Day 448 – October 18th 2023

We left the Kaskaskia Lock wall at 7:00AM and headed out. Today we are going to an anchorage down the river. The anchorage is on the Mississippi River near the I57 bridges. It’s a protected anchorage behind a series of wing dams.

There are thousands of wing dams on the Upper Mississippi. Wing dams were originally constructed to reduce the amount of dredging required. They force water into a fast-moving center channel.

We traveled all day and got there at 5:10pm. A really long day!!! 115 miles that normally we could not do but with the benefit of the strong current we traveled several knots faster than normal. Lots of barge traffic on the river today.

We decided to anchor above the bridge where another boat was already set. While we were setting our anchor, the boat High Five that was traveling with us ran hard aground on the submerged portion of a wing dam. Their boat wouldn’t move!!!! They were stuck!!! They called for a tow boat to get them off but no one could come til the next day!!! So they would have to sit there for the night. They were safe and calm but certainly uncomfortable with the situation.

They decided to drop their anchor because passing barges were waking them. They were afraid that they may get rocked off the wing dam during the night and get washed down the river into more serious problems.

We went in side to fix dinner and while we were in we got rocked horribly by two barges that passed under the bridge at the same time. We had to hold on inside our boat. But their big wakes knocked High Five off the wing dam!!! He was able to crank both engines and move to a safe spot to anchor for the night. Thank goodness every thing looked fine and no one was injured.!!! He’s pretty sure he’s damaged the underside of his boat, but a good fiberglass repairman can fix that right up!!

Now we all could get a good nights sleep. The tow boat for tomorrow was canceled!!!