We have not had internet for the past several days.  We were going to rely on Gary’s Hotspot on his T-Mobile phone but his coverage has not been that great.  Pat assures me that will change once we are further south.  I hope so or we may have to come up for another solution for our internet.

I learned a few things in our past few days of travel.  Don’t always trust what is in the Quimby’s.  A marina that we were going to stay at was not open and another that listed a 3 foot minimum depth had plenty of water.  We are currently in Davenport IA at a wonderful marina called Linsay Park Yacht Club.  Mile Marker 484.0.  They just had the marina dredged so there was plenty of water for us.  They have a restaurant on site that we had dinner at.  Very good, big portions and reasonably priced.  They have a bunch of Yacht Club flags there and the one for the SCYC was flying.  Cool!  Here are some pictures of the marina, restaurant and a cool Chris Craft that is next to us:

Marina Office

Restaurant

Chris Craft

Here is a little bit of what has been happening.  On 10/3 we left Pettibone at about 7 A.M.   We were close to Brownsville, MN when we ran into a dredging operation

Dredge

The dredge covered the entire span of the river.  They had their Pilot Boat, which is to the left of the dredge in the picture, take us behind the red marker and show us the way to get around.  They also made sure we had plenty of water so we didn’t run aground.  That was really nice of them.

We made it thru the Lock and Dam #8 around 9 AM.  We had to punch it up as the American Queen was going to be locking thru

American Queen

When we crossed over the state line into Iowa, there was a sign along the bank  that showed that we were crossing the state line.  That was a little weird.  By the time we reached Lock 9, they were having a Safety Meeting!  Didn’t know they had those but glad they do :).  The weather has been not too bad so far.  We arrived at Lady Luck Casino in Marquette IA around 3. We tied up to the Lady Luck Marina gas dock.  It was closed so there is no electric.  But it is only $45 for our size boat and within walking distance to the Casino and town .  A few drawbacks…it is close to a high traffic bridge and the trucks sound like they are J-Braking going over it plus it is also really close to the RR tracks.  Holy Crap!  Could they blow their horns any louder or for any longer?  I didn’t sleep to well that night, between the trucks, the train horns, the music from the Casino and the cat barfing in the middle of the night…..

On the 4th we left at 8 AM.  We had been leap frogging a sail boat for the past few days.  He is one guy pulling a canoe, with a bike and a tarp covering everything.  His boat is called Neverland, he told us he is traveling down to Port St. Joe, FL.  He is gets 20 MPG with his little Honda outboard.  I don’t think we’ll run into him again, after all, he is traveling at 4 knots and we are traveling at 7 knots.  It will be fun to see what kind of boats and people we meet up with on the way.  Everyone we met has sure been friendly.

Smokie is getting braver, he is coming out early in the morning rather than spending the entire day down below.  See Smokie, the Girls aren’t that scary!

Day 4, Smokie shows up

You can also see how we hang our life jackets right by the door.  We make sure we have our life jackets on when ever we are traveling and we step outside of the boat.  Better safe than sorry!

At mile marker 608 there was a ferry crossing

Ferry Crossing

We went thru locks 10 and 11 today.  We floated in 10.  I had my sister-in-law, Martha, ask me why they had us float.  It is easier when there is only one boat and not too much wind to just have us float in the middle of the lock while they raise or lower the water.  We have been doing that quite a bit which is nice.  We stayed at Dubuque Yacht Basin tonight. Pretty shallow.  We stirred up quite a bit of mud.  We have heard from several people that the river is down this year, as we are finding out too.  After we were tied up, we talked to the Captain of American Lady, a dinner boat, he told us where to go to get the boat out in the morning.  He told us that Kevin Rabbit stayed there for a month while he got his boat repaired (our old Pearson).  The Captain also told us Kevin sold the Pearson and is taking someone’s Paddleboat up to NY.  That should be quite an adventure for him.

On the 5th we left around 7:30.  We always have two binoculars handy.  One for Gary and one for me.  As we both have different eye sights and different eye spans, it is much simpler to each have our own binoculars (thanks Dinglers!) As we travel down we are finding that the scenery is pretty much like it is on the Mississippi up north.  A lot of trees and the occasional small town.  We have seen a few interesting items as we traveled.  This was on the roof of one of the buildings in one of the Locks

One of the Lock & Dams

Chair under Trestle

We saw this table and chairs sitting under a train trestle.  No house that we could see.

Smashed Boat

We saw this boat close to the Quad Cities.  Holy Smokes!  What happened to that??

There was another section of river where there were a lot of islands, not many trees on them or anything but one had an old-fashioned street light on it.  It looked like it had a batter pack to turn the light on.  Small island, just dead trees.  Another weird thing.

We stayed at Clinton Marina last night, $62.50.  This is a former Skipper Bobs.  VERY nice marina.  It has a restaurant, bar, laundry and showers.  We decided to do some laundry as it was only $1 a load.  They have a gated dock so we felt very safe.  There are lots of places to walk and a few blocks north of the marina, there are a bunch of fast food restaurant.  Oh yeah, the give you free ice too.  What a deal!

We got a late start this AM but we didn’t have far to go.  It was nice and sunny in the AM but crapped out later, cold, windy, rainy.  Another nice day.  What the heck?  I thought we were heading south to nice warm weather.  Where is it?

We learned today that you should always let the lock know you are waiting.  We got to lock 13, there was a barge coming out and 1 waiting to come in.  Gary figured we were in for a long wait.  While the one barge pulled out, the green light came on (you have to wait for the green light before you enter the lock), I told Gary we should call them to see if there was another barge waiting on the southern part of the dam.  When I called them, they said, “we gave you a horn and a green light, come on in and we’ll lock you down.”  Lucky for us and a good lesson learned.

Today we were passed by a really cool hovercraft.  Looked pretty old but it was really neat.  Flew by us pretty quickly but didn’t even make a wake.  I am learning how to talk to bridges, barges and the locks.  I learned what a 1 and 2 whistle means.  “Stay to my ones or go to my 1 whistle” means stay to the right of me.  This is what the barge Captains tell you. I am doing  a lot of the driving and I let Gary take over for the locks and docking.  Gotta let the guy have a little fun 🙂  We were suppose to stay at Isle of Capri Marina tonight but we found out it was closed even though the Quimby said it was open.  Gary tried to get the boat in the marina but it was so windy and the only spot we could sneak into was in a tight spot so we gave up on that.  It was starting to look pretty nasty out and the winds were pretty brisk.  We checked out some of the marinas in the Quimby’s.  None of them looked too appealing.  Here is a description of how to get into one “Off channel, about even with upstream end of old canal wall that runs down center of river.  Upstream entrance is above rock pile with government light and lateral wall etc, etc.  Really.  That sounds simple and uncomplicated.  Gary decided to put a shout out on 16 and luckily someone answered.  The guy was breaking up pretty bad but he directed us to where we are staying for the night. So glad someone called us back.  Now we are tucked in safe and sound, no trucks, no trains, hopefully no barfing cat.  I am hoping for a good night sleep.

We will be on the hook for the next 2 to 3 days so I might not be able to post.  If I have coverage, which I have had on my phone (Yeah Verizon!), I always do a check in on Facebook.  I am listed as Mary Hermes if you at least want to know where we are. If you send me a friend request, I’ll friend you.

Thanks to those of you who are following our journey, I hope I am not too boring 🙂 Good night 😉