the Chamber of Commerce gave us cold drinks and directed us to the grocery store.  We got a ride back from the butcher, so we were able to get water and some of the heavier things we needed.  Towns along the river are pretty scarce.  We traveled with Novillus, a boat from Lansing, MI.  

We met a member of the Beardstown Ladies Investment club.  She came over to the chamber to meet us.  We even all got our pictures taken together, which I thought was quite a hoot. 

Now we have no e-mail and almost no phone service.  The day is quite warm and breezy.  The wind picked up over 20 mph and the waves on the river went up to about 2 ft. 

We anchored below Buckhorn Island behind the markers.  With 2 boats we felt a little safer about being seen by the tows.  

We had our steak for dinner and Don burned his finger pretty badly on the grill.  He kept his finger in ice, but it was still very painful and blistered.

Dark Chute
September 12

We pulled up anchor at about 8:30 and went down to Dark Chute to rest and wait out a very rainy day forecast for Saturday.  Our traveling companions (Larry, Bill and Dale) on Navillus kept going.  They are delivering his boat to Chattanooga, TN.

Illinois Anchorages

We had looked up places on the Illinois to anchor and checked them as we went by.  With the river at this stage these are the results.