Good morning and goodbye to Ottawa's Heritage Harbor Marina

The tow that hit the end of the chamber and held us up, finally comes out

We see the last of that pesky tow. That's "Indigo" sliding past him, around that market on his 'One'

Overtaking a downbound tow 'on the One' (i.e. his port side)

We pass a 12-barge tow with not a lot of the channel to spare

Over on the left is an old, abandoned Lock, now used by rec boaters to tie up

Passing a tug looking for another tow (running 'light engine', Preston and I call it)

Rosie thinks this is carp damage caused to these cottonwoods

Approaching Peoria and the US-50 bridges... the new one, unfinished, on the far side

Passing the Komatsu factory in Peoria. Red sky at night... (etc)

Fast alongside for the night in Peoria. The I-74 highway bridge.

Day 12: Ottawa to Peoria

10月14日, アメリカ ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

[In progress]
Finally completed yesterday's Blog.
Peoria is the historical home of Caterpillar, with its first tractor manufacturing plant established in the area in 1910. I've spent more than a few hours of my youth operating my dad's Caterpillar crawler tractor, and I've been very aware of the manufacturer's name painted on it... at a place called Peoria, Illinois. Now, I'll get to see it.

We depart the Heritage Harbor Marina at 0830 and sail past Ottawa - the mist just burning off, the sky clear, the river flat calm and 'reflective'. By 0900 we're at the Starved Rock Lock & Dam and sure enough, the line-up of shipping we can see on our electronic chart is playing out and the delay Preston has cautioned us about (another 'pause for the cause') is confirmed by the Lockmaster. We can cool our heels for a couple of hours, and we do.

Worse was to come. The 'tow' that was pushing upstream overshot and rammed the closed end of the chamber... the 'bullnose', breaking a coupling between two of its barge-loads. More time was expended while they fixed that problem and finally pushed out of the chamber, enabling us and another boat with whom we've made friends, to enter.

We continue down-river, without further drama, manoeuvering around some upbound barge tows and one downbound we first encountered yesterday, happy to have a 1-mph current in our favour. The river's course is rimmed by foliage and every so often a riverside town slips past, as do numerous residences and obvious fishing spots. Another feature of this portion of the river is the large lake areas that have been created by the dams and that extend away to one side or the other of the waterway. There are numerous duck-shooting blinds built away from the shore on some of these.

The delay at Starved Rock has put us behind, but we finally arrive into Peoria at dusk, and tie up downtown at the 'free dock' (without shore power) located at the Peoria Fire Rescue Marine Station 1, where we are the lone occupants.

We crank up the grill on the flybridge and cook inch-thick steaks (½-inch in Rosie's case) bought in Traverse City, while Rosie does a spud and sweet potato medly in the air-fryer. We introduce Preston to a good Wolf Blass Cab Sav that I also purchased in TC. It turns out that 'Wolfie' was a friend of Rosie and Bert's some years back. Sadly, Wolfie has passed, but his wines are still being blended somewhere by someone.もっと詳しく

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