| Date: | Tuesday, August 19, 2003 |
| Today's Route: | Lake Michigan to Calumet River & to Harborside Marina |
| Today's Mileage: | 115 |
| Total Mileage: | 115 |
| Hours for the day: | 14 hours |
After fueling up we left the dock around 8:00 AM. We go about a mile off shore and head south.
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Leaving North Point Marina, heading south, Lake Michigan. |
View of downtown Chicago. |
The Calumet River, originating in the east end of Gary, Indiana, flows 13 miles through the heavily industrialized cities of Gary, East Chicago and Hammond. The majority of the river's flow drains into Lake Michigan via the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, sending about one billion gallons of water into the lake per day. If the boat was smaller, we could have entered the Illinois River from downtown Chicago. However, because of bridges, we had to take the Calumet River.
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Calumet River harbor entrance. |
Calumet River harbor entrance. |
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This is the first of many bridges we had to wait for. |
There was a tremendous amount of barge traffic in this area. |
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| Our first lock out of 26 locks we would go through. The Thomas O'Brien Lock and Dam. It only had a 2' lift. In at 2PM and out at 2:40 PM. | This was the only major obstacle we would encounter. The bridge above is a FIXED bridge at 19' 1". It is non-functional and is frozen in the closed position. The height of our boat is 19'. Since Lake Michigan's lake levels were down 5 feet, I called the Illinois River Authority and asked about the river level, hoping it would also be down. The person told me that the river levels have no bearing on the lake level. Before leaving the marina, we removed the radar unit and anchor light as we would never make it. |
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| We had to wait in this hole on the right for two tows to go through. One tug had a retractable wheelhouse. So before it got to this fixed bridge, the captain merely lowered his wheelhouse and went through to the other side. Other tugs that did not have a retractable wheelhouse, would push the barges under the bridge and another tug on the other side would pick it up. After a 30 minute wait, we inched ourselves up to the bridge. Creeping ever so slowly, we passed under the bridge with about 3 inches to spare. If we couldn't pass, we would have had to go back a few miles to a place where we could tie up and remove the large fiberglass arch which would probably have taken a half day. | This tug has a retractable wheelhouse and is able to go under low bridges. |
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| Lockport Lock and Dam. In at 7PM and out at 7:35PM. This lock had a 42' drop. | Lockport Lock and Dam |
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| Lockport Lock and Dam. The lock level is slowing going down.... | ...and down, and down! The drop on this dam is 42'. |
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First leg of our route. |
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| Kind of dark, but this is lock #3, Brandon Road Lock and Dam. We arrived at 8:05 PM and were out at 8:30 PM. This lock has a life of 34'. | We finally reached our first stop, Harborside Marina, in Wilmington Il. at 10 PM. Unfortunately, there are not many fueling or overnight accomodations along the inland riverways. We had to keep going until we could find one. |
