Sunday, September 27, 2009

We slept very well last night. The temperature was on the cool side, there was a bit of a breeze, and the waves were gentle. It was now time to decide which way we were going to take to the Kentucky Lake area. Because the current on the Ohio was so strong and we didn’t want to push our fuel to the very end, we decided to take the shorter route on the Tennessee River. It was a lovely morning – clear and sunny – so we pulled anchor at 7:10 am and set out for Kentucky Lake. We thought we could make the Kentucky Lock by noon, but we had no idea how long we would have to wait for lockage. Stories we’d heard rumored of waits from 2 to 6 hours.

On our journey up the Tennessee River, we did not encounter any commercial traffic in either direction; in fact, the only recreational traffic we saw were local fishermen speeding by on their flat bottom boats. When we were about 2 miles from the lock, we gave them a call to let them know we were approaching and requested a lock-through when possible. The lockmaster said he would have the lock ready for us! We drove right into the chamber and were out of there by 12:15 pm! Gale says that’s from “Clean livin’, Baby!” It may have had something to do with it being Sunday morning, too!

As we entered Kentucky Lake, the scene was spectacular. We saw dozens of sailboats out enjoying the day, the Lake itself was huge, but still reminded us a lot of Clear Lake. We didn’t go too far before killing the engine and drifting while we had our lunch. As we were coming to a stop, we heard a greeting on the radio, “Blue Heron, Welcome to Kentucky!” A passing sailboat must have watched us come through the lock, noted that our mast was down, and knew that we were just arriving in the area.

We called our friends, Don and Ally, from Ally’s Cat, to see if they were at the Green Turtle Bay Marina yet. They had just arrived at the marina this morning even though they left Alton two days before we did. Don told us that we definitely made the right choice taking the Tennessee River route. They had chosen the Cumberland River and said they fought the current all the way.

The Green Turtle Bay Marina (GTB) was on Lake Barkley so we decided to take the canal between the two lakes and check it out. We stopped at the fuel dock, looked over the facilities, and decided to stay. We filled our fuel tanks and made the fuel economy calculations: 291 miles, 25.1 gallons or 11.6 miles per gallon. That averaged out to 1.8 hours per gallon. Not bad! We settled into our slip, turned on the computer, and the “Skype” phone rang almost immediately. Our friends Bob and Susie had seen that we were online and made contact! We talked to them for a few minutes and then headed up to the showers. Gale was done before Maureen, but she was back on the boat at 5:20. The impromptu “Looper” cocktail party had started in the gazebo a few yards from where we were docked so we walked up the steps to join everyone. We met a few new friends, and caught up with a few “old” ones.

After leaving the cocktail party, we headed up to the Yacht Club for dinner. This is a dry county, so we had to bring our own bottle and have it served to us. Our meal was fantastic and began with a wedge salad – a wedge of a head of lettuce smothered with blue cheese, feta cheese and garnished with a few tomato slices. The main course was stuffed orange roughy – the stuffing was a mixture of shrimp, crab and cream cheese covered with another cream sauce! We’re pretty sure we each had about 1,000 calories on our plates! We ate it all and it was heavenly!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

At 6:30 am we awoke to find ourselves surrounded by a thick fog bank. Gale had been up an hour earlier and said the skies were still clear then – all night we’d been enjoying looking at the stars whenever we opened our eyes. The weather radio, NOAA, informed us that there was a heavy fog advisory until 10 am, so we turned our attention to household chores. At 9 am, the fog lifted suddenly and we were on our way in fifteen minutes.

As mentioned yesterday, the trip to Kentucky Lake / Lake Barkley is upstream. The current on the Ohio River was nearly as strong as that on the Mississippi River except that we were traveling against it instead of with it. Very slow going, indeed! The morning turned out to be quite warm and sunny and we simply enjoyed the scenery as we rolled along. We did not expect to make it all the way to Paducah today since it was 40 miles upstream and there were two locks to get through. We knew that there was a new lock being constructed between here and Paducah that will eventually take the place of Locks 53 and 52, but it wasn’t scheduled to be completed until 2013. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that both of these locks were being dismantled! There was very little left of Lock 53 so we just passed right on through. Most of Lock 52 was still there; however, when we called ahead, the lockmaster told us to pass outside of the lock walls keeping them to our port side and stay starboard of the pier in the river with the posted red sign. He said we would encounter heavy turbulence as we passed over the dam.

