All Alone… Illinois River to the Mississippi - Sailing Soulianis

Last time on Sailing Soulianis we finally started making some miles south down the inland river system. We got the hang of transiting locks. Also water shouldn't fill up that. Installed a much needed raw water pump and even woke up to frost on our deck. We made it about halfway on the Illinois river to the Mississippi. Now we're going to take on the second half. Let's do this. The restless dog is at my heels, nipping, biting no matter how. The more I try to use my eyes, the more I see the pictures start to fray. It'll sway. It swings, swings, swings, swings so hard. It hits, hits, it hits so hard. We found a gym that has yoga classes and showers and a pool for $11. So we're trying to make it there before the yoga class starts. And they've closed the marina on us. I am weak. Lauren saved herself. I would be eaten by the bear. So the river is so high right now that they actually dropped the dam below the water level and we're driving right over it. It's called a wicket dam. I see something right here. Moment. Right there. That's the dam that gets raised. Longest day yet? Sure. Especially since it may rain. No, it's not gonna rain. All right. I'm gonna prepare for it I need to change your shoes. Yes, right now they're the warmest. Right now I'm wearing long johns, two pairs of pants, a t-shirt, three long sleeve shirts, a puffy jacket, two other jackets, a hat, two hoods, a pair of gloves. This is sailing. All aboard who wants to go south? Me. Ready? Ready. Okay, good luck. We still came here a month too late. Well, he said that that closes down on Labor Day. Oh, like two months too late? Yeah, it would have been fun to use the grill. Yeah. Probably our tightest squeeze yet. Winter hair. So, Bob, you got his voicemail, right? No, I talked to Bob. Oh, okay. Well, in his voicemail it says, thanks for calling Tall Timbers. If you draft more than three feet, just pass us by. So, thank goodness the river is so high right now or else we wouldn't have gotten in there. So, I think we have only seen four other pleasure boats, boats that are not barges, on our entire two and a half week trip so far. Two of those boats were being delivered. One of them was going the other way. The last one was anchored and we're not even sure that it was a looper boat. So, it's been a pretty desolate trip so far, but it's made the anchorages and docks completely our own, which is kind of nice. I guess that's one plus to coming down the river a month too late, but it would be kind of cool to meet some other people doing the same thing. That's Kirkway over there, dropping our stern anchor for our first night on the hook in the river. So far, we've stayed at free docks. We paid for a couple marinas, but we haven't had anchor yet and we've been, it's got to be like 10, 12 nights on the river. I don't know. I'm forgetting the days, but tonight was the first night we didn't really have a choice. So, yeah, anchoring in a couple knot current. Fortunately, it's going to be a lot warmer tonight than it has been over the last week. It's been almost down to freezing every single night and tonight it's going to be 55 overnight because there's some sort of storm coming tomorrow. That'll be nice and toasty. Okay, I got to move the boat before we run into the sandbar. Neutral. Neutral. Okay, forward. We have about 100 feet of line on our stern anchor, so we attached a few extra dock lines to give us just a little bit more working room. Are we tight? I think what we want to do is drop the anchor here. Can you keep us roughly right there? Yeah. We wanted to be as far out of the main channel as possible, which meant sneaking into a pretty tight channel between a sandbar and the bank of the river. The stern anchor was insurance against any wind that would be stronger than the current that would carry us upriver, putting us in danger of being blown into the bank or onto the sandbar. What did we just do? Spent the last hour and a half doing our first bow and stern anchor on the river. Third time was the charm. Yeah. We tried three different times. Yeah. And it worked out. We're good now. We seem good right now. I think we're good. We can't really say it's successful until we pull it up and leave tomorrow, right? Correct. As long as the river doesn't drop more than a few inches, we're okay. We're not in very deep water. Here's our depth chart. Yeah. Here's our depth. It's not bad right here. That is our depth right there. Wow, that's what? Seven feet? It's to here. Nope. Just over six. Yikes. Hey, good thing we only draw for three. No, that was when we weighed 15,000 pounds. Now we weigh 20. So yeah, probably four and a half. All right. Are you going on an adventure? Yes. Oh, there's another barge coming. Where are you going to go? Right to there. Are you going to log and look at the boat? Oh, fun. I should have a beer. Do we have any? I think so. All right. First anchorage on the river. Going on my first tuck fin adventure. Oh, it's a little slippery. It's a little slippery. I thought it was solid. All right. We're going to give this a go number did. He moved his wings. It's so peaceful and calm out here. I felt like we were tied to the dock all night except for when the tows went through and sent us like three or four foot waves. This is crazy. We've got woodpeckers. We've got morning doves. We've got all the little sing-song birds. It's like we're back in summer except for we have fall colors all around us. Look at that. The Mississippi. Look at you in no hat. No hat, only one jacket, only one pair of pants, no gloves. Barefoot.