Rollin' on Down the Mississippi

Photo Credit: Selah Way

This blog takes us down the Mississippi River from the confluence at the Illinois River to where the Ohio River flows into the Mississippi, where we turned up stream. It's funny how you can worry for months about boating on the Mississippi, and then it can be over in just five travel days. The concerns are the barge traffic, taking the right cut off, and dealing with currents and eddies. The largest tow we saw was five barges wide by six long - HUGE! That's bigger than three football fields lined up end to end. A tow of that size could carry as much as 2100 semi trucks! As for the current and the eddies, we felt them, but they were quite manageable and bad areas were marked on the charts or the Skipper Bob notes so they did not catch us by surprise. We did try to capture the eddies in some photos but it's hard to see.

Our first day on the Mississippi River was just a "taster" at only 14 nautical miles but in total over the five days we travelled 193 nautical miles on the Mississippi River, plus an additional 14 miles on the Ohio River. Our most notable landmark was the Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri and you can see a shot of our boat passing the 630 foot arch above. All the boats buddied up so we each to someone's picture and had someone take ours. Heather went a bit crazy, photographing at least half of the boats in our flotilla on the big camera. Our stops alternated from Illinois to Missouri, depending on which side of the river we stayed on, and then we finished in Kentucky.

Grafton to Alton, Illinois

Our first day was from Grafton to Alton, Illinois, which is a fairly short distance so we took our time getting away, leaving around 10 AM. The view on the Mississippi was beautiful! The bluffs reminded us of the Hoodoos in Banff, Canada. This was our first day using Aqua Maps and we were glad we had it. The magenta line on the chart cut through a very shallow area that was shown on Aqua Maps but not on

Navionics. Unfortunately, we were passing a tow so we had to stay in the shallow water but Cam put the engines in neutral and we floated through. On our journey, we passed a shrine called Our Lady of the Rivers. It is in this location because it is close to three rivers: Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri. They do the annual blessing of the fleet at the shrine.

We arrived in Alton and did a fuel up and pump out before heading to our slip. This was the first time we, actually Cam, had to pump our own fuel! It was windy and challenging to get into the slip but folks came out to help, thankfully! We rode our bikes to the Mel Price Lock & Dam with Karen and Rob for a tour. It was very interesting but our guide was a little mis-informed on some things. The next

morning Karen and I got a lift to the grocery store for provisioning while Cam got the air conditioning fixed on our boat. Yay!

For docktails, we hosted a meeting by the pool for everyone leaving the next morning. We discussed timing and logistics, plus communication with the lock. There should only be one person contacting the lock so Cam volunteered to do it, but the group decided that a woman should make the call so Heather ended up in charge of that. That morning, whoever called the lock, managed to get the lock master upset with him and they ended up having a two or three hour delay. We would be expecting 10 boats in the morning! No pressure!

Alton, Illinois to Kimmswick, Missouri

Heather called the Mel Price Lock in the morning and was told there were two tows going southbound and we would lock through as number three. We were told to move out of the marina so we could be seen and the lock master kept their word. That surprised us as commercial traffic is supposed to have priority. Eleven of us finished locking through by 9 AM.

This stretch of the Mississippi was one we had worried about for a long time as the previous year a sailboat missed the turn to the Chain of Rocks Canal and ended up on the rocks. We were fine. We had anticipated it and there was plenty of signage directing us so it was not a problem. At the end of the canal was the Chain of Rocks lock. It had two chambers

so a tow was driving into the large chamber on the left while we entered the small chamber. After exiting the lock, we turned a bend and had our first view of the Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri.

We pulled into Hoppies Marina for the night around 2 PM. Hoppies is a series of three barges, and it has a small enclosed

area in the middle where the owner's daughter did a chart briefing with us for the upcoming section. Unfortunately, she told us that one of our intended anchorages was too shallow so we had to come up with a new plan for that. Unlike other barges we have tied to for the night, this one had both power and water. Luxury! There were seven boats there for the night.