Once we were past the lock, we looked behind us to see ominous skies and large thunderheads forming. The skies were turning very dark and it appeared we were in for a strong storm. A thunderstorm watch had been issued for our area, and there was some rain south of us, but no storms had yet been reported. Soon, the lockmaster called Gale to advise us of an approaching storm and suggested that we either cross the river over to the Kentucky side and anchor on or near a sandbar or tie up to the floating barge dolphin (pier) we were passing by at that time. The lockmaster also mentioned that there were a couple of barges headed our way as well. We did not like either of the options given, so we grabbed our life jackets and our rain gear and prepared to keep moving. After all the hatches were latched down and loose items were tucked safely away, we felt okay about whatever came next. And, what came next? The storm never materialized! The clouds started to thin, the sky brightened, the wind shifted to our stern and helped push us the remaining 4 miles to Paducah.

Our hope was to be able to tie up to the town dock where we stayed last October when we were on Adventure with Mark and Diane Holt; however, a very large and very new towboat was tied at the dock. It appeared that there was some sort of celebration going on in town and the tow was open for tours. By then, the sun was setting, the wind was blowing and we needed to find a place to stop. Before it was too dark, we located the anchorage behind Cuba Head Island that was mentioned in our cruising guide. We were fairly well protected here, out of the channel for both the Ohio and the Tennessee Rivers, and had plenty of depth. We had a little bit of rain just before we lit the grill for dinner, but no storms.

Friday, September 25, 2009

We left our anchorage shortly before 7:30 am and continued down the Mississippi. We thought we might make it to the Ohio River today. During the pre-cruise check, Gale was examining the engine and noticed the drive shaft was turning even though the boat was in neutral. At first, he thought we may be having transmission problems, but soon realized that the swift current was actually turning the boat’s propeller which explained why the drive shaft was rotating. The current on the river was so fast that if either of us fell overboard, it would be impossible to swim back to the boat. Our only option would be to make a downstream diagonal course to the nearest shoreline. The current on the Illinois River was significantly less than what we’d experienced on the Mississippi River. A safety precaution we opted for while swimming in the Illinois was to tether a float to a 50-foot polypropylene line tied to the back of the boat. The line floated and its bright yellow color allowed it to be seen easily on top of the water. If a swimmer were pulled too far downstream by the current he could grab the line and pull himself back to the boat.

Today we saw some very large tows – towboats pushing 25 to 30 barges. On the Upper Mississippi River bordering Iowa, the largest tow we are familiar with is 3 wide and 5 long; a total of 15 barges. Because the Mississippi River below St. Louis has no more locks and is much wider and deeper, the tows grow. It is not uncommon to see barges six wide and seven deep; in fact, tows nine barges long and nine barges wide have been seen on the Lower Mississippi River. Tows require most of the river in a sharp bend and need more than a mile to come to a full stop. Here is a little “towboat etiquette”: A tow does not usually tow, it pushes. And a tow is never called a tug. Tugs may pull or push ships in harbors, but on the rivers tows push barges, and the entire train of tow with barges is called a tow.

After lunch, we began looking for a sandbar to anchor near so Lucy could have a good run. It wasn’t long before we saw a very large sandbar with an area where we could get out of the channel. We anchored, let the dinghy down, and were amazed at how swiftly the current was moving. As soon as we released the dinghy from the lines, we were taken down current. We let Lucy ashore and she was able to run to her heart’s content. Gale threw a stick in the water for her to bring back to us, but he was careful to make sure the stick landed upstream a little bit so that she wouldn’t have to fight too much current. We had to work very hard to get the dinghy hooked to Blue Heron again. We were very grateful to have a reliable outboard motor on the little boat!

