Behind Willow Island

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

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 163 - September 10, 2017

Up at 7:10 a.m.! It is light outside much earlier than that but we just drowse. I got coffee going, and then took Baxter to shore. Lesson learned yesterday, and I headed for the creek and the firmer ground ashore. It was still a bit muddy but MUCH better than sinking up to my knees! Back on board, one cup of coffee, toast, and on our way with the second cup underway!

We have an ambitious day today, at least for us - 50 miles. We are trying to split the distance from the La Grange Lock to Alton into two days, and Alton is about 100 miles from the La Grange Lock. We picked the channel behind Willow Island as our destination. As we cruised, we passed dozens, perhaps scores, of tows parked along the river bank. We wondered if they don't run on Sundays or something, because they are not making any money just parked along the shoreline!

We made the 50 miles in six hours. I remarked to Patty, if we do 30 miles, it is six hours, if we go 40 miles it is six hours, and if we go 50 miles it is six hours! But seriously, 50 miles in six hours means we averaged better than eight miles per hour. We are really enjoying the push from the current! We have come 333 miles since we last fueled in Portage, Indiana, and the Navman tells us we still have 57 gallons of gas in the tank! We don't believe it, but even if we have only 30 gallons, we are good to Alton plus some more. 

Today we did not pass a single riverside community. We were nearly to Willow Island before we saw any homes along the river. We passed an RV park or two along the way. At Kampsville, there was a car ferry across the river. Other than that, there has really been nothing along the river. 

And no cell service. How do people in this part of Illinois live without cell service? No cell service for us means no internet, which means no blog posts until we get to somewhere with cell service! Maybe Grafton or Alton! The only thing that has worked at all has been text messaging. We have made out OK with text messages to communicate with our kids.

The one big thing we want to know is what is going on in Florida, especially LaBelle where our truck and trailer are parked. It is parked at River Forest Yacht Basin about 40 miles east of Ft. Myers, and we are hoping for the best. We are also thinking about Grace Full, the C-Dory Venture 26 that belongs to our friends Flint and Leslie Firestone, which is in Marathon while Flint and Leslie are traveling in their fifth wheel. The storm has been through there, and we are waiting for word from River Forest, keeping our fingers crossed. We know the Keys got slammed, but without news, we really don't know much about what happened there.

We are anchored near the north end of the channel behind Willow Island. Many early Active Captain reviews mentioned a sandy beach with a picnic area above the beach with a barbeque and picnic table. A later review said the picnic area was now gone. I am here to say the sandy beach is now gone! I paddled Baxter to the northern tip of Willow Island, and there is indeed a beach there, but it is not sandy. It is covered with some kind of fresh water clam or mussel or other mollusk shells. It looks like a Pacific Northwest midden! And the bank is high, perhaps six to eight feet, with no apparent way to access whatever picnic area might once have existed above the beach. Things change, and I will update the Active Captain reviews for this anchorage. It is still a very calm, protected and scenic anchorage, and the shell beach is still fine for landing a dog!

As usual, we had G&Ts for our sundowners. I made mine with the "Old Tom Ransom" gin that was a gift from Evan Chiligiris, while Patty made hers wth our usual cheap gin! Mine was just awesome - finally, a G&T with some flavor! The Old Tom Ransom gin is a recreation of gin from the 1800s, and is handcrafted in small batches in Oregon. Patty outdid herself for dinner, too, a fabulous taco salad with cheese, sour cream, chopped onions, tomatoes, and green taco sauce. Simple, yes, but it really hit the spot tonight!

As we have been anchored here, we have seen a couple of tows going upstream, so that blows our theory about tows not running on Sundays, but it leaves us with an unexplained puzzle why so many tows were parked on the riverbank below the La Grange Lock and along the way! This may be a question that will never be answered!

We will probably stay in Alton two nights to re-provision. We have a kind offer from Les Rohlf, a C-Dory owner, to assist us. We really appreciate the assistance of fellow C-Brats! With no cell service here, we are unable to make marina reservations, but there are a couple of marinas there, and a fall-back anchorage! It is two locks and forty miles from Alton to Hoppies Marina, where the real test begins!