Today was a pretty easy day with one exception. That would be the nearly 4 -hour delay getting through the Marseilles lock. When we called the lockmaster about a half an hour out he let us know that he was just starting to work a commercial barge and it would take several hours. He asked that we anchor at a spot a mile or so away. Which we were glad to do. The five boats each picked a spot to drop the hook, and then we just waited. Deb and I both got some music practice and and then I crashed for a while to try and catch up on a little sleep.
Fortunately, the Heritage Harbor Marina turned out to be a delightful place that has close ties to the Alton Marina that will be First Light's home. We were also able to attend a briefing on the route down the river. Something very helpful since we haven't been this way before. Bryce is a life-long river captain, and is now the TowBoat Captain who knows the river. It was very helpful but also reinforced something that I have started to realize. Hard-core river travel isn't really “pleasure boating”. It is more like mountain climbing. You don't do it for fun. Also, and to to my surprise, there are long stretches of the river that are much more remote than I would have guessed seeing that we are in the middle of the populated part of the country. Services are few and far between and some careful planning is required. Something I don't recall as being much of an issue when we did the ICW in Kintala. But we are in the final stretch and home is feeling really close.
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