We left the Upper Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois, late in the afternoon and began our short journey on the Ohio River. We will travel upstream on the Ohio for approximately 45 miles to Paducah, Kentucky, where we will decide whether to continue on the Ohio for another 10 miles and then take the Cumberland River to Lake Barkley or enter the Tennessee River at Paducah and take that to Kentucky Lake. The Tennessee River route is about 25 miles shorter but Kentucky Dam Lock is known for long delays due to the commercial traffic.

It was nearly 7 pm when we were out of the heavy commercial area of the river and able to find a suitable anchorage for the night. We took a few nice photos of the sun setting behind the grain elevators across the river and settled in for a nice, quiet evening.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

We raised the hook at 7:20 am in a light rain and continued our southward journey. The current carried us along at a good clip; at one point when we traveled through some very turbulent waters, our cruising speed hit 9.7 knots – a new record for our boat. We saw a lot of turkeys on the sandbars today – Toms in groups of 2 to 3, and hens in groups of 10 to 15. We also saw an interesting rock formation at around mile 80 near Grand Tower, Illinois. It looked a lot like the Devil’s Tower monument in Wyoming except it wasn’t as tall and it had trees growing on the plateau.

At 5:30 pm at mile 73.5 we put down the anchor for the night. We did not have a lot of protection from the weather here; however, again, we weren’t expecting any storms. The spot was far out of the channel, but still affected by the river current. It turned out to be a nicer anchorage than last night in that the strong, steady current kept the bow pointing upstream and we stayed in one spot. The Captain felt pretty good about this location, set the anchor alarm as a precaution, and was able to get a good night’s rest.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

We left our slip at Alton Marina at 10 am and motored over to the fuel dock to fill up before the long trip on the river systems. There are very few places to buy fuel along the 300-mile route to the Cumberland River. The first one is 40-miles from Alton at Hoppie’s Marina where most cruisers choose to spend a night before continuing on. The next fuel stop is another 107 miles after Hoppie’s ; however, they have a 50-gallon minimum and we can only take 36 gallons – if we are completely empty. The next stop is 142 miles further at Green Turtle Marina on the Cumberland River. We figure we have a 400-mile range with our fuel economy so we don’t expect to have any problems along that line.

There are only two locks on the section of the Mississippi River we are traveling and we transited both of them today. The Mel Price Lock & Dam 26 was just south of Alton and we had to wait about a half hour for a barge to finish locking through before we could enter the chamber. This Lock has two chambers. The Chain of Rocks Lock & Dam 27 also has two chambers. We were directed into the “smaller” chamber without any waiting and were allowed to float freely within the lock since there were no other boats locking through with us. Both of us wondered what the “larger” chambers were like since we thought the small ones were pretty big!!

After the locks, the river current runs very fast. With our engine at 2400 rpms and no current or wind, we travel about 6 knots; however, today we averaged around 8 knots with portions of the trip between 9.0 and 9.5 knots. Lucy hasn’t fallen in yet – now would not be a good time for the first slip!

We passed the Arch in St. Louis today. It was certainly a different perspective from the water as compared to looking out from the top of the Arch to the River! We also saw the monument to Lewis & Clark (from the back) that we noticed on Monday when we visited the Arch.

We came by Hoppie’s Marina about 4:30 pm and decided to continue a bit further downstream. We could see a few boats we knew tied up at the dock and several people gathered around picnic tables under a shelter, but we simply waved a greeting as we passed. We came upon a lone canoeist and pulled alongside to ask his story. He was from Maryland and had put his canoe in at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota on August 10th. He was moving surprisingly quickly and expected to be in New Orleans in another six weeks. He told us that he was having a great time, had not had any problem finding places to camp along the river and that he just thought it would be a great adventure to travel the length of the Mississippi River this way.

