Thursday, June 11
Diana got a couple of pictures of the pretty Harborside Marina yesterday that did not get included with yesterday entry so here they are.
We were awakened very early (4:30?) this morning by a thunderstorm. Heavy rain, some thunder, but no significant wind. As the thunder
ended but the rain continued we tried to sleep a 
couple more hours. We finally got up to a temperature of 54; low overcast and continued light rain. The weather forecast said 60% chance of showers with a high near 70, winds NE 10.
We had our breakfast and decided there was nothing to keep us from heading out we would just run from inside. In fact we had moderate to light rain 90% of the day, we saw our thermometer say 60 once but it quickly dropped back to 59 where it stayed all day (thanks Minnesota). Late morning we ran the generator for 20 minutes and turned the heat on to take the chill out of the cabin, the rest of the day it was comfortable in the cabin.
The morning weather issued flash flood warnings for an area just to the north of us as an estimated 3 to 5 inches of rain had fallen in that area. This region may not dry out all summer.
We had just 11 miles to go this morning before the two locks for the day only 5 miles apart. A tow had gone by us as we had breakfast, but he was a full 15 barge tow and we caught him just up river backing down to get around a tight corner in the channel. We made go time getting to the Brandon Road lock only to find a tow backing up after splitting his tow. We dropped anchor and waited while they locked through his first half, empty the chamber, locked thru the second half, and he made up his tow, than they empty lock for us. It was over two hours total, so much for an early start. Fortunately he stopped and was not right in front of us at the second lock. We approached Lockport Lock and I radioed for a lift, they replied that they were bringing a tow down and if I would pulled to side so he could get out we could enter as soon as he cleared. We just went slowly for a few minutes and out he came.
Both locks to day went very smoothly, with not a lot of wind we motored right up to the floating bollard and Diana quickly got a line on it, the thrusters got a rest.
Once we exited the Lockport lock we had another 29 miles to our marina for the night, Riverdale Marina. Between the locks is the official end of the Illinois River and it is now the Des Plaines River and at Lockport the channel is into a manmade channel, The Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal. This is at Joliet, IL and as you leave the lock you are thirty feet above the surrounding area. It is very interesting looking down at roofs from the boat. The photographer said it was too rainy to get a picture, maybe on the return in September.
A few miles up the C.S.S. splits with the C.S.S going north into downtown Chicago and out into Lake Michigan and the south arm being the Calumet Sag Channel. We took the Calumet. There are no marinas on the downtown route until you go through the last lock and take a marina on the Lake MI waterfront; this was longer than we could travel today (they are also very expensive, about $2.75/ft/night)..
The CSS is very interesting, it is only about six to eight barges wide and for the first few miles there are barges parked almost nonstop two deep all along one side. There are large facilities for loading and unloading, coal, salt, sand and gravel and large chemical plants with docks to load liquids onto tank barges. When you get a tow pushing a barge next to two parked in a six wide channel there isn’t much left. After that the canal goes through a wilderness area where there is heavy forest growth on both banks with limited signs of man.
This was interesting but because of the heavy morning rain all the little side streams (and storm sewers) were still sending a great deal of water down stream and with it had came a lot of debris, so the captain had to spend more time dodging obstacles and less time enjoying the sights than he would have liked.
Diana got a couple of pictures of the pretty Harborside Marina yesterday that did not get included with yesterday entry so here they are.
We were awakened very early (4:30?) this morning by a thunderstorm. Heavy rain, some thunder, but no significant wind. As the thunder
ended but the rain continued we tried to sleep a 
couple more hours. We finally got up to a temperature of 54; low overcast and continued light rain. The weather forecast said 60% chance of showers with a high near 70, winds NE 10.We had our breakfast and decided there was nothing to keep us from heading out we would just run from inside. In fact we had moderate to light rain 90% of the day, we saw our thermometer say 60 once but it quickly dropped back to 59 where it stayed all day (thanks Minnesota). Late morning we ran the generator for 20 minutes and turned the heat on to take the chill out of the cabin, the rest of the day it was comfortable in the cabin.
The morning weather issued flash flood warnings for an area just to the north of us as an estimated 3 to 5 inches of rain had fallen in that area. This region may not dry out all summer.
We had just 11 miles to go this morning before the two locks for the day only 5 miles apart. A tow had gone by us as we had breakfast, but he was a full 15 barge tow and we caught him just up river backing down to get around a tight corner in the channel. We made go time getting to the Brandon Road lock only to find a tow backing up after splitting his tow. We dropped anchor and waited while they locked through his first half, empty the chamber, locked thru the second half, and he made up his tow, than they empty lock for us. It was over two hours total, so much for an early start. Fortunately he stopped and was not right in front of us at the second lock. We approached Lockport Lock and I radioed for a lift, they replied that they were bringing a tow down and if I would pulled to side so he could get out we could enter as soon as he cleared. We just went slowly for a few minutes and out he came.
Both locks to day went very smoothly, with not a lot of wind we motored right up to the floating bollard and Diana quickly got a line on it, the thrusters got a rest.
Once we exited the Lockport lock we had another 29 miles to our marina for the night, Riverdale Marina. Between the locks is the official end of the Illinois River and it is now the Des Plaines River and at Lockport the channel is into a manmade channel, The Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal. This is at Joliet, IL and as you leave the lock you are thirty feet above the surrounding area. It is very interesting looking down at roofs from the boat. The photographer said it was too rainy to get a picture, maybe on the return in September.
A few miles up the C.S.S. splits with the C.S.S going north into downtown Chicago and out into Lake Michigan and the south arm being the Calumet Sag Channel. We took the Calumet. There are no marinas on the downtown route until you go through the last lock and take a marina on the Lake MI waterfront; this was longer than we could travel today (they are also very expensive, about $2.75/ft/night)..
The CSS is very interesting, it is only about six to eight barges wide and for the first few miles there are barges parked almost nonstop two deep all along one side. There are large facilities for loading and unloading, coal, salt, sand and gravel and large chemical plants with docks to load liquids onto tank barges. When you get a tow pushing a barge next to two parked in a six wide channel there isn’t much left. After that the canal goes through a wilderness area where there is heavy forest growth on both banks with limited signs of man.
This was interesting but because of the heavy morning rain all the little side streams (and storm sewers) were still sending a great deal of water down stream and with it had came a lot of debris, so the captain had to spend more time dodging obstacles and less time enjoying the sights than he would have liked.
Riverdale Marina is on the Calumet Sag Channel about 13 miles before Lake MI, with a lock between. We will spend two nights here. My nephew, Enoch, works in the greater Chicago area and my brother and sister-in-law, Rick and Satoko, are driving down Friday. They will meet Enoch, spot a car at Winthrop Harbor (near WI – IL border) and then come to Riverdale. Saturday we will (weather permitting) all cruise up to Winthrop Harbor along the Chicago shore and skyline; the photographer will not get the day off again.
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