October 20-22, 2022: R & R at the yacht club before making a cost-cutting repositioning trip.
(continued from Henry to Peoria Heights, IL)
Sadly, when we departed Henry Harbor, I didn’t leave my cold behind. I was probably at the peak of it when I arrived at the IVY Club. So, after taking my dogs for a quick walk on the nearest piece of grass I could find, I went to bed. We’d traveled for less than 3 hours and I hadn’t even been at the helm for most of that, but I was exhausted at 12:45 PM.
Here’s Do It Now parked at the first slip at Illinois Valley Yacht Club.
Janet went for a walk. It turns out we weren’t anywhere near Peoria but were closer to Peoria Heights. “Heights” is part of the name for a reason: you have to climb to get there. Janet climbed. She walked around what she later reported as a nice little town with shops and restaurants. Just the kind of place I’d like to walk. If I had the energy to get out of bed.
Slow Recovery
One of the little things I did during those two days at the yacht club was to install the two-sensor (indoor/outdoor) thermometer I’d bought back in Ottawa. But, as you can see here, the two sensors have an average difference of 4°F when placed side-by-side. Which is right?
I mostly stayed on the boat and slept. I felt bad for my companions — Janet and my dogs. I was completely out of it for at least a full day.
I went to the marina office to extend our stay by one day. The office was up in the clubhouse building that had a huge cocktail lounge and restaurant area, all of which were deserted. The first few times I tried to find someone in the office, I had no success. When I finally found someone, they didn’t know how to do my reservation change. They told me to book another night on Dockwa, which I did, but they let it expire. I wound up settling up with them before departure.
Feeling a little better on the second day, I decided to treat myself to a nice, hot shower, which sometimes helps me get through a cold. Only one of the marina’s Ladies Room showers was functioning and I left wishing it had been broken, too. It was, by far, the worst shower I can remember ever having, with low pressure and lukewarm water that made rinsing nearly impossible. I couldn’t wait to get out and wrap myself up in my towel, despite the coolness of the room.
Another thing I did at the yacht club: fix the knots on my fenders. Here’s a before (left) and after (right) shot. YouTube has some amazing videos about tying knots.
Meanwhile, Janet had met the folks in Balclutha Too, a Kha Shing Vista, Steve and Darci. They’d been among the boats waiting for the drawbridge on the day we left Chicago. Their boat was huge — 40 feet — and I was somewhat surprised that they’d made it into the marina given the low water. I wasn’t surprised that they were parked at the other side of the marina where the water was deeper. (I’d stuck my boat hook straight down from our slip to see how far off my depth finder was; it turned out that it read 3-4 feet shallower than the water really was. So when it read 0 feet deep, it was really at least 3 feet deep. Nice to have that wiggle room — and know about it.)
I wound up meeting them in the bar that second night when I went in search of a hot toddy. They were very concerned about the weather, which I’d only glanced at. There was wind and rain in the forecast. Lots of it. They had decided to wait out that weather right where they were. They had Janet worried, too. She figured that if folks in a boat that big were waiting it out, we should wait it out, too.
I wasn’t happy about this. I still had hopes of reaching Paducah before I had to go home for November. While it was okay to lose a day or two here or there, losing close to a week was going to make getting to Paducah impossible. But they were convincing and I didn’t want to make any mistakes with my boat.
But one thing was for sure: I was not going to spend those extra days at the yacht club. It wasn’t as if I had anything against it — it was a nice enough place (despite the crappy shower). But I was trying to maintain a budget and just 5 miles down the river was a free dock in downtown Peoria where some folks we knew were already camped out: Nine Lives and La Principessa. I texted with Connie on La Principessa and she urged us to join them. They were going to wait out that weather, too.
We had some pretty amazing sunrises while we were at IVY Club. This was shot at dawn on October 21.
The Short Hop to Peoria City Dock
So after just two nights at the IVY Club, we prepared to go. I topped off my fuel there, not sure if I’d have another opportunity before Grafton (I didn’t). I also had the waste tank pumped out. We’d already topped off the water. We cruised out at idle speed just after 9 AM for the 5-mile trip.
It was an uneventful. I have zero notes in my logbook and no photos.
Here’s the satellite view I’d looked at with our four boats drawn in. Do It Now is in a slip. The other three boats are (right to left) La Principessa, Black Majik (a sailboat carrying its own stepped-down mast), and Nine Lives. Nine Lives wasn’t even on the dock; they had to come and go from their boat from their upper deck over the rail along the walkway up there.
But it was a surprising arrival. I’d looked at the Google satellite view images of the docks so I knew how they were laid out. There were lots of slips in an enclosed area with just one way in and out. But the slips were tiny. Most of them were far too small to accommodate a boat the size of mine — and my boat is among the smallest on the Loop! But since all of the spots along the long open dock were taken, I had no choice. I wound up backing into one of the outside slips, which were bigger than the inside ones.
Do It Now didn’t fit. I couldn’t back in all the way because the slips had cut corners, designed for bow-in parking. (I’m not even sure why I backed in; I never do that. It might have been because I was fighting the wind and I couldn’t turn around.) The bow of the boat stuck out a good four feet. But the wind was howling and I was tired from even that short trip. So we tied it up where it was. I figured I’d move it later or the next day, when the wind died down.
Moving it became especially attractive when we realized that our power pedestal didn’t work — and the rest of them nearby probably didn’t either.
We were back among friends — sort of. We had to walk all the way down our birdshit-covered dock and around to the other dock to reach Nine Lives and La Principessa, with Black Majik sandwiched in between them. But we were closer to civilization — restaurants, a museum, and shops. At least there was something to keep us busy while we waited out the weather.
Here’s the Nebo log for October 22, 2022. Download a PDF log file with more info. Track Do It Now on Nebo.
(continued in At Peoria, IL.)