We found our anchoring spot behind a wing dam at mile 154.5 near Riverside, Missouri, and dropped the hook at 5:45 pm. The holding was good, but the way the river ran around the wing dam and where we were set put us in a bit of a “slow swirl.” The evening weather forecast was for light winds with a 20% chance of showers, so we thought we’d be fine. Gale felt better sleeping in the salon on the couch with one eye on the chart plotter and watching for barges. Only six barges passed during the night and we experienced no problems at all.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The skies cleared during the morning hours and we were presented with a very humid and warm day. Maureen was up a little before 7 am and began working around the boat and on the computer. Gale was up at 4:30 am in Clear Lake and on the road about 5. He arrived in Alton shortly after noon. We needed to get the rental car back before 4:30 pm to avoid being charged for another day, but we had plenty of time to run the few errands that we needed to do before returning it.

At 6 pm we called “Comfort Cab” for a ride to Fast Eddie’s Bon Air, a popular biker bar and destination. We enjoyed a couple of beers, a great burger, some cocktail shrimp, a few chicken wings and the beef kabob. Great food for a small price! The restaurant has a very large outdoor seating area where they often have live music. Last year about this time, we were at Fast Eddie’s with Mark and Diane Holt when we crewed for them as they took their 62-foot Nordhavn, Adventure, down the Mississippi. That night there was a band playing on the corner stage.

Monday, September 21, 2009

We were at the motel at 8:00 am to gather up Mom and Dad for a trip to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Maureen was the only one who hadn’t been inside the facility and Gale was interested in buying a small souvenir commemorating our visit. The park and monument were certainly not very handicap accessible as we had to push each of the folks up a 3-block long path that was not very smooth. Gale pushed Mary up first and Maureen and Gale, Sr. started up the walk with Dad using the walker. He got a short ways up the hill and decided he’d rather wait for Gale to come back with the wheelchair. The whole thing was quite a process especially with the added treat from Homeland Security of having to pass through a metal detector, get our bags/purses searched, and have both parents “frisked” with the handheld wand.

Once we were in the facility, things were much more relaxed. We were able to get another wheelchair to use on the grounds. Maureen took the trip to the top of the arch to see the view and get the entire experience. Gale spent his time making the folks comfortable and checking out the gift shop. We all thought it had been worth the effort and were back in the vehicle by 11 am for the trip back to the marina. Gale left Maureen with Lucy and headed north to Clear Lake once again.

There were some strong thunderstorms in Alton this evening. Our covered, floating slip handled them nicely and kept us well protected.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

It was not quiet on H Dock last night! There was still a lot of conversation and music going on at 1:30 am and it may have gone on even longer than that. Maureen and Lucy coped by turning on the fan in the stateroom which helped to cover up some of the racket. Shortly after 6:30 am, a good rain began – no wind or thunder and lightning, just steady rain. Gale called around 8 am to report that he and the folks were near Waterloo, IA, and thinking about stopping for breakfast before they woke Kelle up in Iowa City to deliver the television. Gale estimated they would be arriving in Alton by 3 pm.

Lucy and Maureen stayed on the boat most of the morning while the rain continued to fall. New “Loopers” arrived to replace the ones that had taken off this morning. Talking to some of those folks it sounded like they had experienced the rain but also a lot of lightning and thunder to go along with it. The rain ended around noon, but the sky remained overcast.

Gale arrived back at the marina at 3 pm after dropping off his mom and dad at the motel. He changed his clothes and we enjoyed a glass of wine together before going to the motel to bring Gale and Mary back to see Blue Heron. When everyone was aboard, we each had a cocktail and gave a quick tour of the boat before starting her up and heading out for a sunset cruise around the harbor. We were nestled into our slip again at 6:30 pm and then individually shuttled Gale and Mary down the dock and up to the parking lot in the wheelchair they’d brought from home. At 8 pm we found ourselves at Applebee’s for a little dinner and then dropped Mom and Dad back at the motel before returning to the boat for the night.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Gale hit the road before 8 am as Maureen started her morning dedicated to laundry. A large group was beginning to gather as boats came in throughout the day. The Gateway Boat Club of St. Louis, MO, was having a “rally” of sorts and filled in the first 23 slips on “H Dock.” We were in Slip H26. Last night only 3 or 4 club boats had been in the slips but they made enough noise for 10!

