September 29, 2008: Bath Chute to Hardin, IL

Anchored out in Bath Chute gave you time to think about the ecosystem of the river. We had seen people fishing from the park in Havana, and there are birds everywhere. Frogs, fish, and birds all eat insects, and in Bath Chute they are being well fed. We were anchored a good 50 feet from shore, and still I saw several grasshoppers on the boat. These were grasshoppers along with house flies and biting little black gnats that we were wishing had already been eaten. I am not killing any spiders because I think they are on our side.

The storm from last night continued into a rainy morning with grey skies. This was the first rain we had since the 8 inches fell in one night in Chicago. So our morning consisted of working and moving the boat to face the wind when the wind shifted. Just a few minutes before 1:00 pm Tom called the Coast Guard on his cell phone for his daily check in on the river status. Word came that the river was going to be officially open in just a few minutes when the announcement would be made. After excitedly turning on the VHF to hear the announcement, Tom went out on the bow and started pulling up the anchor. So literally as the announcement was being made, we were headed downstream towards St Louis. We were at mile marker 106, and that meant that we were 106 miles from where the Illinois River flows into the Mississippi at St. Louis. Our destination is actually St. Charles just a few miles north of St Louis on the Mississippi. We knew to have a chance of making our flight on Tuesday we had to go a long ways today.

The river was choppy as we started out with a steady wind in our faces, but as we traveled on the wind died and we had a flat smooth ride. We passed the massive Consolidated Grain with over 20 silos connected to its dock and conveyor system to load barges. There were lots of empty barges docked there awaiting cargo.

As we approached the Norfolk Southern railway bridge, Tom called the bridge master on his VHF radio and asked for passage. The response was “We’ll get her fired up for you, Captain”. We were glad for the friendly service. Normal clearance under this bridge is 32 feet so they don’t normally have to open it, but today with the water 20 feet above the normal pool. we needed it raised for our 17 foot height to squeeze under.

Today’s pictures are a lot of pictures of water. We did see places where the levees were badly eroded and we saw sad houses stranded in the flood. We saw farms and even a pasture full of cows. Mind you, I am not an expert, but I think these were beef cattle. We saw blue heron by the waters edge and even a hawk circling a corn field.

Seven hours later and in the pitch dark, we decided to call it a day. Close to mile marker 21, just before the bridge at Hardin,we found a tributary on the chart plotter that was not part of the marked channel. Using the flood light on the bow to pan the shore line, we got our bearings to pull out of the channel up the side stream looking for anchorage. The depth finder said we had plenty of water as we dropped anchor about 100 yards up stream in swift current. What a day! We grilled out steaks and after dinner took our tired selves to bed.

Published in the St Louis Herald Sun

By JIM SUHR : Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
Sep 26, 2008

ST. LOUIS -- Easing his 46-foot powerboat down the Illinois river, Tom Dimmock welcomed the breeze in his face Friday as a ripple of progress. After a week of being forced to dock because of dangerous currents and floating debris, the retired Raleigh, N.C., lawyer was finally moving.

He didn't get far. The skipper of "The Next 30 Years" learned he'd probably be spending the next couple of days on the Illinois River, trapped along with a couple dozen other boaters in their yearlong trip that snakes its way around eastern North America.

Dimmock and the others have been parked near Ottawa, Ill., about 70 miles southwest of Chicago, waiting out the fast currents and the debris left by Hurricane Ike's remnants that pounded the Midwest this month with rain. The storms caused many stretches of river to swell to levels the Coast Guard deemed dangerous.

Slow signs of progress came Friday, when the Coast Guard narrowed the closed stretch of the Illinois River to just 20 miles. Just a couple of days earlier, that shutdown covered 200 miles.

"It's a big change," said Lt. Chuck Mellor of the Coast Guard's St. Louis office, urging Dimmock and the others to be a bit more patient. "By Sunday, everything should probably be open."

