Livin' Life

Miles Covered:  um 580- to um 546 (74 miles)

Closest towns or landmark (chart): Dubuque, Ia Yacht Club to Savanna, Il riverside (Storm World 1)

Original Post date: June 1, 2009

 Woke up at the Dubuque Yacht Club where we met ‘Duck’ (short for Duckett) who has a house boat and a new set of ‘twins’ (new motors in his boat), it’s a nicer older steel hull  houseboat – I think he has it as a great excuse to have something to work on and place to go to – nice boat.

Once again it was bath time for Tom. He was very adamant about his bath time.
 

 After Tom’s bath, we had breakfast buffet at the Yacht Club, two meals a day seems to the rule so far… beautiful place, nice atmosphere and food – then we find out that they have a new shower facility out back…., so Tom took another one.

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 From there we motored over to the River Museum,  lots of neat wildlife exhibits for the kids and big stuff (old river boats that you can walk through) for the adults – so we spent a couple of hours there.

  Riverboat Crapper

Lock 12 was the easiest yet, its like they opened it just for us and let us through, again – good communication with the lockmaster as the water dropped about 5 feet…

 Just after the lock came Bellevue Iowa – and a burger at the local gas station and grille, pleasant conversation with Jerry and Joyce and the station crew as we all waited for our meals, more nice folks..  As we left the dock two more gentlemen came and talked a while – they had checked out our boat and website and came and chatted a while, folks love to talk about ‘going down the river.’.

With evening approaching these two provided directions to a place 7 miles downriver to spend the night – all the area around Savannah is restricted, army corps of engineers, so we had to make it through and see the red-tower light in front of us before we could stop.

Beautiful area, as it has been for thousands of years I suppose – with the sun at our back the clarity of the shorelines were crystal clear, the water was gentle and everything was comfortable as we found ourselves surrounded in the naturally scenic area.  The seven miles were beautiful and soon we noticed the beacon-light and took to the first inviting beach along the Left of the channel.

Darkness had fallen,

– so we tied to a tree along the channel, walked the beach – and began settling in for the night.

 It wasn’t too long before a storm came rolling in from the West. The storms out here in these parts are fierce especially when accomanied by lightening. We experienced many during our voyage. We were very exposed…..  

 We dropped the curtains around the ‘bird’, secured them with ropes and prepared for the worst as we began a new routine which we referred to as “battening down the hatches.”

Outside it was ‘Storm world’ as Tom would say. The boat shook, lightning lit up the sky and all that you can do is grit your teeth and ride it out, listening as it moves away. It really is an awesome ride. I have a new respect for mother natures furry.