Because of several Illinois Lock Closures due to rebuilds, we must get south prior to July 1. We have decided to stage in Alton Marina for the summer.  We are leaving Spring Brook Marina, Seneca, IL, our home port at 7 AM heading to IV Yacht Club in Peoria, IL. Trip uneventful - we went thru two locks - Marseilles and Starved Rock with very little delay. There was almost no boat traffic. We arrived at IV at 3:00 PM having traveled 84 miles.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mobile Bay - Intracoastal Waterway to Orange Beach, AL

Image
 We left our anchorage at Big Bayou Canot at 6:20 AM, Big Bayou is at MM16. Heading South the Tombigbee River ends at MM 0. It turns into Mobile Bay which is MM 127. The topography instantly changed. We started to see Palm Trees on shore, a few dolphins and the water turned from dirty brown to clear. Mobile Bay was very busy. Shipyards, Container ships etc. We had to stay alert. We were suddenly in civilization after the desolate Tombigbee. These warships are huge! We worked our way through Mobile Bay and instead of taking the channel down the west side to the mouth of Mobile Bay we took a bit of a shortcut across ending up at the east side of the mouth to  enter into the Intracoastal. We watched our charts closely as Mobile Bay has some very shallow sections. Halfway through this "shortcut" we could see on our AIS system we would be joined by some looper friends. "Lady C" who we met in Alton this summer...and "Gemini Gypsy" who we met when we were held up...
Read more

HISTORY OF THE TENN-TOM WATERWAY

 It is amazing how relatively unknown the Tenn-Tom Waterway is to the U.S. public - including the crew of Talisman. The Tenn-Tom Waterway is the 253 mile stretch of river from Tennessee mile 450.7 to Demopolis, AL at mile 217. Note - at Demopolis, the river turns into the Black Warrior-Tombigbee all the way to Mobile. The Tenn-Tom connects the Tennessee River to the Tombigbee. Prior to this the waterways were not connected. The Tenn-Tom shortened the trips for vessels by as much as 720 miles. Vessels going from Pensacola, FL to Chattanooga, TN only have to travel 771 miles via the Tenn-Tom instead of 1541 miles via the Mississippi River. In addition, vessels could avoid the swift currents of the Mississippi when north bound. The first engineering investigation proposed for this waterway was in 1874-1875. After various proposals were rejected, finally in 1946 Congress approved the waterway. There was strong opposition causing delays, delays, and delays. Construction finally began in...
Read more
Image
 OUR SUMMER IN ALTON MARINA, ALTON, IL We took the 3 1/2 hour trip from home ( Morris, IL ) to the boat  every two weeks all summer. In Alton, we  did maintenance items, had fun and met some really great people on J-Dock. Mary and Dale on "The Marydale" and Blake and Julie on " It's a Wonderful Life"  provided cooking tips and great entertainment. Special thanks to Mary, Julie, Penny and Nancy for recipes and advice on cooking in my micro/convection oven. The ladies from J dock are going to make sure Doug does not starve! In Alton, we had a bimini made for the back seating area ( for those sunny Florida Days ) and we also participated in " the Blessing of The Fleet". Our Friends, Tony and Beth Aussem, from Lees Summitt, MO visited one weekend. Had fun exploring Grafton and riding the car ferry. Our friends, Darren and Heather Melvin graciously came with us to Alton the last time and took our car back to Morris. Somehow we didn't get a picture, but ...
Read more