Dimmock's boat is among about 65 taking part in what for has been an annual ritual by their 9-year-old America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association. The journey takes them up along the Atlantic Ocean and up into Canada before meandering into Lake Michigan, then down the Illinois, Mississippi and other inland rivers for a winter in the Gulf Coast, sometimes the Bahamas.

Many of this year's participants are keying on making it to an Oct. 20-23 reunion at an Alabama state park. But given the delay in getting off the Illinois River, Dimmock isn't sure he'll make that gathering.

Dimmock, 59, and his wife just want to make it to St. Louis, where the couple are scheduled to leave their twin-diesel boat and fly home to Raleigh for business meetings before resuming their voyage after a roughly two-week break.

"By then, everyone else will be out of the way," said Dimmock, who'll be a grandfather for the first time in December.

Still, Dimmock says the trek -- his first as a "Looper" -- has been "a ton of fun," taking the couple up the Atlantic's intercoastal waters, into the Chesapeake Bay and up the St. Lawrence Seaway into Canada. A few days in Montreal were followed by a few more in Ottawa before the Dimmocks weaved their way into Lake Michigan, then on to Chicago and the Illinois River.

"This is just one of those things in life where if you don't do them, you'll be sitting in a rocking chair regretting that the opportunity passed you by," he said. "We've met really neat people, seen towns we wouldn't otherwise have seen. And we've learned a lot of history."

And over the past week, a lot about flooding.

For a week, the Dimmocks have made the most of being sidelined at the Heritage Harbor Marina near Ottawa.

They toured the remote area with bikes they had onboard. They've gone into town, taking in the movie "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" and a concert commemorating the Lincoln-Douglas debates 150 years ago.

"Ottawa's a neat city," Dimmock said. "But we were anxious to move on."

So were others.

"They're getting itchy" to get going, said Janice Kromer, the cruisers' association's executive director.

The Dimmocks finally shoved off on Friday, headed for as far as the river -- and Coast Guard -- will let them. Just moving again, Dimmock said, was "awesome."

"It's a beautiful day, and there's a nice breeze," he told a reporter by telephone as he guided his boat along before a horn's honk signaled that his boat was cleared to go through a lock. "I have a tug pushing a barge coming toward us, so I have to get going."

He politely ended the conversation, and off he went.

September 28, 2008: Havana to Bath Chute, IL

We left The Next Thirty Years at anchor and crossed back to the Riverside Park in Havana this morning in our dinghy. It was a challenge to find our way into a place to pull the little boat to shore in the flood. This is the first time I have worn water shoes to church (so that I could wade in) and we changed our shoes on the shore.

Then we cycled through downtown Havana with its streets paved with rustic brick and a Main street with fancy facades above fading businesses. We passed their historic water tower that was dated 1853 on our way to the church.

We attended First Baptist Church of Havana on the corner of Main and Pearl. The sanctuary had a lofty A-frame ceiling with warm paneling across the front and had the happy hum of friends greeting as the 70 or so people gathered. We met their friendly pastor Dave Byrd, who turned out to be from Fayetteville, NC and went to Mars Hill college. The message was based on scripture from Psalm 69 as prophecy of Jesus’s life and mission to us and the promise that God is always with us. The hymns were accompanied by a grand piano and we enjoyed singing with the congregation of around 70 worshipers. They were collecting their World Missions Offering aligned with the American Baptist convention.

After church and lunch back on the boat, we called Coast Guard again about the status of the river. They told us that the water had not dropped enough and the 20 mile stretch below us was still closed. We are very disappointed because the river is open to commercial traffic and we are looking forward to our flight home from St Louis. We decided to move the short distance down to the actual boundary of the restriction at a little spot called Bath Chute.