Maureen finished her chores about 3:30 pm and she and Lucy went for a walk over to the Alton Riverfront Park and Amphitheater adjacent to the marina. The Third Annual Mississippi Earthtones Festival was underway and offered many eco-friendly vendors, food booths, contests and events as well as live folk and bluegrass music. Maureen and Lucy walked around the venue and enjoyed listening to the folk band playing on the stage.

Gale’s drive to Clear Lake included a stop in Iowa City to visit Kelle. It was good to hear that things were going well for him after a month into the semester at the University. Kelle mentioned that he could really use the extra television we had stored in our garage at home so Gale said he would pick it up and deliver it to him on his way back through tomorrow. Another stop was in Mason City where Gale picked up a wheelchair to help us get his mom and dad out to the end of the dock where our boat is slipped in Alton. He arrived in Clear Lake a little after 5 pm, made a quick stop at the condo and then spent the evening with his mom and dad.

Friday, September 18, 2009

We left our Twelve Mile Island anchorage at 7 am and arrived at the Alton Marina in Alton, Illinois, at 11 am. We had completed our passage on the Illinois Waterway and began the portion of the trip on the Mississippi River at Grafton, Illinois. It was a lovely morning and we enjoyed the river, but we were ready to spend a few days at a marina to restock, do laundry, clean the boat and rest. At least Maureen was hoping for some rest – Gale’s plan was to rent a car, drive to Iowa, pick up his parents, bring them back to Alton so they could see the boat, take them for a ride, put them up in a motel and then make another trip to Iowa to take them home.

Once we were settled into our slip next to Ally’s Cat at the marina, Maureen called the local grocery for a ride to the store and Gale began to clean the boat. It wasn’t long before Maureen was back from her shopping trip, putting groceries away and continuing on a few chores. We quit at 3:30 pm for showers. Gale was picked up by the rental car company at 4 pm and back at the boat by 5 pm. We had promised ourselves a nice dinner in town tonight. We were told that the place to eat was Tony’s and we could get there by taking the Argosy Casino shuttle and then walk one block to the restaurant. While on the shuttle, Gale started a conversation with the driver and the other three passengers who were all casino employees and they concurred that we should eat at Tony’s rather than the casino. We took them at their word and were not disappointed! Gale ordered the house specialty, Tony’s Peppercorn Steak, and Maureen had the seafood pasta. Both were excellent and we had lots of leftovers to take back to the boat. We walked back by way of the casino, stepped inside to lose $20 at the slot machines, and then took the shuttle back to the marina.

When we arrived back at Blue Heron, we saw that Don and Ally of Ally’s Cat were home, too, so we visited with them a little bit before retiring for the evening. Don and Gale made a tentative plan to meet up in Kentucky Lake where we would help each other step our masts.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

We were up before sunrise to shower and catch up on the blog journal entries. Gale baited up a line while we went about our morning activities. We let the dinghy down and crossed over to the other side of the river where we noticed either a lot of rock or a lot of shells. It turned out to be an old clam bed filled with millions of shells – mostly broken – but we took some time to walk the beach and see what treasures we might find. By 9:30 we were back on the boat, bringing in the fishing line and pulling up the anchor. We headed downriver with a nice breeze and enjoyed a cool, leisurely float.

Because there were no more locks on the Illinois River, we knew that we probably could travel the remaining 62 miles to the Mississippi today, but we decided we were in no hurry and dropped the anchor at 5 pm at Twelve Mile Island, presumably named as such because it is at mile 12 on the river. The area along the river looked like it had been devastated by recent flooding and many of the dwellings were abandoned. We poured some wine, baited up a fishing pole, put our lawn chairs on the forward deck and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. While we were relaxing, Don from Ally’s Cat called to let us know that they were at the marina in Alton, IL, and if we were thinking of staying there, we should reserve a spot tonight. We made the reservations, grilled up some chicken and fish, and settled in for a quiet evening.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

