Thursday, October 21, 2021 (Modoc, IL - outside Cairo, IL)

We had a fantastic nights sleep last night.  No barge traffic through the lock and dam all night.  We are still boating with the same 3 other boats and know that it will be a long day.  Jim checks the oil most mornings down in the engine room.  If the boat needs more oil all he needs to do is place a hose into the oil container, push a lever for which engine needs oil and turn a pump on!!!!  No muss, no fuss!!!


We progressed down river all day with hardly anything to report.  Nothing but barges tied to the side of the water.  However we are seeing more and more dredging equipment. 



The trees are green but I am missing my favorite season at home with the fall colors and falling leaves. But….. not missing it so much that I want to go home.  LOL!!!





The sandy beaches look so inviting!  However on we go as we are getting closer to our first anchorage.  This basically is finding a spot out of the wind, current and main channel.  We drop anchor and pray it holds.  Jim and I found a spot and dropped anchor hoping that it would hold so that the other 3 boats can join us.  Didn’t happen!!!  It was decided that we would try another area further down river but our windless (the motor to release and bring the anchor back up into the boat) could not bring the anchor back up.  The only thing we thought was that it was stuck in the mud and muck and would not release.  So, one of our companion boats helped us out.  We needed to manually pull the large chain up out of the water.  Chris was an amazing powerhouse in helping Jim get the anchor back onto the boat.  I was at the bridge moving the boat forward inch by inch.  We couldn’t have done it without her help!!



We were burning daylight fast and needed to get anchored somewhere before dark.  The other 2 boats found a very smooth water inlet and their anchors were holding.  



The above pictures show us following Sea Major into the outlet.  Anchors went out and they held.  However that doesn’t mean you are going to sleep very much because you are constantly checking to be sure the boat has not moved.  The water was the smoothest we have had so far!  Jim and I slept on the bridge for awhile and took some amazing pictures of the moon.


I have got to hand it to Jim as I always teased him about all of the items he continued to purchase before our adventure began.  But some of those little items really came in handy.  We turned off our generator during the night in order to conserve fuel but you need to have navigation lights on at all times.  So, he purchased a solar flood light for the front of the boat and small battery lights for the sides and back of the boat.  They were awesome!!


Just the right amount of light all around the boat.  I am not looking forward to the night and this is my least favorite evening.  I hope you have a good nights sleep…..



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