Day 55 – Joliet to Heritage Harbor Marina, Ottawa, IL - August 30, 2011

This is our second day on the Illinois River. We are continuing to travel with Brandy IV.  Our first lock of the day, the Brandon Road Lock, is just two miles down the river.  We have arrived at a good time and go right into the lock and lock through with one other Looper. We encounter a few barges as we move down the river.  All the barge captains are very friendly and we talk to them on the radio about how they would like us to pass them.  They know this river so well, that they can help us pass safely in good water depth.  Another 14 miles down is our next lock, the Dresden Lock.  Again we arrive again at a good time and get locked right through.

The river in this section is quite tranquil with beautiful trees and lots of wildlife.  There aren’t many towns along the river and you just travel along watching your red and green buoys.

We had to wait for awhile to enter the third lock of the day, the Marseilles Lock.  When we arrive at this lock, there was the first half of an up-bound tow locking through.  When a tow is very long (pushing lots of barges) it goes through the lock in two sections.  The tow pushes the first few barges into the lock, disconnects from them and they ride the lock alone.  Once they are at their new level (either up or down), they are winched forward and they tie up outside the lock wall.  Then the lock is sent back to the original level and the tow pushes the rest of the barges in.  He gets to his new level and then carefully pushes the barges out and re-attaches to the barges that went through first.  Since we are down-bound, the lock master lets us ride down after the first half of the tow is through and before the second half.  This is a big time savings for us, but does slow the tow down a bit as he has to wait to push his second half into the lock until we exit.

We originally planned to stay at the free dock in Ottawa, IL, but when we arrive it is already full and there is a boat rafted off.  Instead we head back a mile or so up river to the Heritage Harbor Marina.  This ends up being an excellent decision as Heritage Harbor is beautiful with great floating docks, a courtesy car and a beautiful restaurant.

            Miles: 43.5      Bridges: 10      Locks: 3

Brandy IV - behind us in the Brandon Road Lock

looking at the dam from inside the Dresden Lock

some of the interesting trees along the river

amazing tree roots

looking down river of the Marseilles Lock, you can
see the top of a tow waiting their turn for the lock