At 7:20 am we were having our coffee and cereal and saw our friends on Laura Lee and Get A Way going downriver. We pulled up the anchor and set out at 7:45 am. There was a nice northeasterly breeze with a little cloud cover that developed later in the day keeping us quite comfortable and cool as we floated down the river. We arrived at the LaGrange Lock and Dam shortly after 2 pm and saw the Laura Lee and Get A Way anchored in the pool above the lock. We learned that they’d been waiting for some repairs to be done and had been told it would be fixed “any time.” That was three hours ago. We dropped the hook and settled in for the wait. Gale and Lucy took the dinghy to shore and found some wonderful treasures along the beach. At 3 pm as they were heading back to Blue Heron we got the word to proceed to the lock. While in the lock, we were told that a “hunk” of concrete had fallen off the lock wall and had to be removed from the chamber. We could see the crumbling wall and were very glad that we weren’t in the lock at the time it happened!

There was no plan yet as to where we were going to anchor tonight because the guidebooks all said there were no good anchorages between the lock and McEvers Island, another 32 miles downstream. Get A Way and Laura Lee weren’t sure what they were going to do either, however, they travel faster than we do and said they would keep a lookout for a good spot. We got a call from Get A Way saying that they thought there might be a place to anchor around mile 68; however, when we arrived, we could see that there had been a lot of silting going on and it would not be a good place to be overnight. Evidently, our friends had made the same conclusion since they had not stopped. Gale studied the chart and saw that wing dams could be found beginning around mile 63. At mile 62 just above a railroad bridge, we checked out a spot near an “L” dam. We were able to get well out of the channel and still had nearly 9 feet of water depth next to a very nice sandbar. By then it was 6:30 pm and we enjoyed the rest of the evening in this quiet place. Great Anchorage!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

We were up early and left the dock at 6:40 am just as the sun was beginning to rise. Apparently, we didn’t break any ordinances that anyone was too concerned about last night since no one came by to ask any questions. Before leaving the area, we stopped by the spot we tried to anchor in last night to recover the end of our boat hook. Gale and Lucy took the dinghy into the shallow water while Maureen stayed aboard and kept Blue Heron in the channel. They found the hook right away, we secured the dinghy, and we were moving on down the river in no time at all.

The river was so shallow and there were so many sandbars in Peoria Lake, we saw thousands of pelicans gathered on the sand as well as flying over us in large flocks. It was a wondrous sight. It wasn’t long before we noticed two large cruisers heading in our direction. From a distance, it looked like our friends on Laura Lee and Get A Way. Sure enough, Gale hailed Laura Lee to find out what was “up.” They had gone all the way to Peoria the day before where diesel fuel was available but found that they could not get to the fuel dock because of the water depth. They were heading back to Chillicothe to Hamm’s Marina for fuel since there would be no other opportunities to buy diesel along the remaining 180 miles of the Illinois River. We were glad that we’d filled our tanks at the Starved Rock Marina even though we had been told that fuel would be about 50¢ per gallon cheaper in Peoria.

After a lovely day of relaxing cruising, we anchored behind Quiver Island near Havana, IL, at mile 121.3, just beyond the coal transfer plant at 5:30 pm.

Monday, September 14, 2009

There wasn’t much fog this morning and we were able to pull anchor and leave our spot at Buffalo Rock at 8 am. As we were approaching Starved Rock Marina, we saw many bald eagles and hundreds of pelicans resting and sunning themselves along the sandbar. Gale was able to get a pretty good photo of the eagles by taking the picture through the binoculars! We stopped at the marina at 8:45 am for fuel, dinghy gas and water which we expected would get us all the way to the Mississippi River at Grafton, IL (235 miles). By 10 am we were already through the Starved Rock Lock and on our way down the river on this sunny, hot day. The temperatures were in the upper 80’s, there was no cloud cover or breeze, but we enjoyed it all the same as we hadn’t had much weather like this since leaving home!

