Joliet

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

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 157 - September 4, 2017

We bid a fond adieu to Chicago this morning, went out of DuSable Marina, and then around the corner into the Chicago River Lock! We got our first taste of lock priorities - government, commercial, fishing, and down at the bottom, pleasure craft. There was a Tow Boat U.S, boat bringing in some express cruiser, and the lock master told us to hold position until the Tow Boat U.S. boat was in. Otherwise, it was just us, a jet ski and the Tow Boat U.S. boat in the lock! Patty and I each grabbed a line, and down we went, all of two feet!

It was deja vu all over again cruising into the heart of downtown Chicago! We went by much of what we had seen on the Architectural River Tour cruise, and I got a few pictures that I missed the first time through!

DuSable Bridge on Michigan Avenue

River Roast Restaurant in the historic Reid Murdoch building

Read the story about the Twelve foot deer on Riverwalk

We cruised out of downtown fairly quickly, and the urban landscape turned industrial! For the first three hours or so, we saw virtually no other boat traffic except a few fast boats. It was smooth cruising until the point where the Cal-Sag joins the Sanitary and Ship Canal. The next five miles or so were a little hairy! The canal was lined with barges tied along the shore, many two deep, which did not leave any room for pleasure craft should there be a barge coming the other direction! Fortunately, we did not meet an on-coming barge. The canal was also very rough, with wakes reflecting off the narrow side walls. I decided just to burn the fuel and power through to maintain control!

There are not exactly signs where the Chicago River becomes the Sanitary and Ship Canal, or the Sanitary and Ship Canal becomes the Illinois River, but we saw these reflected on Garmin Blue Chart. When we got to the Illinois River, the channel widened out, and we got a nice push from the current. It was an uneventful cruise to the Lockport Lock and Dam just a short distance upstream from Joliet, which was our destination for the day.

The lock master put us on a floating bollard near the rear of the lock. I had neglected to put on gloves, nor did I cleat the free end, thinking I could just hold it like I did on the Erie Canal. Wrong, wrong, wrong! I was suddenly fighting to hang onto the line, and losing the battle! And this was a 40 foot drop, which did not go quickly! There was a great deal of turbulence from the water coming through the drop gate. For a little bit there, I thought that the line was going to take my fingers off. Patty came back and put a glove on each hand as I struggled to hang onto the line with the other hand.  Lesson learned - wear the dang gloves whether you think you need them or not, and cleat off the line around the bollard!

We had read about the free wall at Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park at Joliet in both Active Captain and Skipper Bob. The free wall has free 30 amp power, but oddly there are no public restrooms in the park! We decided on the free wall for our destination, both because of the 30 amp power and because it was about 40 miles from Chicago. The free wall is a bit high for a C-Dory, and the concrete wall is crumbling in a few places, but there are good cleats, trash disposal, (no water), and overall it was a very good place to tie up for the night! 

When we got there, the wall had quite a few boats already on it, but we were able to pull in behind the last one in line. All of them were Loopers. As it turned out, we could also have gone in front of the first boat in line, but we could not see that. Having learned a little bit (more than a little bit, actually) on the concrete wall in St. Joseph, I had prepared the fender board and made up chafe guards for all our lines! 

Fender board on free wall at Joliet

Chafe guard on stern line. We had chafe guards on all the lines here!

We had a great dinner of left-overs from the Greek restaurant, and Patty also fried an eggplant. There was actually quite a bit of lamb left from Patty's entree. The salad was a little past prime but we augmented it with tomatoes, onions and cheese curds, and some more Balsamic vinegar. She also made up a sour cream - garlic sauce that was fantastic on the lamb and eggplant! We do not starve on Daydream by a long shot! Thanks, again, to Evan and Jeanne. While we were having dinner, four young men were fishing right past our boat and pulling catfish out left and right - at least I assume they were catfish and not Asian carp! We also saw a triple wide tow come under the Jefferson bridge, which was pretty impressive!

Triple wide tow coming under Jefferson Bridge in Joliet

We had a very calm and peaceful evening on the free wall with very little boat traffic, other than a barge or two coming by. Our next lock, the Brandon Road Lock, is only a few miles downstream, and we hope to get an early start tomorrow, as we will try to reach the Ottawa free wall about 50 miles away tomorrow!