Anchored Below LaGrange Lock

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 162 - September 9, 2017

We have not fallen off the face of the Earth! There has been no internet until today, so I can finally post September the 9th, 10th and 11th!

We had a very peaceful night behind Quiver Island, and woke up kind of late for us, about 7:30 a.m. Our destination for today is the La Grange Lock, about 40 miles away, the last lock on the Illinois River. We have had a lot of conflicting information about the status of the La Grange Lock. According to Waterway Guides, it appeared the lock was in normal operation. We had tried to call the La Grange Lock about five times, but nobody ever answered the phone. We then called the Rock Island District Corps of Engineers Office, who advised us that the work was finished at the La Grange Lock. Only Kimberly Russo, the director of AGLCA (America's Great Loop Cruiser Association), advised that the lock was still closed during the day weekdays, only open from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. weekdays, and only open all day on Sundays.

We had an easy cruise down the Illinois River from Havana to the La Grange Lock. The river has broadened out considerably and is fairly slow moving. 

Illinois River over Daydream's Bow

Amazingly, after we passed Havana (again), we did not see another community on the riverbanks until Beardstown, which did not have any docks or services of any kind. This seems nuts, but that is the way it is, and here we are at La Grange Lock. Kimberly Russo was correct, and the darn COE Rock Island District Office did not know what they were talking about. We arrived about 2:00 p.m. Fortunately, the lock master told us when we called in after arriving that he would lock us through promptly at 5:00 p.m., ahead of all the tows waiting to go through, so we set the hook for a three hour wait!

We went through all alone except for a Logsdon tow boat. There were dozens of tows with their barges lined up upstream of the lock, and we heard the lock master assigning each tow their place in the queue. We heard one being assigned number 18 in the queue, and we have no idea what that means for what time that tow will get through! The lock is open 24/7 and we know that the tows run at night, but a lot of these tows may break their barges in half and take two cycles of the lock to get through. I think it will be a long night for a lot of the tow crews waiting to lock through.

We went forward in the lock as directed, and the attendant handed down a single line. When I asked if we could have two lines, one for the bow and one for the stern, he said "Nope, only got one line." So I took the line and tried to keep us straight by holding it amidship, but of course that did not work, and the boat ended up sideways in the lock. The Logsdon tow was quite a distance away, not a problem, but Patty had to back to get straight when the doors opened!  Thank heavens it was only a nine foot drop! I really don't know how anybody single hands through locks!

After we locked through, we asked the lock master for permission to anchor in the basin below the lock, and he told us we could anchor behind the wall next to the dam. We are anchored in about 15 feet behind the dam and wall.

La Grange Lock Dam from our anchorage

As usual, the first thing I did was to get the kayak down and take Baxter to shore. What an experience! I landed the kayak on the beach, and when I got out, I immediately sank up to my knees in the wet sand! It was all I could do to rescue my rubber shoes! Only once before have my legs sunk so deep, and that was at Tombolo Cove on Decatur Island, where I lost one of my Keens! There was a family fishing and camping on the beach, and they were very helpful, helping me carry the kayak around to the creek on the other side of the beach where the shore was considerably firmer. That is where I will land Baxter in the morning!

There is no internet here, and there has been no internet most of the way between Quiver Island and here. When there has been internet, it has been weak and has come and gone in a flash. I am writing this in a Chromebook text editor and will copy and paste it into Blogger when/if we have strong internet!

From the La Grange Lock, it is 80 miles to Grafton, where the Illinois joins the Mississippi, and about 15 or 20 miles farther to Alton, where we will meet a new friend, Les Rolph, who will assist in re-provisioning or whatever else we might need. We always enjoy meeting a fellow C-Dory owner! We are headed for an anchorage behind Willow Island, which looks good on Active Captain. 

The last time we fueled was in Portage, Indiana. I wish we had written a check for fuel at Tall Timbers Marina in Havana so we would be cruising off "the top half" of the tank, but the Navman says we still have 62 gallons, which means we probably really have at least 40 gallons! We have come 283 miles from Portage to La Grange, including a rough crossing from Portage to Chicago. We have calculated, at worst, 4.5 miles per gallon on each and every fill, and since we have been on the Illinois River, we think we are doing much better than that. So we are not really worried about fuel to get to Alton, but still, woulda, coulda, shoulda!

From Alton it is another 40 miles and two locks to Hoppies Marina in Kimswick, MO, where we start the 250+ mile run to Green Turtle Bay, KY, a stretch in which there are NO services! In fact, Patty added up the legs, and she thinks it is just over 300 miles on the Cumberland River route, with the Ohio and the Cumberland both being upstream runs. I still think we will be fine for fuel, with the push we will get on the 158 miles on the Mississippi. The push has been great on the Illinois, and the current on the Mississippi is probably more than twice as fast. The status of the new Paducah Marina is still up in the air, the last report said they are still closed with no services but it is OK to use the docks.

We are thinking the biggest challenge on the Mississippi will be landing Baxter, who needs to go to shore twice day! We are not the first boat to have done this with a dog, so we are cautiously optimistic! We were hoping to do this stretch with other Loopers, but that seems unlikely, as most of them still seem to be somewhere on Lake Michigan. We have seen two Looper boats, Pharm Life and Dash Away, at the Peoria Lock, but have no idea where they are now.  So, as it has been most of our Loop, it appears we will be doing the Mississippi on our own!