Tuesday, August 31, 2010 Location: Joliet, Il

After locking through our first “Lock” southbound, adjacent to the Navy Pier, we began our trip into the heart of downtown Chicago travelling under 40 bridges in the first 5 miles amongst the towering buildings. It was truly awesome. 9:00 in the morning and the city was abuzz with cars and people going about their business. We hope the many pictures we took help to show the beauty of the sun lighting up the buildings as we passed through this beautiful city that we lived in 38 years ago.

In total, we passed under 55miles before we reached the junction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal where we continued south and the river quickly changed to industrial waterway with numerous barges being pushed by a tug. We experienced several anxious moments when we passed a train four barges long and two wide, and also seeing more barges up ahead along the river wall. The tugs control the river. We always ask them what they want us to do. This is their domain and they set the rules. We have circled in the river for up to 30 minutes while they reposition a barge on or off their grouping and have been assured that this will be repeated quite frequently and, possibly, for greater time periods. What an education we are getting in all phases of boating.

Along this same route there is a half mile area where a permanent electrical barrier has been installed designed to prevent and the slow the spread of invasive fish species, known as Carp. Boats were only permitted to enter one at a time and we had to stay inside for safety. We recently learned that the Carp could grow to as much as 100 lbs which would create a significant safety problem for boaters. The sound of the boat motors causes to Carp to jump out of the water, oftentimes landing in the boat and causing injury to boats as well as boaters.

At one of our southbound locks, we were advised we would have an approximate two hour delay while a tow with several barges has to separate half of his barges for lock passage…then comes back and get the other half and locks it through…then connects the two halves back together. So, wait we did without incident and made to our tie up rather early for the night.