On the Water with As You Wish: Sept 28 Hoppies to Kaskaskia Lock wall

Sept 28

What a difference a day makes. That crazy wind yesterday running against the strong downstream current was creating very choppy conditions on the river. That chop made it very difficult to see all the debris as well as the eddies and swirls. No wind today so much better visibility to those hazards.

The sun rises to a much calmer river at Hoppies

Our group of 4 looper boats left Hoppies at 9AM with a short travel day planned. Roughly 40 miles downstream to where the Kaskaskia river enters the Mississippi. A short way up the Kaskaskia is a lock that allows transient boaters to tie up to their outer wall. Great location out of the current with good wind protection. Only drawback is there is no power hookup and with unseasonably warm and humid upper 80-degree weather it would be nice to run the A/C. May wind up firing up the genny for a bit before bed to cool things down.

About the best thing I can say for the river is the 4-knot current makes for great progress. Look at teh push against this bouy.

My top end speed in static conditions is 9.3 knots at 2600 rpm’s. Today I was turning just 1500 rpm which is normally good for a little over 6 knots, yet we were routinely making 10.5 – 11 knots. Normally we would push to cover more territory with these favorable conditions but there’s a backlog of loopers downstream making it impossible for us to get onto the Paduka town dock until Tues. So, we’re purposely doing some shorter stints to bide our time.

Nothing much of note during our travels today. A few crazy areas where weirs stick out from the banks to channel water into the main river and keep it flushed that generated very turbulent conditions. A few quarries loading barges with stone and of course the requisite tows headed upstream we had to dodge.