In the town of Kimmswick, we enjoyed a meal at the Blue Owl along with the crews of Skafos and Off Leash. It was great food and there was amazing pie for dessert. They are most famous for their Levee High Apple Pie. Then we wandered around town, visiting the shops. We even stopped into the La Chance Winery, which looked like a log cabin from the outside, and we had a wine tasting there. The winery was built around 1770 and apparently, Ulysses S. Grant frequented the establishment when he was stationed at Jefferson Barracks.

Kimmswick, Missouri to Kaskaskia, Illinois

The next morning, people were eager to get out of Hoppies and the last boat in had to be the first out so we were out second. We ended up in the lead again. That means blazing the trail, watching for tows and calling them, and communicating with the locks. It can be a little tiring always being on point. Our plan was to stay at Kaskaskia lock for the night. We called them and they said we could anchor either above or below the lock, so we chose below. However, as we arrived, the dredge said he didn't want us there so suddenly we were locking through to the top of the lock. It didn't look that appealing below the lock anyway with all of the dredging equipment there. We ended up being very happy with our peaceful anchorage at the top of the lock in front of the dam. We were with Off Leash, Escape, Trouvaille, Beyond, and Sea Bear.

After we were settled, we went around in our dinghy to visit the other boats. When we got to Escape, they said they were afraid that their dinghy wouldn't handle the current so we took Dianne and their Havanese dog, MacKenzie, to shore. That was a great puppy fix! While there, Heather was stung twice through her pants by a wasp! While it hurt, it was better in a couple of hours. We enjoyed the walk on terra firma and Don from Beyond joined us with his Black Lab for a walk too.

Kaskaskia, Illinois to Little Diversion Canal in Missouri

We had intentions of locking back down in the morning at 7AM, but there was thick fog! At times we couldn't even see the lock or dam which was only a couple hundred feet away from us! The fog finally started to burn off and we headed for the lock at about 8:20 AM, after a couple of tows locked through.

Off Leash took the lead that morning but they let us go into the Little Diversion Canal ahead of them. We were glad they did so we could warn them about the stong current at the entrance that actually twisted our boat. Willn' Joy and Serenity II were already anchored and rafted at the far end just in front of the bridge. We anchored to the south side, backed down on our anchor, and then put out a stern anchor. We let the dinghy down and helped a few other boats with their stern anchors. After our work was done, we went over to say hello to our friends on Willn' Joy and Serenity II and ended up climbing aboard for a drink and a visit.

Little Diversion Canal (Missouri) to the Olmsted Lock (Kentucky)

We decided to weigh anchor at 8 AM. Cam removed the bridal on our bow anchor first and then went to pull in our stern anchor. Much to our surprise, the stern anchor was essentially hanging like a weight from our stern and not hooked, but we hadn't moved all night! Dumb luck! Dennis from Trouvaille took the lead today. Beyond got underway very early so they were well ahead of us. The plan was to anchor at the Angelo Towhead at mile 1.5 of the Mississippi River. Beyond was anchored there already and giving us the lowdown when a dredge moved into position in front of the entrance. Trouvaille hailed the dredge to see if we could get past him into the Angelo Towhead and he said "Negative, Negative, Negative!" So Karin from Trouvaille called the Olmsted Lock and they invited us to anchor before the lock on the Kentucky side. After we made our plans and had gone past, the dredge made room for us to get in but all the boats made the decision to continue to the lock.

The barge traffic at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers was intense. None of them responded when we hailed them so we just kept a close eye on them and made our decisions for navigating around the barges based on their movements. It was a long 7 hour day on the water so we were very happy to drop anchor. We were behind some barges that were docked on the Kentucky side and there was a beach so the dog owners could get their dogs to shore. That night we had a great view of the night sky and saw the moon so clearly in the binoculars!

So after all our planning, and concerns about the Mississippi River, it was done! Surprisingly, the hardest part of those five days was the barge staging area right after we turned onto the Ohio River. There is no doubt that it pays to be prepared.

Watch our video on this area called We Pass the St Louis Arch! Next up, we head up river on the Ohio River and discover what would be one of our favourite towns on our whole Great Loop.