River Trip Begins


It’s 3:50 pm and I’m sitting on the back of Last Mango typing away. Karen sits on the front deck reading her Kindle and we motor down the Cal Sag channel. It’s very straight and there’s very little traffic so George (Our Garmin Autopilot) steers the boat. The trip through Chicago on the Calumet river we needed to keep close watch on the waterway as well as an ear to the radio. There was a partially submerged vessel being salvaged and many, many barges and tows. It was all and all a great day. We transited our first locks and I’m now starting to feel like a cruiser. The Texans Maury and Sandy are traveling somewhere behind us. Hard to believe Last Mango is faster than them or anyone. 


Intersection of Cal Sag and Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal
The weather looks as though it’s going to get a little stormy and we’re attempting to get through the fish barrier and Lockport lock before dark. We’ll see.

It’s now 8:45 (we made it) and we’re tied up to the Joliet free town docks. Free is great. Free power if needed and internet also. We weathered the storm and the Lockport Lock. There was so much garbage floating in the river and lock after the rain it was incredible. The debris included a dead calf. We left the lock and Last Mango didn’t sound right, we sucked debris into the water intake for cooling the exhaust. Karen took the helm and I went below to remove the grass and other crap that clogged things up. We were back in business. We had 3 more miles to go in the dark. Something Karen and I vowed not to do. But there we were.
We’ll spend another day here in Joliet and visit with my sister and explore the city. 


One thing that we’ve learned is how wonderful people are. There has been no end to the kindness of other boaters and people in general.

View from the lock before we drop 40 feet
Viewing back of lock.
Lock door starts to open.
Viewing back from deck of Last Mango
Lock Mate "Assisted Living" from Alabama.
View up the wall and Bollard.
View up the wall after dropping 40 feet.

Karen Happy it stopped raining for a bit.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Out of contact for a while

Image
The trip down the river on the 14th and 15th has not been that pleasurable. Let me start by saying that when we are boating or sailing, weather is the number one thing to follow closely. The flooding on this part of the Illinois River is incredible. Water is well over the flood stage. That’s good because we’re less likely to run aground. Last Mango needs at least 4 1/2 feet to float without running aground. Also the high water makes the current run faster which helps lessen my fuel consumption (currently .46 gallons per hour @ 2400rpm). The downside of the high water is the amount of debris in the water makes it somewhat stressful to be motoring down the river. I told Karen it reminds me of the video game Frogger. Almost constantly having to dodge logs, tree branches and tires. Tree branches and more. More Debris. More Pictures of Flooding. Flooded dam. We get to pass right over it without locking. Hurray! Picture Maury and Sandy fro
Read more
Image
 4-10-21 Our last night in Florida has me thinking of this years cruising season and how different it was from previous years. Karen and I talked well before the normal winter cruising season about staying home quarantined in Iowa City for the winter. We debated the pro’s and con’s and quickly decided that we would enjoy quarantining aboard Last Mango much better. Being aboard Mango (even if we didn’t sail a lot) would allow us to enjoy the warm Florida weather rather than what turned out to be a much colder and snowier Iowa winter. Not to mention that the Florida summers are really hard on boats in storage. Boats like RV’s or just about anything else fare better when used regularly rather than sitting idle. We really feel for our Canadian friends who were stuck up in the Great White North, we missed them and look forward to seeing them next season. This year spending almost all of our time in and around the Fort Myers Beach area has me being thankful for several things. First I have t
Read more

Good Bye Key West, Hello Shut Down

Image
4-4-20     As of this writing Karen and I are residing at her parents house down here in Florida. The past several weeks has been a stressful adventure for us and I’m sure everyone else. Karen and I were not sure what shoe would drop next as Florida began to take the Coronavirus more seriously. We were very happy spending time at Stock Island Marina and Resort in Key West as we started to sense trouble was heading our way. Each day I would wake up reach over and turn NPR on the radio, each morning broadcast would reveal more spread of the virus around the world and across our country. Karen was very nervous as each day brought more bad news. In the whole scheme of things we’re very lucky, we were not concerned for our health (maybe living in a false reality) but we were concerned about Florida being shutdown and not being able to pull and store Mango. We had plenty of food, water, fuel and could sail anywhere we wanted (winds permitting). Sailing down Hawks Channel towards Key West
Read more