There are not an over abundance of anchorages on the Illinois River. It was getting late and we needed to find a place to stop for the night. About 6:30 pm we were coming through Peoria Lake at Chillicothe, Illinois, and found a place right off the channel we hoped would work. Our cruising guides had warned us to stay in the channel, but usually we’re able to find a decent spot since our draft is only 2 feet. Just ten feet out of the channel we realized it was too shallow even for our boat. Gale used the boat hook to check the depth and found it to be only about a foot deep. The mud sucked off the bottom third of the telescoping boat hook and we left it behind to find a safer mooring back at the town dock in Chillicothe.

It was already 7:20 pm and the sun was setting when we tied up to the dock. Maureen took Lucy for a quick walk and noticed that the signs at the dock said “No Docking – 30 Minute Limit for Loading and Unloading.” We didn’t feel we had any choice but to stay where we were. When Gale looked at one of the cruising guides a little later that evening, there was a phone number to call to get permission to stay. It was Monday night, the town was very small and very quiet, and there were no other boats on the dock, so we decided to go to bed and worry about permissions later, if needed.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Wow, was it foggy this morning! We were up at 6:30 and could barely see 20 feet around the boat! The forecast called for the fog to clear out by 9 am; however, it lingered until 10 am where we were. When the fog lifted, we could see that we were in for another absolutely gorgeous day! At 11:30 am we moved Blue Heron to a nearby sandbar where the Starved Rock Yacht Club leases an area from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It was cleared out nicely and included a few picnic tables, a fire ring and some party lights and flags. Yesterday before Dan & Julie and family arrived, we met Joe from the SRYC who encouraged us to use the spot for a picnic. We were able to anchor the boat and pull the stern close to shore so we could just step off the back of the boat and wade in. We gathered up what we needed to have our lunch on the beach. Kevin and Justin looked for more shells and played in the sand and water. Lucy ran and swam and fetched until she was so tired she simply lay down on the sand – quite unlike her but the warmer temperatures certainly had a lot to do with that. About 1:30 pm, boats began to arrive and the beach was starting to get crowded. Evidently, the Yacht Club had just finished a meeting and everyone was coming to the beach afterwards for some fun in the sun.

We left the sandbar and traveled southward toward Starved Rock State Park. After going as far as the marina, we decided we really wanted to swim and the best place to do that was back at Buffalo Rock. We anchored near the cliff face and everyone jumped into the water! Most of us swam to the cliff, but Gale and Lucy came in the dinghy both as support for the swimmers and also to keep Lucy from trying to climb up on the kids while she was in the water. Julie and Dan were on the hunt for wildlife on the cliff face and found a little brown snake and the biggest wolf spider any of us had ever seen! We had our pictures taken with the snake – Grandpa Gale said that the snake was very friendly and that the one we found was as big as any of them ever get. Julie surprised us by grabbing on to a rope hanging down from the cliff and climbing about a third of the way up! Dan followed her, only he wasn’t able to find the footholds she had used and ended up having to use a lot more upper body strength to get himself up out of the water. There was a lot of cheering and hollering from us and other nearby boaters for the two of them to jump. They counted to three and jumped together!! Looking back at the cliff later, Julie thought that they should have climbed higher before the big jump!

As we knew it must, the time came when we had to take the family back to the dock in Ottawa. When we arrived at the dock, we realized that our friends on Get A Way and Laura Lee were still there along with another very large trawler that was rafted up beside Get A Way. Rob and Richard recognized our boat and hailed us to come alongside Laura Lee. We rafted up with the sailboat allowing the kids to unload, disembark and take off. We said our goodbyes on shore, wiped a couple of tears from the faces of our grandsons and wished each other safe travels.

Back on Blue Heron and before casting off, we learned from Richard that as of yesterday (Saturday) pleasure craft are no longer required to be towed through the fish barrier. Oh well, we figured we would have easily spent that $600 waiting and wondering in the Chicago area for that 9-day interval between September 3rd when we were towed through and September 12th when we could have passed on our own. This way, we enjoyed two very special weekends in the Ottawa area with our families that we might not have been able to do had we waited. We said good night to our friends at the dock and found ourselves, once again, at Buffalo Rock for the night.