Saturday Oct. 4, 2014 Beardstown, Il. To St. Charles, Mo.

We departed Logsdon Tow Service barge at mm 88.4 where  we were tied up to early this am. 7 am is much earlier than usual but we had a long way to travel today. The temperature was 38 degrees and Colletta wanted to know where the warm weather I promised her was. We bundled up and off we went.

 

 

 We departed with Balderdash and R&R. We arrived at the last lock on the Illinois River at Mile Marker 80.2 the La Grange Lock and Dam. This is a wicket dam which means during times of higher water they can lower the  wickets ( these are the moveable dam walls which not every dam has) and instead of going thru thee lock and waiting for the doors to close and the water to drop. You go right over the lowered wickets of the dam. A little nerve racking the first time you do it but it works and saves us time.  It was almost as windy today as yesterday but the sun came out as the day went on and really was quite comfortable. We had to shed the coats, sweat shirts, gloves and hats from our departure. I think the other boats were running a little faster today because by noon they were 7 or 8 miles ahead of us. Nothing we could do as with the current of the river our normal 7.5 kt (9 mph) was 9.2 kts. (11 mph) we were flying!  Colletta did some crafts up on the fly bridge with me and we took turns driving.

Breakfast and lunch were served on the flybridge and we just cruised along. We passed a few tows with barges all headed north so I called them on the radio and asked which side they would like us to pass on. These tows are so big pushing all these barges (the biggest one so far was 3 across and 5 long so 15 barges total push the tow at the stern pushing them) they have to set up their turns around the bends in the river so sometimes you pass on their port or you may switch sides of the river and pass on their starboard. The AIS really is great as it identifies the tow by name, how fast he is going, and where we should intercept each other. We show up on his AIS screen also so he know s where we are and he can call us if need be. This way things work smooth. We like smooth.

At 1600 hours (that is 4:00 pm for you landlubbers) we arrived at the “Big Muddy” “the Mighty Mississippi River”. 

 

There is a marina right at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers in Grafton, Il.  My buddy Tom Mirus and I stopped there when we brought the boat north from Texas back in 2011. Nice marina and town but I decided to check out this marina I had heard great things about in St. Charles, Mo. So we turned up into the Mississippi River and saw our speed go from 10.2 kts (12 mph) to 4.5 kts ( 5.5 mph) going into the current of the Mississippi.

It was a long 4 miles up the river to the marina. We got into Port St. Charles Marina last night at 1715 (5:15 pm) after traveling 92 miles. I had talked to them earlier and they told us where to tie up. It worked out great as the wind was still blowing but this marina was very calm so docking by ourselves was uneventful.

This morning as I write this it is 48 degrees and sunny. We are going to borrow the marinas courtesy car and explore historic St. Charles, Missouri today.

Entering the " Big Muddy "