October 20, 2017 Saturday
Four Looper boats spent Thursday evening at Hoppie’s, the crews on s/v Seaductress and m/v Grayling were up at the crack of dawn preparing for a 110-mile day while the crews on Courageous and Andiamo opted for a less stressful 42 miles, which will mean a 68-mile day on Saturday.
While we were cruising to Hoppies, we heard an announcement that said the Mississippi River would be closed starting October 17 from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, but the announcement didn’t say for how long and we do not travel on rivers at night. This closure was just 12 miles south of Hoppie’s and at her briefing Fern suggested that someone call the Coast Guard to check on the closure. We tried to call, no answer. On the web, it said the river would be closed but didn’t say for how long or for whom. What to do? We knew that m/v Wandering Star just went through that area so we contacted Pat and she said they had no problem. As far as we could determine it was closed to commercial traffic from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm but not to recreational vessels. Both s/v Seductress and m/v Grayling called to let us know they had no problem so forward we marched, make that cruised, on down the Mississippi. Turns out, they were stringing a cable across the river and commercial traffic was restricted to nighttime hours.
At the Kaskaskia Lock in Modoc, IL we were allowed to tie to the wall as long as we didn’t leave trash or go up the ladder to the dam. So, for our first “locktails” we joined m/v Courageous crew Terry & Joanne and m/v Blue Haven crew Allen & Lila on Courageous. It was a splendid evening with a beautiful sunset. The highlight of the evening was when Captain Terry sang his newly penned song of finishing the loop. This was especially meaningful to Rick and I since we expect to “Cross our Wake” in less than a week.