So tonight, we are anchored out at Bath Chute, a narrow tributary to the Illinois, where it is very peaceful and you can hear a cricket serenade. We are sharing the anchorage with 6 other looper yachts who have gathered here and are all awaiting the river opening.>

September 27, 2008: Peoria to Havana

We left the Wharf Harbor covered dock early this morning with the plan to see a little more of the Peoria water front before heading south. The city docks were pretty much deserted because the flood had made it impossible to get from the dock to the shore. We pulled up to a place near the bridge along side the floating pier and tied up. It would be an adventure just getting to shore. We took our bikes and walked the long pier to where the connecting ramp would have normally taken you up to the shore. Today the ramp went down to where the concrete ramp began. The walkway was blocked off, but we were able to climb over the fence and lower the bikes onto the concrete ramp.

Our good luck was that our entrance to the shore led us into the middle of the Peoria Fine Art show. This is an annual weekend show with 150 artists from all over the country. Our timing was perfect to be here this weekend. The art was incredible- amazing ceramics, blown glass, water colors, truly unique framed photographic art and fine wood working that we saw as we walked through the village of little white tents.

We rode our bikes down the river trail to find the local farmer’s market. What fun! There was a band playing some brassy New Orleans jazz in the morning air. The ensemble included a saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and a string bass creating a carnival atmosphere. All the produce was local, and we did not find any fruit, but we did find some local “basil vinegar”, Nona’s rubbing spices (basil based) and some fresh focacia bread for dinner tonight.

To return to the boat we retraced our steps and cast off into the swift current pulling TNTYs out of the dock just by the Spirit of Peoria paddlewheel steamship. Now we are headed south with knowledge that the river below us closed at mile marker 102.

South of Peoria there were more gravel and samd and coal shipping yards. We saw industrial barges, train tracks with engines moving cars around and cranes standing at the ready to move the freight from barge to train or back again.

Today was our first experience with a flooded lock. The Peoria Lock and Dam was flooded which means that the water below the lock is as high as the water above. In this specific case, the water on the upper side of the lock was already 10 higher than normal where you would usually lock down 8 feet, so the water below the lock was 18 feet over. The lock was not operating and the gates which control the flow of the river beside the lock were lowered. So the route we took was over where the gates are and the water was about 24 feet deep there.

At mile marker 138 we entered a stretch where the Coast Guard had just opened the passage declared it an official no wake zone. This is an area where the river is contained between levies and the concern was to not create wave action to weaken the levies. In this area you could also see flooded cottages where no one wants any additional damage to be done to personal property by a wave from passing boats. There was also more debris in the river requiring careful attention here.

Tonight we are anchored out in Havana, Illinois. We took our bikes into shore in the dinghy for a ride around and we found a church for tomorrow. We also found a great supermarket with strawberries and honey butter. Tomorrow is going to be great.

September 26, 2008: Peoria, IL

This morning when Tom checked on the status of the river with the US Coast Guard, the response was that the Illinois River that had been closed from Mile 50 to Mile 180 was now open. So having enjoyed all we could find in Ottawa for a full week, we quickly packed up and cast off headed towards the Mississippi. The Heritage Harbor marina is at Mile 240 on the Illinois, and today we traveled to Mile 165, so approximately 75 miles.

We traveled back to the Starved Rock Lock which was open today with the water surging though the dam there. We entered the lock with four other loop’er cruisers and dropped 9 feet to the river below which was 10 feet above normal. The weather was great with bright sunshine and little wind.

There were many factories and train tracks immediately adjacent to the waterway. We cruised past the massive LOF (Libbey Owens Ford) glass factory. We passed over 177 barges on the river today almost all headed north. Some were tied up and stalled along the banks, and others were in transit being powered by large flatnosed tugboats. The largest transient group we saw was 15 barges, 3 across and 5 deep (about 1000 feet long) being pushed by tandem tugboats. It was amazing to me how the tugboat captains were able to negotiate the river and thread their barges through bridges. You could see them turning 1000 feet of barge in front of them to go between the bridge piers. We saw open barges full of coal, tankers and flat, closed-in barges. The river was bustling with commerce, but you got the feeling that maybe traffic was still slow due to the barges along the banks not engaged.

