"See You on the One!"

9/11-9/12                   Hot Days on the Illinois River

     We traveled about 80 miles today, starting at 6:30 am.  It was unusually hot, hitting 100 degrees!  We traveled with BIG (Sandy and Greg) and Paraiso (Chris and Janet).  We got through  the Peoria Lock without any problem.  We ended the day going through the last lock on the Illinois River, the La Grange Lock.  We waited a little over an hour to lock through.  It was around 6:30 pm, so we all decided to anchor behind the Lock.  Sandy (and his dog) from BIG came over on  his dinghy to pick up Karl and Salty to take them to shore to walk the dogs. What a relief for them!

A typical Tow pushing multiple barges

Barges carry petroleum, corn, grain, soybeans 

Giving this barge plenty of room! By the way  these last few pictures are of the same Tow!

      We got a little more comfortable talking on  the radio to the Tow captains.   First of all, they want to be called Tows, not Tugs.  It is best to identify them with our AIS system.  The vessel's name, length, speed  and  heading will show up on the plot finder with AIS.   Karl can call them on channel  13 to ask "permission" to pass or overtake and to ask which is the preferred side to go by them.  The tow captain  will answer, "See you on the one (whistle)" which means turn starboard or "See you on  the two (whistle)"  means port.  These are called whistle signals from the days when that was the only communication they had, before radios.  The captains usually do not say whistle, just see you on the one or see you on  the two.  Listening to the captains speak to each other over the radio is very interesting.  They use a lot of slang and are hard to understand, almost like they have their own language.
 
     We cooked hamburgers on the grill and enjoyed the quiet and stillness of the night.  The moon was beautiful. 

Hamburgers on  the grill

Almost a full moon

Relaxing after a long day on the river