- 55.5 miles
- 11 hours 22 minutes
- 6.7 mph average speed
- 1-17 mph winds
Add cruising through downtown Chicago to our ever-growing list of favorite things on the Loop! It was truly spectacular!
It was a very long day and rained most of the day after we had cleared Chicago. We went through three locks and had to wait a very long time at two of them for tow traffic to clear. We had planned to stay overnight at the Joliet free wall but were concerned there may not be room for both Perfect Match and Star Dust so we decided to go further to Wilmington. In all, it took us over 11 hours to go 55.5 miles!
Since many of the buildings on our cruise down the Chicago River were also posted in the previous post, we will just post the photos of our cruise through Chicago here with no comments or captions. Interspersed throughout are pictures of Perfect Match taken by Star Dust whom we were following. There was also a rowing race going through the city.
Once we got through downtown Chicago, we passed the St. Charles Air Line Bridge and the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge which both had to be lifted for us to pass.
Next up was the Lockport Lock where several of us tied up to a barge to lock through – in the rain!
The next lock was the Brandon Road Lock which had floating bollards that we put one of our lines around and, as the water level went down, the bollard went down with us.
We are starting to see a lot of tow traffic. The tow below is one of the smaller tows. Usually, the tow is moving 15 barges (5 long and 3 across) which can carry 1,500 tons each. On these, the entire tow and barge is 105 feet wide and 1,100 feet long. They move at eight miles per hour and can take a full hour to come to a stop. Tow boat operators live on the tows while working and generally work 21 days straight and then have 21 days off.
We arrived at Harborside Marina and had dinner with Misty and Darrel at the Big Fish Grille. We stayed another day due to rain and Misty and Darrel taught us how to play the card game “Pitch”.