We passed by long stretches of shoreline that was totally natural and undeveloped woodlands. The water was still and wide with just the beginning of fall color in some of the trees along the shore. The dark shallows of the river had become a graveyard of the floating debris. We could see large tree branches extruding from the smooth water surface like arm of a skeleton. We saw several channel markers on small islands that had trapped huge pieces of drift wood and when the water receded, the huge washed trees were stranded there. The channel was narrow, so we did not get very close to them, but we also spotted at a distance a colony of white pelicans sunning themselves.

As we moved farther along the river, we saw more and more flooding. Places where the water over the banks of the Illinois merged with lakes along the side making a broad water surface. Places where houses built on the river had deep water in their ground floor.

We passed under Abraham Lincoln Memorial bridge (Interstate 39) and dropped our wake in courtesy to bridge workers on a barge under the bridge who were raising work scaffolding for bridge repairs.

Around 4:00 we pulled into the Wharf Harbor marina and are docked for the first time in a covered slip. Tonight we are docked in Peoria and the water here is 10 feet above normal. The marina had built a temporary bridge from the pier to the steps on the shore so you could walk off the pier. Tom and I took our bikes in to town to discover Peoria and discovered that about the distance could be covered on a bike path along the river. It crossed through a green recreational park and by a open air Fine Art Show (all the little white tents were closed for the night). The waterfront still had flooded areas, but we found Joe’s Crab Shack that was open and had dinner. It was next to a beautiful white river paddlewheel boat named the Spirit of Peoria. During our dinner on the restaurant deck, the steamer pipe organ played happy circus tunes as they loaded their passengers for their evening cruise.

Tonight we are back on the boat and were delighted to find that our TV attennae was able to give us a station that carried the Presidential Debate.

September 25, 2008: Ottawa

Today we are still in Ottawa. The fuel truck is coming back this afternoon to fuel up some of the new additional boats that have come in. But since we haven’t moved since we filled up, I guess we are good to go.

Our special outing for today was to catch a ride with Captain Moe back into Washington Square to take a tour of the Reddick mansion. William Reddick was an immigrant from Ireland who was a successful business man (made a fortune in real estate) and was an Illinois Senator. In his side yard was a two story visitor’s center that had originally been built as the caretaker house. Both houses were just finished at the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858. At Riddick’s death he bequeathed the beautiful four story Italianate residence to the city to be used as a library and it was for 90 years. It now provides office space for various non-profits, and some of the rooms are restored as they would have been when he lived there. They were decorated in red and dark walnut with 19^th century furniture, white marble fireplaces, and beautiful carved and inlaid doors and molding. The most interesting piece to me was a small chair crafted of walnut turned spindles which was designed with diagonal side pieces by a furniture maker of German descent, Hunzinger. Many Victorian houses had their Hunzinger chairs by the fireplace as an accent piece. His design, which allowed the chair to fold up, was patented in 1836. Very cool – some one had to think of that first. This house had running water when it was built with a system for gravity delivered water from the roof.

After our brief tour of the Reddick house, we walked several blocks the Triple J Ice Cream shop to wait for our ride home. We had cappuccino milk shakes made by the friendly teen aged granddaughter of the proprietor. I had mine made with chocolate ice cream which they had never done before, but I told her that it was just a mocha. It was delicious.

We had an interesting history lesson from Captain Moe on the ride home. He has lived here all his life and he talked about the glass industry here. Because of numerous silica sand deposits Ottawa has been a major sand and glass center for more than 100 years. We had seen quarry operations from our boat and on our van ride to the Starved Rock lock this week. Buffalo Rock Park is built over a reclaimed quarry. One of its largest employers in the area is Pilkington Glass works, a successor to LOF (Libbey Owens Ford). Formerly the factory concentrated in automotive glass, but now it manufactures specialty glass. Ottawa sand continues to be extracted from several quarries in the area, and is recognized in glass-making and abrasives for its uniform granularity and characteristics. Apparently when the rock is crushed to sand, the particles are round. Ottawa sand was on board the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle for experimental purposes and this is the type of sand used in the mining of natural gas. We now think that the barge we saw loaded with white was sand.