The La Grange Encounter; Dodge-a-Log

Along the Illinois Waterway there is a plethora of locks, and we were just starting to get the hang of the whole process when we got to the La Grange lock. The hardest part to prepare for is the unpredictable wait time, our fates being decided by incessant barge traffic. Our original La Grange plan was to stop a few miles before and lock through the next morning, but the six hours of remaining daylight was too tempting to waste sitting in one spot. We figured we had an extremely good chance to make it through to the next anchorage before dark, which in hindsight was a horrible idea. As you may have noticed from our previous experiences, we haven’t had much luck with getting through locks in a timely manner. We knew it was a risk, but there was a lot of logic that made us confident that we wouldn’t get caught out in the dark this time.

When within range of the lock we found we had a delay that was still short enough to be ok, but long enough that we dropped the anchor to wait as a barge slowly made its way through. Our spot wasn’t the best— a bit close to shore and only slightly protected, but with a stern anchor to keep us from swinging it was our best option. As the afternoon wore on and the lock quieted, we didn’t hear anything from the lockmaster. We nervously debated hailing him, but we were still pretty shy on the radio and we didn’t want to be annoying and incur more waiting. Our worry increased, and we went back and forth on whether we should stay or backtrack several miles to a real anchorage. Our indecision decided for us, and the sun set as we rechecked our anchors and settled in for the night.

Around 8 pm, I got a nagging feeling in my gut. I checked the weather for the hundredth time that day and my heart sank as I saw a newly developed line of storms headed right for us. The wind direction would put the full force of the storms on our stern anchor, and then a later wind forecast that would do the same for the whole night. After anxious debate—the primary concern being swinging into shore and damaging the rudder—we decided to haul the anchor and head for the more protected shore on the other side of the river. The blackness was ominously lit up by silent lightning on all sides as we slowly nosed our way through the darkness to a small depression in the opposite bank. We anchored just behind a barge on the same bank, with the hope that any other barges that might come in during the night wouldn’t get too close and run us over. As we hunkered down for the first line of storms, I mentally berated myself for thinking that trying to get through the lock would ever be a good idea.

The first storm raged through, and I’ve never been more terrified while at anchor in my life. We rocked, the wind howled, rain pounded, and I’m pretty sure it hailed. We couldn’t see anything out the windows, and we fervently hoped we weren’t being blown onto land or adrift into the channel. In a brief break between storms, I ran on deck to check everything and discovered our stern anchor was holding us perpendicular to the wind and chop. Relieved to find the source of the crazy rocking (and that we hadn’t moved), I released more scope to turn the bow into the wind and dashed below as the next storm broke. The boat rode the storm better, but it was still an awful experience. At this point I had worried myself into exhaustion, and unable to do anything else I went to sleep. If anything disastrous was going to happen, I would wake up and deal with it then.

The next morning revealed a calm and chilly river and that we hadn’t moved at all. I breathed a sigh of relief seeing that we, in fact, did not end up on land or run over. We were also surprised to see the boat surrounded by more barges that had stopped near us for the night. Emily was woken up around 5 am to find that we were completely lit up by a spotlight from a barge that was stopping behind us. She pointed out that if the barge was going to run us over, there wasn’t anything to do about it so she just went back to bed. I’m glad we survived! Now freezing cold, we grudgingly rolled out of bed and hailed the lockmaster to see how quickly we had to get moving. “Come on down, I’ll get you through!” Thinking this was our chance to make a quick break away from our now least favorite lock, we rushed to pull the anchors and get ready only to find that we had to wait another hour and a half. After endless circling and finally at the lock wall, one of the crewmen handed us a line and cheerfully asked how our night was. We stared daggers and grumpily said it was fine, but we were pretty much at our limits when we could finally leave the lock. We have more than learned our lesson, and we haven’t tried to push our luck since.

The radar just before we almost were taken to Oz (we were just south east of the pin)

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Now past the lock and in an area with good anchorages, our next mission was to deal with the source of one of our many boat frustrations: fix our leaky packing gland. This particular mechanical wonder is a combination of nuts on the prop shaft that is supposed to drip just a little but not too much (a very scientific measurement). Ours was pretty much non-stop, so we spent a lot of time bailing our full bilge. Fixing it just involves tightening up the two nuts, but the fun part is accessing the shaft. On most boats it’s pretty easy, but for us we have to completely empty and disassemble our lazarette, remove all the boards, and suspend the fuel tank and remove the floor. It is an all-day project, in order to take 5 minutes to make the adjustment.

We tucked ourselves away in a lovely quiet spot by ourselves, and set to work. Many hours later, the deck was covered in equipment and we had the fuel tank hanging and the nuts finally tightened. No longer tortured by the constant drip, we sat back and admired our work. We did it! It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s one of those projects that no one could help us with, and we were filled with a sense of accomplishment. Go us! High-fiving ourselves, we looked forward to not having to do this again for another several months.

Me trying to reach the shaft

The source of all leaky evil- THE PACKING GLAND

Over our engine looking in the direction of the shaft- the silver square is our hanging fuel tank. At the time of this photo, I'm probably somewhere underneath working on the shaft

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The next morning the river greeted us with all sorts of crap. From the rain two days ago, all the debris that was washed into the river caught up to us, and we immediately engaged in dodge-a-log extreme. There weren’t just a few logs. There were hundreds of logs and sticks and branches and boards and tree trunks and even a pallet. It was insane. I was doing pretty okay driving, swerving all over the river trying not to hit anything. What I thought was a clear patch ahead turned out to be just a higher density of junk, and dodge-a-log extreme went to the pro level. Now it turned into a guessing game of which patch of sticks is just a patch of sticks, and which are the branches connected to a boat-breaking tree trunk. There wasn’t any option, I had to slide through spots of the small stuff to avoid the big stuff, and we luckily didn’t hit anything big. On top of my vigilance and swerving, I thought it was a great idea to also take pictures, in order to prove and show the world the intensity of our plight. The result (thinned down from twice as many photos) is below. You’re welcome.

We were finishing up our Illinois river trip, enjoying peaceful anchorages behind deserted islands and playing a never-ending game of dodge-a-log (less intense). The miles ticked away, and the excitement built as we finally neared- THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.