Ottawa, IL – Peoria Heights, IL, September 5, 2008

We woke today to cloudy skies but no rain. We decided to continue our trip and hope the rain stayed away. We got underway at 9:15 and got to the first lock about 10:00. We just missed an opening, however when we called, found there wouldn’t have been room for us. 4 pleasure boats were able to lock through with the last half of a tow.

Apparently pleasure boats are referred to as “Weekend Warriors” by the locks and tows. We heard the Lockmaster today tell a tow that he was going to fill up the lock and get another Weekend Warrior (us) through the lock before taking the northbound tow.

After about a 90 minute wait we were able to lock through. We were the only boat in the lock. Fortunately, it is now 74 miles before there is another lock.

The down river current certainly helps our speed. We were able to average 10 mph today and after exiting the lock, a combination of river current and current from the dam got us to an amazing 11.7 mph for a couple minutes.

We’ve heard some tows on the radio talking about how the heavy rain we have had has raised the river 3 ½’. We really have to keep an eye out for debris.

We went under several high clearance bridges. Most bridges with clearances less than 30 ft. have gauges with markings that show the clearance. You just read the depth indicated where the gauge enters the water and that indicates the bridge clearance. This bridge had a 65 ft clearance today. We hope the water level never gets to where it would have only a 20ft clearance.

We had some excitement here yesterday. After we docked, Darrell went to plug in shore power. Beth was in the salon and heard strange (bad) noises, along with a smell and a smoky haze in the aft cabin. We worried for a while that the inverter had burned up. Further investigation by Darrell found that the source of the problem was a cooked diode in a power strip.

Tonight we’re staying at the Ivy Yacht Club in Peoria Heights, IL. We were tied up by 6:15 p.m. A long day.

1 lock – total 81