- Local News for Southern Sailors - April 2002 Next Story
Circumnavigating eastern North America — Chicago to Florida on the Great Loop See Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3
By Ron and Eva Stob
The wind
on Lake Michigan was out of the southeast when we left Burnham Park Harbor, and three- to four-foot waves sloshed against the breakwater as we made our way out. A number of boats milled about the entrance, adding obstacles to the confusion. Aboard our trawler, eight adults and six kids were getting ready to surf to the Chicago River.
I steered the trawler on a course straight into the waves to avoid the inevitable rolling that would occur when we swung north. As a result, however, we were getting farther from the Chicago Inlet, and some of our passengers, already queasy with the rising, falling and twisting motion of the boat — wondered aloud what we were doing.
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 The Anchorage at the Blue Bluff Lagoon near Aberdeen, Mississippi. Ron Stob photos |
As we made the corner around the Chicago River breakwater, the waters calmed, the motley crew relaxed, adults let go their molar grinding grimness, and the boat became a party boat again.
Ahead lay the city, a granite canyon spanned with pewter bridges. Pinnacles of concrete and steel left small trails for people and vehicles. The river, the lowest of all, looked up at everything.
There were fixed bridges to pass under, but our 15.5-foot height was low enough to get under all except the Amtrak Lift Bridge, which raised to let us through. If boaters can't clear heights of 17 feet, they have to enter the Illinois River by way of the Calumet-Sag Channel near East Chicago and Whiting, IN.
In a few miles office space and high-rises yielded to industry with warehouses, tank farms, and material yards. The Chicago River evolved into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, an avenue that carries the burdens of the city to the Gulf of Mexico. Barge traffic became serious. Tows pushing 15 barges negotiated tight river bends. We got out of the way and wiggled into corners to let them pass.
We passed through our first lock on the Illinois River at Lockport, waiting over an hour while a tow split his load and locked through ahead of us. Later that afternoon we arrived at Joliet where we tied to the city wall opposite Harrah's Gambling Casino. We kissed our kids and grandchildren good-bye and got ready to continue our way to the Gulf of Mexico with only one guest aboard.
Despite the obvious industrial nature of the upper Illinois River, great blue herons and common egrets fished along the shore. In another ten miles the Illinois River looked splendid and natural. Limestone bluffs and wooded canyons lined the river.
There were more locks and more tows, but the tow captains are a congenial lot, and if you talk to them, they'll grunt back at you in dialects seldom heard and difficult to decipher. You search for key words: one whistle, "meet or overtake me on the right;" two whistles, "meet or overtake on the left."
At the confluence of the Illinois with the Mississippi River the water was choppy and confused. Small islands, barely visible, were recreational beaches for hundreds of boaters, who were out on the water darting across our bow with skiers in tow.
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Tows are the big attraction on the Mississippi where one pusher may have 36 barges in front of him — six wide, six deep — pushed by a tug with 10,000 horsepower. They're a city block in motion.
We approached the confluence of the Missouri River and the Mississippi. The two rivers came together like a team of horses, snorting and tumbling across a section of rapids opposite the Chain of Rocks shipping canal. This was near the location where Lewis and Clark embarked on their epoch cross-country voyage in 1804.
There were huge locks to negotiate on the Mississippi, then a brief encounter with St. Louis and the Gateway to the West Arch. In order to get into the Tennessee River and the Tennessee- Tombigbee Waterway, we had to go up the Ohio River, trading our downstream current of three knots for an opposing current of the same speed, passing through two locks.
The Kentucky Lock and Dam that begins the Tennessee River is usually busy, so we cruised on ahead to the Cumberland River. The Cumberland is rural and beautiful. We locked through the Barkley Lock and Dam and pulled into Green Turtle Bay Marina late in the day. In a quarter-mile we took the cut over to Kentucky Lake, which is the impounded Tennessee River.
The land is rolling and wooded, the lake deep from one side to the other with numerous coves for anchoring. North of Savannah, Tennessee — the site of the Battle of Shiloh — the shoreline is terraced limestone with cedar, hickory and oaks. Beyond Pickwick Dam and Pickwick State Park, the Tennessee River makes an eastward bend toward Alabama. Yellow Creek comes in from the right and is the gateway to the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Tombigbee River. This pleasure craft route was completed in 1985 and is now the principal way to the Gulf for pleasure craft.
Tombigbee is a linear Jurassic Park with unspoiled landscapes and a virginal aspect, remarkable given that much of the river system was engineered. Some of the largest locks on the inland river waterways are along this route. The Tombigbee visits antebellum towns and meanders lazily southward, joining the Black Warrior to Mobile, AL.
From Mobile you catch the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) going east. This is a pleasant section of waterway. White sand beaches near Pensacola, Panama City, and Apalachicola make this a place to linger and not think about the Gulf of Mexico crossing that's coming up. Cruisers usually prepare for the crossing at Carrabelle and either go all night to Tarpon Springs or Clearwater, or they do it in short jumps...Steinhatchee, Suwannee, Crystal River. Call this section of Florida the armpit or the Nature Coast. It's native Florida without condominiums and domicile-overburdened waterfronts.
The slide down the Florida Intracoastal brings cruisers to Fort Myers, where a left turn takes them across the Okeechobee Waterway and to the east coast at Stuart. Aboard our vessel, high-fives celebrate a passage that began here months ago. Sixty-three hundred miles, 145 locks and a visit to a foreign country will fill your logbook and your personal diary with events that last a lifetime.
The Stobs are the founders of the America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association. Their book, Honey, Let's Get a Boat, details the journey we've been covering in three past issues of Southwinds. The Stobs have produced a large laminated map of the route as well as smaller "PlaceMap" versions. For more information, see www.greatloop.com or call (865) 856-7888. They can also be reached at REStob@greatloop.com. |
Copyright © 2001 Southwinds Media.
All rights reserved. 03.31.02