Chicago to Joliet, IL

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October 15, 2022: A trip down the Chicago River, Sanitary and Ship Canal, and Illinois River from Chicago to Joliet, IL.

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(continued from A Stay in Chicago)

It took some doing, but we caught up with Kim and Ted in Pony outside the breakwater that separates DuSable Harbor from Lake Michigan. We then made our way to the Chicago Harbor Lock, which separates Lake Michigan from the Chicago River.

It wasn’t always that way. Years ago, the Chicago River flowed right into Lake Michigan. Trouble is, Chicagoans dumped their waste into the river and that waste went into the lake — which is also where they got their drinking water. The fix was to change the flow of the Chicago River so it flowed down into the Illinois River through the manmade Sanitary and Ship Canal. A lock at the mouth of the Chicago River prevents river water from freely flowing into Lake Michigan. (You can learn more about all this in this short and kind of amusing YouTube video. )

Along the way, we took photos of each other’s boats against the Chicago skyline and texted them to each other. That’s what buddy boats do.

Here’s the picture I took of Pony as we waited to get into the lock.

And here’s the photo Kim took of Do It Now while we waited.

Cruising through Chicago

Finally, we got into the lock. This was my first lock on the river system and Janet’s first lock ever. It was different from the locks I knew from the Erie Canal, but we figured it out. Janet held the line while I waited to start the boat. I honestly didn’t even notice the drop in water level. Then the gates opened and all the boats that had gone in — I think there were five of us — drove out. I held back and let Pony take the lead.

The view from the Command Bridge as we started up (down?) the Chicago River. That’s Pony ahead of us.

The next half hour was one of the highlights of the trip so far: cruising down the Chicago River through Downtown Chicago. Dozens of bridges, hundreds of tall buildings. So much to see. Such a weird scene. It was a Saturday so there was considerable boat traffic — but not not nearly as much as there likely was on a typical summer Saturday. Still, there was some sort of sailboat regatta going on in the river and we passed through a big knot of sailboats — one of them piloted by the neighbor who had given us the pressure washer adapter to clean my anchor locker the day before. We waved and shouted enthusiastically.

Kim got this great shot of us coming down the river in Chicago.

Soon we left the big buildings behind us and were motoring through less populous areas. We were among fewer boats, too — the local boats seemed to stick around closer to the city and lake. And then, up ahead of us, was a bridge that was definitely too low to go under without the bridge being lifted. It turned out to be the Amtrak Bridge, with a vertical clearance of only 11.1 feet. All the boats coming down the river with us slowed to a stop in a relatively narrow stretch between that bridge and the Eighteenth Street Bridge we’d all just gone under.

I took the opportunity to get a good look at the handful of boats around us. They were mostly cruising boats similar to ours but Do It Now was definitely the smallest. Pony, two feet longer than us, was the second smallest. All of the others were larger. One, named Balclutha Too, was tied up at wall alongside the river at what looked like a park. I figured they’d stopped for lunch or something, but as the wait for the bridge to open got longer and longer, I began to suspect they knew something we didn’t. It turned out that due to work on the bridge, they were only opening it with two-hour notice. I don’t think any of us had called ahead, so we were now waiting for them to open it whenever they wanted to.

A few boats seemed to get tired of waiting and turned around to get back to the city. That left just the boats that had to keep going south — Loopers and what I have to assume were deliveries. (Folks with big boats and lots of money that want their boats south for the winter hire boat captains to move the boats for them. We saw a few of these guys along the way. The run at high speed — they’re not paying for fuel! — and cover a lot of miles. One delivery guy I spoke to said he could get from Chicago to Florida in about a week.) Then, after at least 30 minutes cruising around in circles in a tight area, trying to avoid hitting other boats, the bridge started to lift. One by one, we slipped underneath and continued south, drawing a lot of angry, profanity-laced shouts from workers at a yacht yard we passed; none of us had seen any No Wake signs.

The boats began to spread out, with obvious deliveries leaping out in front of us and disappearing into the distance and more seasoned cruisers following along at a much slower pace. We were somewhere in the middle.

Here’s a look back toward Chicago’s downtown when we were leaving the city behind us.

The Near Miss

We followed Pony down into the Sanitary and Ship Canal. Honestly, I’m not even sure where it started because it didn’t seem much different from the canyon-like Chicago River we’d been in. The waterway was narrow with steep sides and no real options for pulling over. There were still bridges, but they were less frequent. One of them was the infamous Contrail CSX Railroad bridge — at a fixed height of 17.6 feet, it determines the maximum height of any boat coming down the Loop. (Do It Now tops off at under 14 feet with its mast and Bimini top frame up.)

Then, up ahead of Pony, I caught sight of the first barge we’d have to pass. I even took a picture of it. And this is where I made my first, nearly very serious mistake: I passed it about 100 feet behind Pony.

