Sandpiper is In The Illinois River

On Tuesday 9/21/04 Bob Billhorn came to our mooring in Monroe Harbor, Chicago for a dinner supplied by Seacooks by Calahan - a very good boat catering service. On Wednesday 9/22/04 Scott Baumgartner pumped our holding tank and wished us well with a supply of head chemicals. We entered the Chicago lock and cleared all the bridges except the Amtrac/Connrail bridge which we called to open for us. Going down the CalSag canal with limstone walls on both sides and push boats and barges four wide we saw America's industrial heartland at work. Arriving at the Lockport lock and dam at 4 pm we waited one and one half hours to enter and were lowered about 65 feet. Very impressive. In the dark John and Joanne Gerlach arrived, walking across a catwalk over the downstream lock gate and climbing down stairs to the wall where we were tied up for the night. Who but John and Joanne would have an adventurous enough spirit to find us and go through all that to find us. The champaigne they brought made it a real celebration.
On Thursday we continued down river finding the industrial area giving way to trees and wildlife and spent the night anchored bow and stern at an island with no name. Friday 9/24/04 we continued down river and went through the lock at Marsailles where we went aground in the pool above the lock. When I told the lock keeper I had a problem he told me he would give me 1 1/2 feet of water and by his magic he did and freed us. We continued on through the lock at Starved Rock and spent the night at Hennipen where we discovered we had an alternator problem so we could not keep a charge on our batteries. The Hennipen Marine Service went out of their way to send our alternator to Peru - paying the service manager's father to drive it there and wait for it. Thanks guys! We have power again.