Day 18: Alton to Kaskaskia River

A long day. We depart Alton Marina at 0700 along with 10 Bloopers and run about 2 miles down to the Melvin Price Lock & Dam, where we cool our heels for a couple of hours as a barge tow comes past and enters the Lock ahead of us. When we finally get the green light to enter, 11 vessels scurry to attach to floating bollards on both walls. In negotiating this Lock we pass off the opportunity to visit the adjacent National Great Rivers Museum, which might have contained some great history on the explorers Lewis and Clark, among many other things. Oh well... next time, maybe. I could easily spend a fortnight in a visit to St. Louis.

We drop about 15 feet and depart the chamber for the 6-mile run down the river to the Chain of Rocks Bypass Canal, then the 7-mile run down the canal to Lock & Dam 27... our last for a while, from which we are released into the river around midday, another 15 feet lower.

At this point we have a solid 30-knot blustery wind right on our nose, so although we're now going to benefit from the river current, we'll probably lose about 1 mph due to this wind. We cruise past St. Louis and I 'tune' into the webcam atop the arch to get a distant shot of "45 North" passing by, about 640 ft below.

Leaving St. Louis behind, we have miles to go before we sleep, so Preston bumps our engine speed up to 1600 rpm. With the favourable current, and the unfavourable wind, we're making up to 15 mph and using 9 gal/hr. But we cover the 'ground', as we must, in order to enter the narrow Kaskaskia River entrance before dark and get our mooring beside the Lock before the crowd arrives.

Our voyage south reveals this part of the Mississippi River... a railroad visible on the right-hand bank, many industrial plants of one sort or another--power generation and limestone quarries--in among the riverside foliage, all with barge moorings for material supply or product loadout. The thick foliage, and our river-surface situation (which is, unsurprisingly, below the level of the surrounding terrain, means we're blithely unaware of the broad irrigated river flats on our left-hand side and the many towns and built-up locations over on our right. We encounter an upbound barge tow, it seems, about every 4 or 5 miles and numerous downbound tows need to be passed. Each tug captain is called on the radio to get his instruction on which side to pass... the captains will see us on the 'One whistle' or 'Two whistle' (port or starboard) - a wonderful lingual hangover from the pre-radio steamboat days.

We make it into the Kaskaskia River entrance in the late afternoon and are number two to tie up next to the Lock. I cook sausages on the grill. 'Brats', Preston says they are... the word 'sausage' has a different meaning in the US. Rosie gets some veges ready. We run the generator until 10 pm.Baca lagi