Here’s Pony with the barge we passed. What was I thinking?

Keep in mind that this was the first time I’d passed a barge so I really had no idea what to expect. I do now. Barges can have two wakes: bow wake from the front of the barge plowing through the water and stern wake, mostly from the tugboat pushing the barge’s powerful engines. The Sanitary and Ship Canal is very narrow. Although there was plenty of room to pass the barge, I didn’t account for the affect of the wakes from Pony (ahead of me), the barge’s bow, and the tugboat’s stern. So about halfway past the barge, I was caught in a maelstrom of waves that made my brand new (to me) boat nearly impossibly to control, swinging us dangerously close to the rocky canal wall and then toward the barge and then toward the canal wall again. The thought that raced through my mind at that point was: Holy crap. I’m going to crash my new (and very expensive) boat.

Meanwhile, behind me in the galley, things were crashing and Janet was hanging on and making noises. She had just finished making a delicious looking cheese and cracker plate — I wish I had a picture of that — and it ended up on the floor. I didn’t pay attention to any of that. I knew I needed speed to get me out of the mess I was in and Pony was in the way. I grabbed the radio’s microphone and yelled into it, “Pony, go faster!”

Ted obliged. I pushed the throttle forward, got better control of the boat, and followed Pony past the barge.

Shit. It had been close. So close, in fact, that there were branches and leaves and some kind of berries in the back of the boat from the trees we’d brushed against on shore. If the canal hadn’t been deep all the way to the edge, we likely would have torn the hull open on rocks. What’s the saying about God watching over idiots?

Janet was terrified. I knew this because she told every single person she spoke to on the phone or texted or met along the way for the next week.

I’d been terrified, too, but once I was passed it, I was just angry. I should have realized there would be a problem. I shouldn’t have followed so closely behind Pony. I should have waited for Pony to pass and get clear. I’d been caught up in the adventure and sheer joy of the day and hadn’t thought out a maneuver I should have taken a lot more seriously.

Lesson learned. Really. Lesson learned.

Sadly, as far as Janet was concerned, the damage was done. She was afraid to pass any barges for the next week — and we had to pass quite a few. It wasn’t until she was at the helm days later and I wouldn’t take over for her — forcing her to make the pass (with my guidance) — that she settled down.

The problem hadn’t been passing the barge. The problem had been passing the barge in such a tight channel with another boat blocking the way.

Again, lesson learned.

A Difficult Lock

Things settled down after that. I think we were both coming down off some sort of high after our terror. Janet picked up the cheese plate contents from the floor and put them back on the plate, removing the pieces with the most dog hair on them. We ate the rest.

We moved along quite smoothly until we got to the Lockport Lock — our second for the day. That’s where my boat maneuvering skills and Janet’s locking skills were put to the first real test.

The first challenge was the wait: we had to wait for the lock to open for us. I can’t remember why there was a wait, but I know that we waited for quite some time because I have the track my boat traced on Aqua Map to prove it. I had to move around because we were waiting with other boats — at least Pony and Nine Lives — and we were all moving around, trying not to get blown into each other.

Because it was also windy. Very windy. And that wind is what gave Janet the biggest challenge once we got into the lock. A “helpful” lock tender had fastened a line around the floating bollard there for Janet with two loops, but he did not allow the boat to get close to the lock wall when he did it. As a result, there was about 4 feet of slack in the rope. The boat, equipped with a sail-like bimini top, kept pulling away from the wall. Janet was frantically trying to keep it against the wall, using all of her weight on the line to do so.

To make matters worse, the lock master had told Pony to raft up against us. So poor Janet was trying to keep the weight of both boats, pushed by the wind, against the wall. She was freaking out and the only thing I could do to help her was use the bow thruster to push us closer. It didn’t work well when I did it alone, but when Ted did it with me from Pony, we gave her some relief.

In the end, Janet was frazzled nearly as much as she’d been after our close encounter with the tug. For her, the trip was getting off to a very bad start.

Cruise to Joliet

The rest of the ride was uneventful. I honestly can’t remember much of it. We arrived at the free wall at Joliet with Pony and pulled up alongside it to dock. Two other boats — sailboats, if I remember correctly — were already there. We tied up and were fortunate enough to have power at the power kiosk for our boat. Pony was not. They had to move to a different spot.

It was a neat spot along the Illinois River, close to passing barge traffic which (fortunately) observed no wake rules for the area. The trees in the adjacent park were in peak fall colors, with lots of reds, oranges, and yellows. We wound up staying for two very uneventful days.

Pony at Do It Now along the free wall at Joliet, IL. What a pretty spot in mid-October!

Here’s my Nebo log for October 15, 2022. Download a PDF of the log with more info. Track Do It Now on Nebo.

(Continued in Joliet to Ottowa, IL.)