AquaFennatic Great Loop Blog: Grafton Harbor IL to Little Diversion Channel MO

Sep 19^th – Another hot and sunny day. We left Grafton Harbor Marina on the Illinois River in the state of Illinois early this morning to travel about 58 miles to Kimmswick - Hoppies Marina which is on the Upper Mississippi River in the state of Missouri. Apparently the next marina after Hoppies is 228 miles away! The first incident of the day occurred when 2 boats were hit by extreme current as they entered the Mel Price Lock and were pushed into the lock wall causing damage to both boats. One boat lost their bow thruster due to debris in the lock. The 2 boats had to turn around to go back to the marina and one needed to be hauled out to replace a shear pin in their bow thruster. A third boat was spun around backwards with no damage. We powered through the current and everything was OK for us. The second lock of the day was much easier to traverse. I can’t believe the amount of debris there is floating in the Mississippi – It’s like a mine field that you need to carefully pass through. At points we were stuck in a debris field and all we could do is put the boat in neutral and float with the debris until you could find an exit path. The current was so strong that North bound Tows had to use lots of force to get up the river and some put out 4 foot waves that we had to pass through. Once we arrived at Hoppies Marina we had to turn around and find a path through the debris to get to their dock. Three dock hands had to direct you in since the current was very strong so it was important to deploy lots of fenders and lots of lines. I hope we don’t have any debris hit our boat while we’re docked here! Fern (who has been at Hoppies for years and is very well known throughout the Looper community) arrived in a golf cart and gave instructions to the dock hands on how to secure the boat. At 4:30pm Fern had a Captain’s meeting providing all kinds of useful information for things such as how to leave the dock in the morning, what routes to follow, where to stay overnight and spots on the rivers to avoid being in when Tows are around. Note that a person travelling by canoe to raise funds for a cause also attended the meeting.

Sept 20^th – It was another very hot and sunny day. We left Hoppies in the morning to run 42 miles to Kaskaskia River Lock which allowed us to stay overnight. This lock is on a river off of the Mississippi so there was no current or debris. We arrived fairly early thus we sat on the front of the boat to get some sun and then went for a dingy ride up the Mississippi to a beach a little off the beaten path with Rob and Brenda on “Over Ice” (their dingy’s name is Ice Cube). We walked up the beach and waded into the water ... the temperature of the water was 76 degrees F. Once we got back to the boat we had some docktails and a community dinner with 4 Looper boats including ourselves and afterwards we learned a new dice game called Left, Right, Centre that is played with Hersy’s Kisses. I won a couple of times and now have a pile of chocolate to eat!

Sept 21^st – It started out very foggy and transitioned to another extremely hot and sunny day. After the fog lifted we left Kaskaskia River Lock and traveled 70 miles to Little Diversion Channel MO. We traveled past a number of Tows and had to navigate through some debris and hit another submerged object, however there’s no vibration in the drive system thus we think everything is OK. When we got to Diversion Channel we anchored and rafted with 5 Loopers, including ourselves. We’re looking forward to getting to the next marina in a couple of days so we can run the air conditioning ... I know ... I shouldn’t complain about the heat, but I am ;) We made reservations at a hotel in Nashville with 3 other couples for the end of this month with plans to also go to Chattanooga by rental car while our boat is in Green Turtle Bay marina. We had another pot luck dinner tonight with good company and lots of laughs.