Anyone taking a yacht up to the Great Lakes this season; plans? route?

Well, right now, Alton and Grafton still have no diesel. Can fuel in St. Louis. But then....

Fuel a challenge up the Illinois, but available at Hamm's Holiday Harbor. However, a lot of debris and right now the Illinois is above flood stage so locks beyond Peoria are not operating and a wait of 4 to 5 days. Will be 3 or so by the time you're there, perhaps.

I show Lagrange in service and Peoria operated yesterday, but none of the locks beyond Peoria.

Get this. I just talked to Alton who now has NINE FEET into the harbor. May just keep on chugging, knowing that we have that option. It would be a short, slow run from Melvin Price. Will have Dave make that call.

With their nine feet, do they now have fuel or still not? Not much of a reason to hurry, obviously, as you're going to get stuck on the Illinois.

Thanks for that info. That makes today’s decision a no-brainer. Hoppies tonight and Grafton until...

You keep talking about Hoppies. What is currently open there? I thought they closed.

I spoke to Hoppies yesterday, and they are open, but no fuel as we know. Heritage Harbor Marina up the Illinois has plenty of Diesel as does Illinois Valley Yacht Club if you get to that point of needing fuel. I will probably need to take on fuel around Peoria or shortly thereafter even with the barrels.

Will be interesting to see how long the locks are closed on the Illinois. Heritage Harbor said that they are about 3" from their historically high flood stage, and it's usually about 3-5 days for the waters to recede back to being able to work.

They have a small amount of transient dock space with 50A power, but no fuel. We tied up here and walked to The Blue Owl for lunch.

The “dock” is a mess and isn’t connected to shore. Had to use a little jon boat to get to shore. Huck Finn ain’t got nuthin on us.

There are going to be a lot of you stacked up waiting for things to open and likely having to wait for many tows to go through first. It looks to me like 8 tows went up through Peoria Lock yesterday and will be waiting for things to open up. No telling how many of you reverse loopers will be waiting.

Fuel prices are crazy right now.
https://www.waterwayguide.com/fuel-price-report/14

I have a friend running a tow who was at Grafton earlier today. He’s going to keep us posted, but he said there was a lot of big debris in the water today.

That's what I heard from someone who was in the Peoria area.

I don’t know of any way to know bridge heights than to either guesstimate off river gauges or just waiting to see the gauges on the bridges once you get there.

If your air draft allows getting under the fixed bridge in Chicago, you won’t have any clearance problems ahead of there, unless the flood reaches UGE stage.

You burned 500 gallons from GTB to Kidd’s?

What are you bringing up?

Be careful on the Illinois, this time of year you can have picnic tables, tires, lots of large diameter trees, houses, yes houses from the flooding. We have had tremendous amounts of rain the last 5 days, today was sunny and no rain. I'm in Saint Charles il. The Fox River flood stage is 9.5' were at 11.2' and rising, which dumps into the Illinois River in Starved Rock east of the lock and dam. Chillicothe IL Hamms Harbor will have more debris floating as there is low lying land. Be careful. Have a safe trip.

Cap’n J

Love following your progress & your general posts. You are making great progress and I may make that same trip because I grew up in STL and am thinking of leaving my 54’ there for a season.

Flying out of STL, hopefully the Pasta House restaurant in will be open in either Terminal 1 & Terminal E.

Order the Toasted Ravioli Appetizer, it’s a St Louis Classic. I worked at a Pasta House location in the late 70’s and pretty much every customer ordered them. I can still hear “Trapp on 12”. Meaning “Toasted Ravioli Appetizer for table 12”, and I’d dump the ravioli into the fryer For 90 secs, then drizzle olive oil, parsley, finely grated Parmesan, and put red meat sauce in a dipping bowl. They ain’t really toasted ... but hey.....

wait- did I just hijack this thread? I meant to say after you put the Manhattan to bed.... stop by the Pasta House at STL..... nevermind.

My tow Captain buddy sent me some info that predicted the locks will reopen on Monday. Time will tell.

We called it good in Alton, and I drove home for a few days. Will be watching things and hope to go back on Sunday or Monday.