Spring Brook Marina, Seneca, Illinois

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

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 158 - September 5, 2017

Only one picture today, because Baxter got groomed in Chicago, and he is one handsome dude!

Baxter is one handsome dude!

Our plan for the day was to cruise from Joliet to Ottawa, where there is another free dock with power. This is about 48 miles, and we thought with an early start, it should be doable. Wrong again! As you can see from the title of this post, we are not in Ottawa at a free dockd but in Seneca at a marina, some 13 miles short of Ottawa!

We left Joliet about 8 a.m. It was only a few miles from Joliet to the Brandon Road Lock, and we were somewhat amazed to find ourselves the only boat in the lock. This lock was a piece of cake, too, after we had such a difficult time at the Lockport Lock. I wore my gloves and cleated off the line around the floating bollard this time, but the main difference was that we were not being tossed around by turbulence inside the lock. The lock attendant at Brandon Road explained that the Lockport lock is unique, in that it is the only one with a drop gate instead of doors that close, and that was probably the cause of the extreme turbulence that we experienced at the far back end of the lock.

We were making very good time (for us) - cruising at 8 statute miles per hour or better at our usual RPMs, thanks to the push from the current. We got to the Dresden Island lock at 11:30 a.m. If we had been able to transit this lock the way we did Brandon Road, I would be writing this from Ottawa instead of Spring Brook Marina in Seneca!

Today was the first day I ran Coastal Explorer on the Toshiba computer with the AIS receiver since we left the Atlantic ICW, since until we hit the rivers, there was really no need to identify other vessels, but on a river with tugs and barges that we might need to call on the VHF to coordinate passing, it seemed fairly important. It actually worked very well.

Anyway, when we got to the Dresden Island Lock, we could see there was a tug ahead of us pushing a whole bunch of barges. The name of the tug, which I could see on the AIS, was the Cody Boyd. I asked the lock master if the Cody Boyd was going to occupy the entire lock, or whether there would be room for any pleasure craft. The captain of the Cody Boyd responded that he would be occupying the entire lock. In fact, he was going to have to take up the whole lock twice, since he needed to break down the tows into two units to lock through. The lock master told us that this would take about two hours. So we retreated and set the hook and had lunch. At this point, we still had hopes of reaching Ottawa.

Another Looper boat, Perfect Day, arrived at the upstream end of the Dresden Island Lock some time after we got there. Perfect Day had been right across from us at the transient dock at DuSable Marina in Chicago, and had left a day before we left.  Perfect Day kind of just treaded water while waiting. We heard the pleasure craft on the downstream side of the lock that were waiting to lock up talking to the lock master, so we were pretty well aware of what was going on. Finally, the Cody Boyd cleared the lock downstream and the pleasure boats waiting to lock up were able to enter the lock. The lock master told us that would take about half an hour. When those boats exited the lock, we and Perfect Day were able to go in. Locking through went smoothly.

But it was now 3:00 p.m. when we exited the Dresden Island Lock. And there was one more lock to go before Ottawa, the Marseilles (pronounce "Mar-sales" on the river!) Lock. The Marseilles Lock was still 27 miles or a little more than three hours away. On the one hand, sunset was not until 7:19 p.m. On the other hand, we had no way of knowing if we would be held up for commercial traffic at the Marseilles Lock yet again. A conundrum for sure!

Good judgment prevailed! We decided rather than to take a chance that we could get through Marseilles Lock quickly and get to Ottawa before dark, we decided we needed to get to a marina. We saw that the Spring Brook Marina was the last marina before the Marseilles Lock, so we called in, gave them our credit card number, and had a reservation. We were told to go to any slip 1 though 10 on D dock. We pulled in after 5:00 p.m., when the marina office closed, and from the water side, the docks are not labeled nor are the slips numbered. When I radioed in, of course there was nobody from the marina to answer! But Bill Hughes from Perfect Day answered, telling us he did not know where D dock was, but there was nobody here, we could probably go to any vacant slip, and he would help us with our lines! 

We got tied up not on D dock but on F dock. It turns out that the only dock and slip identifiers here are on the power pedestals. The power pedestals on F dock, it turns out, only have 50 amp power, while we only have 30 amp plugs. Bill to the rescue again, he loaned us his 50 amp to 30 amp adapter. We think we need to get one of these, just to be ready for whatever else we might encounter!

After we were settled in, and got power connected and Baxter walked, we wandered over to Bill's boat, a 1987 Ocean Alexander 39, for sundowners. Bill is a retired civil engineer from San Diego (or Sandy Eggo, as I like to say). Bill's wife had to return to San Diego for a family emergency, and Bill has to deal with the boat, so he is here because they have a big TraveLift here and can haul his boat out. Not sure what happens next, but Bill is done cruising for now. We got a tour of the Ocean Alexander, and the interior is really gorgeous!

Tomorrow we press on!