Six days at Alton Marina waiting for
the flood warning to expire on the Mississippi was long enough. We got up
at 0500 to make a 0700 departure time so that we could go past Hoppies Barge
docks to the Kaskaskia Lock and tie up on the wall. I called the Melvin
Price Lockmaster at 0600 to check on barge traffic before untying our
lines. The Lockmaster said that a northbound barge had just hit the lock
gates and the primary lock was closed until they could assess the damage and
get the Coast Guard in to make a report. The barge was carrying some
dangerous chemicals and they didn't know the extent of the damage to the barge,
so the primary lock was closed until later notice. The secondary lock was
filled with trees and they were attempting to clear it out to start letting
traffic through it. The upbound barges would need to be broken up
to get into the smaller auxiliary lock and take twice as long to get
through. Barge traffic was backing up both north and south of the
lock and we pleasure vessels would have to wait until things got
cleared up. I called the lockmaster every hour on the hour until
1200 and he said we (5 boats) could start easing toward the auxiliary lock and
they would get us down. The catch was that we couldn't tie up to the
walls but would have to float around in the middle of the lock with all the
tree trunks and branches that they were not able to clear away. It was up
to us though. Well, we all headed for the lock and picked our way through
the debris and somehow managed to survive the locking with out any
issues. It was a huge MESS.
The next tandem lock was the Chain of Rocks Locks. They were just letting a huge tug out when we got there, so we slid in and took the 4 ft. drop down, and this time we were tied to a bollard. After exiting the lock, we were free to go without any more locks to deal with for the rest of the day. We passed through St. Louis, MO and right past the Gateway to the West Arch. The water was filled with logs, RR crossties and broken branches. Huge 6x6 tugs (36 barges lashed up to one tug) were churning up river as we bobbed in the turbulent waters, dodging all kinds of junk in the water. Once past St. Louis, the junk thinned out and we sailed right on past Hoppies and cruised on down to Kaskaskia Lock and tied up on the approach wall behind the Looper boat Meridian. After cooking hamburgers on the grill, we walked over to Gypsy Spirit and sat down with the crew and had a wonderful meal and recap of the day's cruise.
Tomorrow will be over 100 miles to the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers to anchor at a place called Boston Bar before taking on the upriver slog toward Paducah, KY.
That's the news and here's some views:
Great white pelicans feeding before heading south
Logjam at Melvin Price Lock, IL
Chain of Rocks Lock, IL
Heavy current helps our speed on the Mississippi River
Long day on the muddy waters of the Mississippi River
St. Louis, MO
Bridge over troubled waters
Gateway to the West arch in St. Louis, MO
Old Faithful?
Chillin on board Gypsy Spirit
