I was monitoring the weather and river conditions in Illinois, and decided that our best chance to get down the river in the next couple of weeks would be early this week. I’d been watching temperature gauge data from the lock stations, and it looked like the major ice had cleared at least as far as Peoria, and the long term forecast looked benign. There were several nice days with temperatures up to about 10c. River temperatures were well above freezing.
I drove to Ottawa Sunday night, and Monday we had a refrigeration specialist in to recharge the refrigeration system and got it up and running.
After provisioning we prepared to get underway Tuesday and discovered a bad alternator belt, and also that we had no spare. I should have had that on the check list. It’s fortunate that we didn’t have a failure underway. After some running around we sorted that.
This morning we got underway for real, and were stopped by the ice in the harbour. Most of the slips were cleared by a couple of bubblers, and there was open water at the entrance, but in between was more solid than it had been coming in. So we aborted the mission.
It’s probably for the best. Friend Matt was driving up the river and reported heavy pack ice below Peoria.
I’m back home now, and Dean and the comfort dogs are happy spending another couple of weeks at Heritage Harbor. We’ll look for another window closer to the end of the month.
In the meantime shore side life is quite pleasant. Lots of snow here, and I’ve been enjoying time outside with Cheddar. Here we are checking on the little boats last week.
Boating Adventures 