On the Illinois river-Chicago to Grafton

We are enjoying a sunny day in Grafton and are able to tell you some highlights from our trip down the Illinois River. The river -herons ,egrets, white pelicans and also bald eagles. Besides birds we dealt with many barges with tows pushing up to 12 barges at a time and  8 locks and many bridges.

 Back to our Sunday the 18th in Chicago. We found an OPC church gattering downtown Chicago and were thankful to worship with fellow believers, a very cosmopolitan group. It was a church plant in it's 2nd stage, the stage between starting and institution. Elissa and Ryan brought us back to the boat and said their farewells after sharing lunch with us.The architectural tour , Shedd's aquarium and  popular Navy Pier were our highlights in beautiful Chicago.

 Early Monday a.m. we left our marina to go to our first lock[ a small one] at the top of the river, from here we made our way through the heart of the city. We had a short wait for a railroad bridge to go up so we tied up , just moved on time to let the boat taxi  pull into  it's parking spot. oops!

Our 2nd lock ,'Lockport' was a 39 foot drop . The lock master was very friendly and helpful. We were glad we vere the only boat locking through since this was our first real lock. we tied up to a 'bollard 'a round pole that goes own with the boat.

tree lined Illinois River

The sign for the fish barrier.

leaving the lock

a photo of bridge and bardge/tow.

 Shortly before this lock we went  through' electric fish barrier' . this is to stop the asian carp from making their way into the great lakes. -thank you US coast guard..

We made our way on to the first community called Jolliet and were able to tie up to the town dock. After taking a walk downtown Jolliet we returned to our dock and discovered 2 black  wooden ships  the Nina and the Pinta with their masts down too. These are 2 reproductions of C. Columbus' boats used in the movie 1492 and now they go to towns along the rivers and  offer tours with a fee.

The next morning the Nina and Pinta left in a fog , we waited until 9:30 , and left in clear sunshiny day.We had 3 locks on our trip to Ottawa ,Illinois.Locked through the last 2 locks with the '2' ships.Now Ottawa also offered free towndockage and according to our charts and the local boatersas we were approaching the depth should be okay but a big but. we were to discover the river had gone down about 2 feet since the area had had a very dry summer. we nicely were stopped be silted in mud..A friendly boater made a call. Soon a police officer arrived  and helped by calling the rescue squad to help pull us out. They thought we could still dock at the docks but ended up pulling us out a 2nd time. After that they said we will call  a marina near here and see if they could take us. Tomorrow I will tell about the friendly people at Heritage marina and Ottawa.Here are some pictures of our rescue.