Friday, October 14, 2011

Got started at 7:15 this morning with lots of wind, and the temp at a chilly 51 degrees.  Throughout the day the skies alternated between mostly sunny and heavily overcast, but we finally ended the day with mostly sunny skies.  We anchored at 4:15, and within half an hour or so it seemed like the wind was dying down for the night, but now as the three of us sit at our computers, Paradise is rolling and rocking from the wind which evidently decided to pick up again.
We only had 3 locks to go through today and, since we didn't have to wait for any significant amounts of time at any of them, we made 77 miles.  We had hoped to stop in Dubuque for a pumpout, fill our fresh water tank, and perhaps spend the night at a marina but the river water is so low that we wouldn't have been able to get to any of the marinas that are still open.  Joe tried phoning and using the marine radio to contact all of the marinas in the area, but most of them didn't even answer.  We think they may have already closed for the season.

We saw some more dredging operations today.  Here is a loaded barge that came from the dredging boat and is on its way to be emptied.

Here's a barge that arrived at an island where it's being unloaded by a bucket thingy (technical term) which then dumps the sand on the ground for the bull dozer to pick up and spread on the dune; you can see the tracks of the dozer.




 



We're approaching Dubuque in this shot.

Sure hope we can find a marina with deeper water soon.  We all need to get some exercise and I need to get out and walk to get my leg muscles built up again.  We discussed taking one of the folding bikes on the fly bridge and riding it around the boat, but decided that wouldn't work out too well.