New Chapter: Rivers

Mastless

August 1

Happy Birthday Hailey!  Our granddaughter turned 14 years today and I have loved every year of her life. 

Sunrise over Lake Michigan crossing from St. Joseph to Chicago.  

We are in Chicago and so starts a new chapter in our journey, the river journey.  We pulled into Hammond Marina, which is actually just over the state line into Indiana.  Evidently Indiana owns a small part of Lake Michigan.  This is the largest marina I have ever seen.  They must have 24 piers (not finger docks), they were lettered A-X. 

We met a fun guy, Kevin from a Blue Water boat, (didn’t catch the name of the boat).  Glad we did because he gave us a great tip.  There is a casino next to the marina, called the Horseshoe and if you sign up for their free membership you get a free buffet dinner.  We had the best dinner for the money at Horseshoe Casino. 

Next morning we traveled about 4 miles down the river to Crowleys Boat Yard.  Crowleys is a full service boat yard and we had our mast stepped there.  Great service and they packed our mast for shipment to Pensacola, FL, thanks Tim and Mark - great guys who know their rigging business.  Mike and Lupa helped us sort through old sails for shipment home to Minnesota. We will pick the mast up in Pensacola where we are already scheduled for some boat work (bottom job, new standing rigging, new sails and half tower to carrier our solar panels). 

The Sea Hawk minus her mast.

Is it a tow?  No, it's a freighter!  We thought we would be seeing tows on the river, but no, the first big boat on the river is a laker!

Lesson Learned

August 2  

Left Crowleys, mast free, I guess we are now a motor vessel, haha.  Went through our first two river locks, the first was a 5 foot drop, the second which was Lockport was 41 feet.  Lockport was full of floating debris and after we left the lock noticed our engine was overheating.  Bruce troubleshooted the problem on the way but was unable to totally resolve the issue so we limped into Joliete and stayed at the city dock.  We knew it was the intake somewhere so Bruce went through the intake looking for the blockage which he finally found in the through hull fitting near the strainer by the engine which was blocked.  This happened one more time when we went through a thick patch of floating weeds.  We are learning to be more watchful of floating debris and to turn off the engine off in locks that have a lot of debris. 

41 foot drop at Lockport Lock.

New Friends

August 4   

In Seneca, Illinois we stayed at the Springbrook Marina.  Met some great people.  Of them we were impressed with a couple, Chuck and Diane on a trawler called `Bear’.  They had somewhat recently completed a 5 year circumnavigation on their 53 foot steel hulled sailing ketch.  They shared some interesting and valuable information with us and we had a pleasant dinner with them at Harper’s Hideaway.  Harper’s Hideaway is located at the marina site and I highly recommend this restaurant, the food was absolutely great and very reasonably priced.  This marina also let us use their courtesy vehicle to go into Seneca to provision and do laundry. 

August 8

Stayed at the Illinois Valley Yacht and Canoe Club, near Peoria.  I tried calling several times during the day to find out where their fuel dock was located but no one was answering the phone.  After navigating another close quarters marina we tied up to the fuel dock to find out they were closed on Mondays and that was why no one answered the phone.  We decided to stay overnight and fuel up in the morning when they opened.  Being a keeled boat and as we tend to back to starboard it gets a little dicey in small spaces.  Things improved quickly from that point.  Sarah and Pam, longtime members of the club welcomed us and showed us around and how to access the laundry and showers.  We spent a pleasant afternoon having docktails with them and several other members.  I also had a nice swim in their beautiful pool.  That night the club held their annual party for the employees.  We met the harbor master and his wife, the office manager, and had a nice chat with them.  He offered to move us to a slip or provide electric at the fuel dock and also made us feel very welcome.  We had a great experience at the club and can highly recommend this marina.  They also have a bar and restaurant onsite which, unfortunately were also closed on Mondays. 

Just rolling down the river.

LaGrange Lock

August 9, 2017

Spent the night at Tall Timbers Marina in Havana, Il.  Very nice marina, not a lot of slips and only gas, no diesel.  We met up with Loopers, Buddy and Di from Lady Di again, we first met them in St. Joseph, MI.  Also Loopers, Chuck and Cindy of Neverland, and Gary and Kelly of Caribbean Soul.  Had a great afternoon having docktails and chatting.  Gary and Kelly just recently purchased their catamaran and were traveling in the opposite direction, upstream to go to their homeport in Lorain, OH. 

Darn, I really need to start getting pictures of some of our gatherings.  

Work on the Lagrange Lock. 

We passed over the wickets of the Lagrange Lock on  Wednesday.  The word at that time was the wickets were going back up on Thursday, August 10.