Kaskaskia Lock to Commerce Anchorage 9/25/17

Kaskaskia Lock wall.

We took Abby over to the boat ramp beside the lock because there is no land access from the float we were tied to.  The picture below was when I was waiting for Debbie and Abby to get back from their walk.  We had breakfast and left around 9:00 AM headed for Little Diversion Channel.  The day went by quickly as we hit up to 14 knots at our usual RPM of 1150 which usually gives us about 9.5 Kts.  That means there is 4-5 knots of current in the might Mississippi.

We arrived at Little Diversion and looked in but decided it wasn't for us.  It's more or less a drainage ditch and not very wide with green water (not the nice kind) and looked buggy and shallow, so we decided to keep going. The boat "Bucket List that we had spent the night with on the lock wall stayed there.   

We met up with a small dredge in the port side of the channel and there was a three wide long tow up-bound taking up all of the rest of the channel.  We decided to wait out until the tow had cleared the dredge and were hovering above the dredge waiting on the tow.  The tow didn't have enough room and actually ran one of the channel markers over with at least one whole line of barges.  Then the dredge starts moving upstream too and we were squeezed between the dredge and the tow.  In hind sight I guess I should have stayed back further but didn't think the dredge would start to move.  We made it but there was a whole audience of people on the dredge (suit looking types with hardhats) watching wide eyed as we went by.  Sorry no time for pictures I was busy!! Lesson learned cheaply.

We were looking for a place to anchor for the night and most people seem to have an aversion to anchoring in the Mississippi.  We found a spot between two wing dams near a beach and out of the way of the tows and out of the big current of the river.  So far I'm very happy with it and we took Abby for a walk via dingy on the beach.  Shrimp for dinner tonight and a nice shower to go with my Mount Gay and Coke.  Life is good.  I found a special on oil for the boat and ordered 40 gallons of it along with 7 oil filters, which I will pick up in Green Turtle Resort next week.

Our Anchorage for the night

Close to shore but protected from the tows