Day 2-301 Wilmington to Ottawa, IL

     We left Harborside Marina in Wilmington at 8:00 am and meet up other Loopers who were waiting for the first lock of the Day. Our destination was Ottawa, Illinois, which was a trip of only 39.9 miles. The picture at the right shows Harborside Marina early in the morning just before we left.

      It was only 2.3 miles to the Dresden Island Lock where we met up with 5 other Loopers who were waiting for a tow to lock through (picture at left). It was also our first experience with a boat that just had to be the "first" boat into the lock... On the brighter side, it was our first experience rafting alongside another boat inside a lock. They had a limited number of floating bollards, and the lockmaster wanted all boats to be tied to a bollard or rafted to a boat that was.

     The picture at the right shows three boats rafted together in front of Lucky Us. On the port (left) side of Lucky Us, we are rafted to Grand Finale who in turn is tied to a floating bollard. It was a great "first time" for rafting inside a lock since there was no wind and virtually no turbulence as the water was let out to lower us 22 feet.

     A little over 26 miles later we entered the second and final lock of the day. This time we were able to return the favor and let Grand Final raft alongside Lucky Us (picture at left). It turns out that boats have the right to refuse to let someone raft onto them. Fortunately, we were with a very agreeable bunch of boaters since once again the Lockmaster insisted that all boats be tied to a floating bollard.

     In the hierarchy of locking, it turns out that tows with non-hazardous cargo have the right to refuse to have pleasure craft lock through with them. If they have a hazardous cargo, the rules are clear, and no pleasure craft are allowed in the lock with them. In this lock there was a Corps of Engineers barge and tug, and the Captain was kind enough to allow pleasure craft in with his tow. This is the same lock (Marseilles Lock) as in the picture above so grand Final is rafted to Lucky Us just outside the picture to the right (or starboard side). In this lock we went down a little over 29 feet, and after this lock we proceeded to Ottawa, Illinois, which was our final destination for the day. We had planned to stay on the free wall in downtown Ottawa, but it looked pretty full as we approached so we decided to head on down river. Kudos to the Admiral since she was able to get us into the Starved Rock Marina just 4 miles south of Ottawa.

     I will close with a pretty picture of the Illinois River taken late in the day. I seem to have spent most of this post talking about locks, but as you can see, the river is quite pretty, especially with the higher bluffs near Ottawa.