We left Hammond yesterday morning and made it to Joliet by 8pm. I wanted to write about our adventure but decided to have a few drinks instead. Then I fell asleep.
Greg made a video last night, though, so if you want a taste of how things went, check out Shocking Discovery.
We’re still on one engine half of the time, but when the water is calm and there’s no wind, it really isn’t that bad.
There is the danger that the other engine will go, but will cross that bridge when we come to it.
Bridges
Speaking of bridges, there’s a lot of them on the Des Plaines River. If you’re too tall to fit under one, you hail the bridge and ask the bridge master to raise it. Or you say, “Hey, I can make it,” and you just keep going.
The book said Ruby was 17’1″. We clear 17’6″. We’re lucky the water levels were low or we might have lost the Garmin. And maybe my head. I was on the top surface of the boat standing next to the radar dome pole, calling down to Greg that I wasn’t sure we were going to make it.
I was crouched down and the antennae tips were pinging off the bottom of the bridge. By this time we couldn’t stop since we were on one engine and a hard stop would have started us spinning under the bridge. I think I would have been in the water for sure at that point.
It really looked like we were going to make it.
Nope.
We scraped the radar dome on one of the girders and then we were clear.
Lessons Learned
Use your head — don’t lose your head!
I should have left the top of the boat the moment the nose of the boat went under the bridge. Things just happened so fast! The only thing I can say in my defense is that when I saw the antennae were clearing the bridge, I knew I wasn’t in danger of losing my head. I still could have fallen off the roof and bounced off the swim platform into the water, but that didn’t occur to me at the time.
Wear a life jacket! There are big signs along the channel instructing boaters to wear their life jackets. I don’t generally wear mine if the water is calm, but I really should wear it if I am outside on the boat where I can fall overboard. I have my comfortable life jacket now so there is no excuse.
So glad you finally made it back this way, sorry we didn’t get to meet up with you. We drove by the boat a couple times to say hi but you were elusive! Enjoy reading your blog and seeing the great pics you post. Looking forward to the rest of the trip. Stay safe and wear your vest!
Thanks, Paula. 🙂 I’m glad we finally ran into each other at the 252. It was good to see you both.