October 29th, 2023 was the “big day” for moving through the three locks between Joliet and Ottawa that had been closed June 1st through September 30th. I made the rounds of the “seven plus one” (seven official AGLA Flotilla members and one “do their own thing” hereafter referred to as “The One”) at about 6:45 a.m. to make sure everyone was ready to leave the wall by 7:00 a.m. so we could make the Brandon Road Lock by 7:30 a.m.
As flotilla leader I had contacted the lock but neglected to define the order of the boats into the lock, which is a small problem for the locks with floating bollards vs. hanging lines. Those familiar with the Chicago River Lock know that the lines hang down and it is somewhat of a free-for-all when you enter the lock as to which line you grab. On the locks with the floating bollards there are only so many on each side of the lock and some locks just have them on one side. There are two ramifications to this:
1) The order of the boats coming in is important to make sure there is room for the boats: on a four-bollard lock, you generally want the order to be smaller boat, larger boat, larger boat, smaller boat. The bollards were placed for the safety of tying up big barges, not maximizing the number of pleasure craft
2) If there are only four bollards, but there are eight boats, then the boats have to raft up so that each of the “four extra” boats are tied to a boats “on the wall." In early October there were as many as sixteen boats in one lock, which meant they were rafted four across*. Another reason we are glad that we waited.
Without me confirming the order, it wasn’t quite as smooth as it could have been, but all was fine with KatMat rafting up to us. One down, two to go.
We had eight boats going to the next lock, and all “locking through” at the same time. So, why The One had to pass us on the river, with barges coming, is a mystery we never solved.
Saw our first Bald Eagles at mile 282! One swooped right in front of the boat and circled back and around and nabbed a fish out of the river.
For the Dresden Island Lock we had a three hour wait as a big barge had to be “split in two” to come up the river. This happens when the length of the barge is longer or wider than the lock. In a nutshell, the tug pushes the barges in the lock as far as they fit. Then it decouples from the part of the barge that can fit in the lock and backs out. The lock raises or lowers the water depending on which direction. Then the front half of the barge in the lock is winched out past the lock gate and tied off. The water level is reversed to allow the “second half” of the barge to come in. The water level raised/lowered and then the back half of the barge is re-coupled to the font half. As we found out, this is a long process. (Officially the barge/tug combination is called a “tow” so to prevent snide comments from the pedantic types, I'll try and remember to use that language.)
The lockmasters have various degrees of customer service. At this lock I asked a few times how long it would be until we could go through the lock, and I’ll I got was, “It will be a while.” “A while” not having an internationally accepted standard as to length of time, we were in the dark as to how long that would be. After about an hour of milling around the dam side of the lock, anchors began to drop, and we all just waited.
The good news is that when we finally did get the go-ahead, we had figured out the order of things (small, large, large, small). I wound up rafting to the “Willie Dawes” a Newburyport 37 crewed by Dan and Kathy Pease (the boat in the foreground in the picture above.) During the raft up I got talking to Dan and found it that he: had been in the Coast Guard, was a former tug boat captain, and has a USCGA Master of Towing 200 ton license. Dan and Kathy started the G/L from Maine, so about 1/2 way done. Given his experience, and the fact that he could “talk tugboat” better than a semi-retired CPA, I asked Dan to take over flotilla leader duties. Dan has excelled in this role and stayed our leader as you’ll see later. Aside from talking to the lockmasters, Dan takes point in talking to the "tows" that we come across and then relaying the information to the rest of the flotilla: "pass on the starboard side," "pass on the port side", or "get the heck out of my way and wait off to the side."
The tow captains appear to all be from deep in the Louisiana bayou country and speak with chewing tobacco in their mouths: this is a bad combination. We all were only too happy to let Dan communicate with them and relay instructions back to us. Think mother duck and ducklings traveling on the water.
Speaking of the “tows,” I’m amazed at how they do it. Three barges wide, five long, we are talking approximately a thousand feet of barges. And these tugboat captains maneuver around river bends, through bridges and locks, with seaming ease. Though a lockmaster who used to captain one told me, “It ages you fast.”
We finally made it through the Dresden Island Lock, two down, one to go. On the way to the Marseilles Lock, The One again passed other boats for the privilege of waiting for us to catch up to him. The big question with the three hour wait earlier was would we make it to the Heritage Harbor Marina (“HHM”) by nightfall. Dan did a great job leading us through that final lock, and we pulled into HHM with about fifteen minutes of daylight to spare.
HHM is known for their customer service, and they did not disappoint. The docks are well organized with colored flags (nice touch) and the staff lead us safely in. Jeremy at HHM is renowned for his “Looper Briefings.” From 8:00pm to 10:00pm Jeremy led us through a slide show which took us all the way to Paducah, KY with recommendations on anchorages, marina’s, places to look out for, etc.
We went to bed very tired that night.
Dave
.jpg)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment