This was the longest cruising day we have had on Moon Dance. We left Chicago at 7 a.m. and finished the day at 7:50 p.m. forty-four miles downstream. However, it wasn’t tiring as a four hour trip on Lake Michigan as the scenery was fascinating. From the densely populated city, through an industrial/barge zone to green banks teaming with bird life. Each section fascinating in their own way.
The first section was the Chicago River in downtown Chicago. Thirty-seven moveable bridges – basically one every block – span the river. Here is a link to a site that better explains the bridges and their history, https://news.wttw.com/2015/04/14/river-bridges-chicago. We had lowered the radar mast and all antennas so we could clear the lowest bridges which are 17’ 6”. The early morning departure was great, seeing commuters sipping their coffees while walking to work without the flocks of kayaks, tour boats and Tiki Bars on the water later in the day. There was nothing to divert our attention.
The commercial – residential character changes fairly abruptly to industrial with a short buffer zone of older buildings being re-purposed or re-developed. The heavier industries with multiple barges begin not far from downtown. Scarp yards, aggregate piles, chemicals, grains, refineries were the obvious landings but there were many whose purpose we could only guess. For example, we thought the piles of sand were for use as aggregates, but I later read Illinois produces high quality silica sand used for glass making, metal casting and recreational uses. Think beach volleyball, golf and baseball.
Before we reached Joliet the banks of the river were starting to green. Long gaps between refineries and barge docks were covered with trees and shrubs. Below Marseille Lock the land flattened out and the shallow banks were lined with an honour guard of herons and egrets fishing for dinner. Every 100 feet or so we saw Great Blue Herons – young and old, American Egrets and even Snowy Egrets with their “golden slippers”. Tree, Bank and Rough-winged swallows skimmed the water. Toss in a few Purple Martins and a swift or two and had a specular display of avian aerobatics.
We met Dilly Dally, a 1978 Bertram being brought home by a Mississippi River Rat, his two middle ages sons and two grandsons. We were both held up at Lockport Lock as the dam was discharging 5000 cfs, then waiting while some tows went through ahead of us. The river system is maintained by the Corps of Engineers and commercial traffic takes precedence over pleasure craft. Usually, a pleasure craft will be locked through after three cycles. In practice, this can be a considerable amount of time as some tows are too big to fit in the lock so it is split into two sections that are locked through separately – then re-assembled on the other side.
The crew was re-positioning the boat from the St Clair Shores to its new home in West Alton, Missouri. The captain has lost his boat in a marina fire and this was the replacement. He loved Betrams and had wanted one since forever. He was ecstatic to finally own one despite a myriad of problems. Primary, electrical. He had installed a new generator before starting his cruise as the navigation systems needed it to function. It failed two hours into their trip. The work around was two five-gallon cans of diesel with hoses running to and from the generator.
They followed us in to Harbourside Marina. Harbourside is a mixed-use development with 20-30 floating homes, a restaurant, and slips for pontoon boats and runabouts. We tied up on the fuel dock. They headed over to the restaurant dock as there was only room for one boat on the fuel dock. We met up at the restaurant, the Big Fish Grill, where we heard their story over dinner.
Moon Dance IV 