The Calumet River to Ottawa

Sunrise on Friday

Friday morning turned out to be a beautiful morning.  After the nasty weather we had on Thursday afternoon it was great to wake up to calm seas and winds. We were still a little disappointed that we weren't going through Chicago, but we are ready to get going. We were in Hammond five nights.

The stretch between Hammond and Ottawa is made up of several rivers and canals. At the Harbor entrance (mile 333.4) is the Calumet River. Then you transit to the Little Calumet, the Cal-Sag Channel (short for "Calumet-Saganashkee Channel"), the Chicago Sanitary Canal, the Des Plains River and finally the Illinois River at mile 273.

There are two things you notice very quickly about the first part of this trip.
1. There is a LOT of commercial traffic (tows and their barges).  This is a highly industrial area and a lot of material is moved by barge. One barge can carry 1,750 tons of dry goods, the equivalent of 16 rail cars and 70 trucks. A liquid carrying barge can carry  27,500 barrels of liquid, the equivalent of 46 rail cars or 144 trucks. strap about 9 of those together and the tow is pushing a lot of weight.  I guess it is an efficient way to move materials. We have found the tow operators to by very friendly and courteous to those of us in pleasure crafts (PCs as the Lock Masters called us, hey she has a name, it's Lesson Plan).

The Ford Plant on the Calumet River
I think this is the one where my Uncle Charles worked

2. There is no one fishing or doing any kind of water sport activities. And then we saw the signs that I talked about in the last post,
NO
Wading,
Swimming,
Jet Skiing,
Water skiing /Tubing.,
ANY HUMAN BODY CONTACT

Yikes, we didn't even want to go out on deck in case some splashed up on the deck.  I am going owe Lesson Plan a good bath after this trip.

Not to mention that we had to go through the Electric Fish Barrier.

Electric Fish Barrier
HIGH RISK OF ELECTRIC SHOCK

The Chicago Sanitary Canal and the Des Plains River have a lot less industry along the water way, but there are no houses right on the water. Either the adjoining land is owned by the canal system, or people don't care to build on a river that is so polluted that you can't even get in it.

We were glad to get on the Illinois River.  The water started looking a little better, we knew it was just diluted a little,.  But the Caution: No Human Contact signs were gone and we started seeing a little more activity on the water.  We started seeing houses on the water.

We saw some deer on the edge of the Cal-Sag

We made it to Joliet and found another Looper boat tied to the free wall in Joliet.  The crew of Intuition came down and caught our lines for us and we chatted a bit about the trip down. Remember the railroad bridge I said we needed to get to before rush hour if we had of gone through Chicago? Dan (Captain of Intuition) told us that the bridge was broken and would not lift.  His clearance was low enough to get under it, but several Loopers were stuck at the bridge and were considering going down to Hammond that afternoon to go through the Calumet river the next day. We lucked out there.

We went to dinner and by the time we got back another Looper was tied to the wall (Riverdance).  Bill (Captain of Riverdance) had his grandson with him on this leg of the trip.  He starts school Sept. 5 so he would have to be leaving him soon.

Locking through with a tow and his barges at Lockport

The next day we called the Brandon Road Lock to see how the wait was to get locked through. He said he was loading a tow in the chamber now and if we came on down he would put us in with it.  We were ready to go but none of the other boats were ready so we took off towards Lockport.  We were only a 1.6 miles away. After we were under way I called the lock to see which side we would be tying up on. He say: "Oh hey, sorry skipper but its going to be a couple of hours before we can get you through."  I guess weren't fast enough.  That was at 7:45, at 12:30 we were finally through the Brandon Road lock.  That put our plan for the day in jeopardy.  We were planning to go to the free wall in Ottowa, IL, but we had two more locks and 45 miles to go. We passed the tow Gladiator about half way to the Dresden Lock (which was 15 miles from Brandon Road).

When we got to Dresden Lock they were locking through an north-bound tow so we had to wait. By the time the north-bound tow was clearing the lock, the tow Gladiator was within sight of the lock. The priority order for locks is 1. Government Vessels, 2. Commercial Passenger Vessels, 3, Commercial Vessels, 4. Pleasure Craft.

Waiting on Gladiator to Load into the Lock at Dresden

Gladiator called the lock and told the lock master it would be ok to lock through the PCs ahead of him, he was still 20 minute out. The lock master says ok, since you have a red flag (which means he has hazardous materials in tow), and we can't put the PCs through with you, I am going to lock you through first and then I'll get the PCs (there were three PCs). Another delay.  I got spoiled on the Erie Canal, most of the locks were ready for you to pull right into and get locked through. But then there is no commercial traffic on the Erie Canal.

Locking through with Intuition

About 5 miles after the Dresden Lock we caught up with Gladiator again and passed him for the second time today.  We chatted a bit with him on the radio, I thanked him for his attempt to let us lock through first. We had about 20 more miles to go to Marsailles Lock. I have read and heard numerous accounts of how poorly PCs are treated at Marsailles Lock.  I just hope we could put enough space between us and Gladiator to get lock through before him.

About four miles out from the Marsailles Lock I called them up to let them know we were on the way. He said they were locking through a north-bound double, so it would be a while, but he was going to try to get the PCs between the splits. (A couple of points of info: 1.All boats going up river are considered north-bound and all boats going down the river are considered south-bound. 2. A double or split means they have to put half of the barges in and split them from the other barges and the tow. They raise (or lower) those up and pull them out of the lock with a cable, leaving just enough room for the PCs to squeeze into the lock behind the barges.)

Approaching Marsailles Lock

We are sitting there waiting for the first set of barges to get raised and out of the lock. The sun is getting low in the sky, it is going to be dark by the time we get to Ottawa. So we wait and wait. And then guess what we hear on the radio?  Marsailles Lock, this is Gladiator.  O no we are doomed now.  But our spirits picked back up when we heard "Gladiator this is Marsailles. We have a double coming up and we are going to lock these PCs down between the splits, you can take your time getting down here."

We made it thought the lock, but it was dark by the time we got out of the lock.  Rather than going all the way to Ottawa, we called a marina that was about 3 miles closer and made reservations there, now we just have 2 miles to go in the dark. I got out my big spotlight to help pick out the marks. We made it to the marina without incident, but navigating a strange river at night is not my idea of fun, and I am sure Steve would agree. At least it wasn't raining.

Lessons Learned:
Stay out of the rivers around Chicago.
Locks in the Illinois River take a long time to get through, and we think some of them don't like PCs.
Get and early start.