Lady V - Great Loop Voyage: DAY 32 - ILLINOIS VALLEY YACHT CLUB TO GRAFTON

Saturday, August 13 (M 167.9 - M 0 = 167.9 MILES)

It was a cloudy morning when we left the yacht club at 6:50 am for the Peoria Lock and Dam just 10 miles away. Three of us are locking through - Imagination, Tosca (a Canadian couple also doing the Great Loop) and Lady V. Once we exited the lock into the canal we had numerous no wake areas when passing tugs and fishing boats. The scenery was quite nice. We requested a bridge opening at the Beardstown RR Bridge (19’). We were not testing our luck. After twenty more miles we were at the Lagrange Lock and Dam at mile 80.1. This is a wicket dam (If the water level is high the doors on this dam are lowered and you can cruise right thru without locking.) and our final lock on the Illinois River. Our wait for a tow to go down was from 1:15 to 3:15. When the tow was finally in the lock we were allowed to tie up to the right descending wall.

It was another lasso job! It was finally our turn at 3:45 pm. We are now on our way to Grafton. There were times we could go fast and times we had to slow up for all of the smaller boats in the water considering that this was a beautiful Saturday. We arrived a the marina in the dark and had to slip the LADY V into a 16’ 6" slip with our beam being 15’ 3". Our large white fenders had to be replaced by the smaller back ones. It was beer and oysters after we docked at the Oyster Bar. This is the end of our travels on the Illinois River. This was a fourteen hour day!