June 19, 2007

June 19, 2007 – After we had the thunderstorm yesterday it was still overcast when we left Grafton, Illinois. We had to locks to go through at St. Louis and then it would be open water on the Mississippi. We had heard that one of the locks was having problems on our VHF radio and that tows were backed up waiting to get through the locks. There were three pleasure boats that showed up for the first lock down and they used the auxiliary lock to put us through and on our way. Now for the lock with the problem. We arrived at the lock only to find a big tow coming out and one waiting to go in. Tows have priority over pleasure boats so they told us we might have as much as a four hour wait for a lock ride down. Low and behold they called back in a few minutes and said there was a Coast Guard boat coming up in the lock and they would take us pleasure boats down if we could hurry up and get there. We hit the throttle and the lock gate was a green light and in we went and down. When we got let out at the bottom I imagine all of those tow boats waiting had locked jaws and it was all due to the little Coast Guard zodiac that we get let down before they got the ride up. We did not stay to socialize with them because technically they had the right of way and it was just a kind lockmaster who did not want us circling in front of his lock for four hours that he put us through. After that it was down the river to top off our fuel tanks for tomorrows run which could put us a long way down the river by tomorrow night. The river current is the fastest we have seen yet and very treacherous if you fell in because it is running at about five miles an hour at least. The towboats leave very large wakes and you run for about a mile behind them to get through to clean water. The big towboats are powered by three large engines and look like they are more than 150 feet in length and are at least three decks high or more and pushing 24 or more barges on the average. The river looks somewhat low for this time of the year and that makes meeting them a little more difficult because they take up so much of the channel. The towboats going upbound are really working hard and those going down have it easy except it is harder to control the empty barges in all of this current.

Going through St. Louis this morning we saw the Arch, the Budweiser brewery and downtown from the river and that sure was a different way to see it. The Arch was shimmering in the morning sunlight and looked not a day older than when we visited St. Louis earlier. There were some beautiful homes on the bluffs and also what looked to be a monastery on one bluff. As I write this there is a towboat with three tanker barges which are carrying different types of liquid materials and have what looks like air conditioning units on the barges. It is very warm out today and the northerly breeze is nice but it certainly is not cool by any means.