24 Sep 17 

I was anxious about this next, new phase of our journey, and so was awake for a couple of hours during the night. Nevertheless, we were up at 06:30, in time to see the sun just start to peak over the Lake Michigan horizon. After a quick breakfast, we were off, first to the Monroe Harbor pumpout facility to empty the HTs, thence directly to the Chicago Lock, which separates the Chicago River from Lake Michigan. The lock lowered us about 5 or 6 ft from Lake Michigan into the Chicago River, and then we were cruising the concrete canyons of downtown Chicago, including passing under 42 bridges in the next hour and a half. Since the mast was down and our new air-draft (with radar mast up) is only 12’-4”, we had no problem with the closed clearance (of minimum 17’) under all of these lift bridges, except for one - the Amtrak R.R. Bridge has only 10’-6” of clearance, so we had to wait for a train to pass and get them to raise this bridge about 3’ so we could get under; but this was only a delay of about 5 minutes. After passing through downtown Chicago, the river rapidly becomes an industrial and sanitation canal - hence the name, “Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal”, which connects the Chicago River to the Illinois River. As the architectural wonders of the Windy City drifted into the background, the canal got a bit smelly and started to fill up with barges, left and right, although none of them were on the move. We did not encounter our first tow underway until after the junction of the Cal-Sag Canal (which connects the Calumet River to the Chicago River). After that, it reminded us of the Gulf ICW, with tugs (several of them from Houma and New Orleans, LA) pushing rafts of barges hither and yon. We also passed through the Aquatic Nuisance Electrification Zone (or as the river people refer to it “the Fish Barrier”), where you are warned not to touch the water or stop; somehow, they have electrified the canal to kill any fish, particularly invasive species like the Asian Carp, and keep them from getting into the Great Lakes and decimating the existing local fish stocks. In a few more miles, we were obliged to lock through the Lockport Lock, which lowered us 40 feet into the Illinois River, just above Joliet; we had to wait for one tow headed up-river, before we were allowed in - which cost us about a 1 hour delay. We were tied up at the Joliet City (free) wall at 15:25, tired but happy to have negotiated this first stretch of the rivers without issue. It was hot all day again and hot when we got in, so we ran the generator (and the air-conditioner) for an hour to cool the boat down.

41-31.547’N, 088-05.232’W; Log = 37.0, Sum (2017) = 2180.6 N-m