Mighty Mississippi River

This is a picture of the Mississippi River from the bridge of our boat. 

As you can see it is very muddy (kind of a chocolate brown), very turbulent, and moves very quick.

This is some of the debris from the river being flooded.  We spend our days looking for these large logs and avoiding them.  It keeps both the captain and the first mate on their toes.

This is a green can (this marks the channel to follow in the river)  It is stationery and you can see how fast the river is following by the current next to it.

This is  picture of our chart plotter which we use for our navigation.  It has a picture of the river and the channel you should be following. (on the right side of the picture).  At the lower left corner you can see we are traveling at 12 miles per hour.....Our boat normally travels at 8 miles per hour so the river is pushing us FAST downstream.

These are the limestone cliffs along the banks of the river, just some of the beautiful scenery.

This is another quiet anchorage off the Mississippi River.  We shared this with a couple of other boats anchored behind us.

St. Louis Missouri

This picture of course is the arch at St. Louis with a view from the water.

This is a paddle wheeler that runs the river in downtown St. Louis.  There is a lot of boat traffic in this area, barges, towboats, pleasure boats, work boats, you name it and it is here.

Views along the Illinois River

This is the flag for the organization that we joined, which is all folks like us traveling the Great Loop.  It is the American Great Loop Cruisers Association.  We have already met several couples that may be at the end of their loop, the middle, or the beginning like us.

This picture was taken at anchor on the Illinois River.

This is a large grain operation along the river, they have at least 40 grain silos.  The larger silos are two to three times larger than the farm silos we are used to.  This is a railroad and barge loading and storage area.

This is a house along the river, as you can see it is built on stilts for the rising waters.  All of the houses are built high.  There are not a lot of houses along the river.  We did see some of the houses that did not survive the last flood.

This is a bridge at Hardin, it is posted on the charts as 21 feet.  We only need 16 feet to clear a structure.  As we approached it did not look right, Erwin (captain) decided to slow down.  As we were within feet of the bridge we were clearly no going to make it.  We had to go back against the river current.  I called the bridge tender and he explained the river was high.  We did not realize the Mississippi flooded and backed up the Illinois River as well.  We found out later from another boater the bridge clearance was only 14 feet.

More sites from the rivers

The stories are real, the asian carp jump out of the water like crazy.  They seem to like the shallow water and the wake of the boat and the motion of the water makes them jump out of the water.  Here is the first one we caught, no net, no pole, no license, and no net!  The next day we caught five in total.

Score = Erwin 3 -- Marilyn 5

Pair of Eagles in the tree.

One of the many towboats with barge going under the bridge.

The bridges can be tricky, we have the published heights, but they never look tall enough for your boat!

Locks for the boat

We know some you may not have experienced or understand the locks, they are a cement chamber with doors that open and close to fill or empty the water so the boat or towboat and barges can get to the next level of the river or stream.  They may be a short drop/or elevation of 8 feet or as high as 80 + feet.  This is a couple of shots of the locks.

This is Erwin standing on the deck of the boat holding onto a line (this help keep the boat in the correct position)  It is a long way up baby!

Chicago and more

Downtown Chicago is better than the last time we took the trip!  The view of the skyscrapers from the canal is unbelievable.  Enjoy

One of many bridges in the big city.

Chicago Lighthouse

Navy Pier

Pictures of Chicago skyline

Finally made a new state

After leaving our home port, we were hampered by some rough seas and Lake Michigan was not as kind to us as we would have liked.  After a lengthy stay in Holland, Michigan we forced the issue and made it to South Haven (this was the choice as the first mate was a little green).  Then we traveled to New Buffalo with much better seas.  As you can see by the pictures, we are anchored in Chicago Harbor about 200 yards off the Lakeshore Drive and right off the Sears Tower.  Plans for tomorrow are starting the locks, downtown Chicago, and on to the Illinois River.

Dock Lines are gone

We left Muskegon on August 15, 2010 just before dawn.  Lake Michigan was a little lumpy but it was building through the morning.  We traveled to Holland, Michigan and are at anchor in Lake Macatawa.  We will be sitting here on Monday the 16th as Lake Michigan will be very windy with waves 3 to 5 feet.  That seems like a good idea to us to just sit tight.

As you may have already figured out, we changed our route to go the inland waterways through Chicago and down to Mobile Alabama and then ICW to Western coast of Florida.  So basically it was left turn as we moved out of the channel at Muskegon.

The pre-trip to our great loop adventure was a trip to the northwest to visit our west coast children and grandchildren. We flew commercial airline into Sea/Tac and slept in the airport till morning. Then we were shuttled by bus to Lake Washington where we boarded a Kenmore Air seaplane into Prideaux Haven. After a few passengers are dropped off, the pilot heads north and we enjoy the beauty of flying in a small plane. The San Juan Islands are so massive and beautiful the plane ride is too short even though it takes a couple of hours. Our son Mike picked us up at the plane with the dinghy, yet another first for us. We joined our delightful daughter-in-law and grandson at the boat.
We had the pleasure of cruising with this wonderful family for a little over a week. It was outstanding. Some of the highlights are captured on film here. We are always intrigued by the wildlife and the sea creatures. We anchored the entire trip with the exception of one mooring we snagged at Montague Bay (which we had visited the year before). Since this trip was farther into British Colombia than we had been before, everything was new and amazing. Our first night on the boat was very restful and we stayed the first day with no travel but sunny and warm, swimming, and shrimping. The men folk even caught a couple of fish. We traveled to Teakerne Arm with a beautiful waterfall. We hiked (scaled) up the island to check out Cassel Lake, it was great! The 3 amigos (father,son, & grandson) decided to harvest some oysters and as you can see by the pics, it was a feast. This was just a stop off as we went on another vista that day.
The entire week we were blessed with warm and sunny at times hot weather. The seas as well were kind to us and we had little worries as we sailed the Black Pearl. This amazing boat has been a source of pleasure for this family and now as well for us. Lynette has cooked some amazing meals for us and she seems to do it effortlessly, but I learn cooking tips each time I observe. We traveled to Nanaimo and were surprised at how metropolitan the town is. We took the dinghy to the shore of New Castle Island which is a nature preserve and hiked a portion of the island, it was good to get some exercise.
Another highlight of the trip was Ladysmith, B.C. A charming small town which was celebrating one of the three summer holidays in Canada. We took the dinghy to shore and watched a horseshoe tournament, hiked to a maritime museum which was complete with restored boats, small art exhibit, and french fries with gravy followed by mini deep fried donuts. We went back to the boat to enjoy the cool breeze as it was hot in town. We sat on the deck and enjoyed a logging show with chain saws and a daredevil climbing the pole and zipping back to earth. That evening a barge pulled up in the harbor full of fireworks. We had a front row seat to a fantastic fire work display. Jordan, Lynette, and I spread out blankets on the front deck of the boat and laid on our backs to watch the show. It was up close and personal.
This was the perfect vacation and prep to begin our long adventure on our own boat. To be continued……..