Ottawa IL

 We traveled with a group of 8 looper boats today for 7 hours and went through 3 locks to arrive here at Heritage Harbor in Ottawa Illinois. Just traveling with that many boats is exhausting but the locks love being able to send all of us through in one trip.  Usually 3 boats got to tie off at the wall and the rest of us “rafted” on which means we pulled up along side another boat and tied our lines to their cleats as if it was a lock wall. We were very fortunate and did not have to wait at all for any of the locks, but just the logistics of securing that many boats and then huge drops takes so long!

The weather was grey, cold and rainy today which added to the stress of doing so much work outside the boat.  My hands were actually cold which hasn’t happened in a long time… There were a few tugs and barges on the river today, but nothing terrible.  We are tucked safely inside the marina and it is a nice one! We went up to the restaurant and ate an early dinner with two other couples and then attended a  navigation talk by the harbor master which lasted 2 hours…. He talked us through the navigation from here to Paducah and told us all the things to watch for, be careful of and where to stay down river.  Good information, but I thought I was going to fall asleep I’m so tired.

We are staying 2 nights here so tomorrow morning Kathy and I will use the courtesy car to make a Walmart run and stock up on anything we will need for the next leg of the trip. It will feel good to have a “boat” day to do some cleaning and organizing too.