Captain's Log: Rollin' On the River

Steaming past Grafton. Not sure what's going through the cap's mind, but it appears concerning.

It wasn’t the fuel filters. The fuel leak mentioned in the last blog entry, I mean. It persisted in a low-grade fashion. I wasn’t sure at first, as one wouldn’t be with a slow leak—and the fuel lines feeding that engine are largely out of reach and view, so all discovery is by feel. Not ideal.

Fuel leak persisting without our immediate knowledge, we weighed anchor Sunday, September 7, at Buffalo Rock State Park and continued south on the Illinois River, retracing familiar territory from our Great Loop voyage in 2019. We knew it was going to be a long day right out of the gate—and it was. We moved through Peru, where I had played a couple of shows during our Loop at the local boat club and a restaurant up the hill, and proceeded toward Peoria, where we intended to spend the night either on the free city dock or anchored nearby.

As the day progressed and we took turns doing hourly engine room checks, I noted that the sorbents under the starboard engine were slowly saturating with diesel. I could not, for the life of me, find the source. The new filters were not it—of that I was sure. My eyes finally settled on some pooled fuel around a reverse-flared fitting on top of the mechanical fuel pump, and I decided that must be the spot. I made a mental note to reseat the fitting once we were settled in for the night.

As the five-o’clock hour rolled around and the light of day moved toward the inevitable golden hour, we rolled into Peoria. Approaching the city docks, we noted that the one dock Stinkpot could fit was already occupied by a looper boat, Vitamin Sea. We turned our sights to the nearby anchorage, hoping to find our rest for the day. As I proceeded into it, I watched the depth gauge dropping, and before I could get into reverse, I could tell by our lack of speed that we were no longer “technically” afloat. I jammed it in reverse and gave it some throttle to back off the mud bottom into deeper water. I began sounding around for enough water to drop the hook for the night—and kept rolling snake eyes. The river levels were simply too low for us to safely anchor here.

On the rivers, “safe anchoring” means being able to get (and stay) outside the navigable channel while at anchor, and the closeness of the two barge tows that passed us while we were scouting for the right spot told me we were chasing unicorns with the current river levels.

With plans A and B dashed, I pulled us back into the channel abaft the second barge tow and continued heading south. Stacey brought me my notes, and the next viable anchorage I had already identified was over 40 miles further downriver. That would not do. We needed something soon. We were tired and hungry.

I centered my planning app on our location and began carefully scanning the banks ahead. I spotted it--Kuchie’s On the Water in Creve Coeur, Illinois—a mere three or four miles downriver on the left descending bank. They reportedly had a dock with 10 feet of depth. It seemed too good to be true!

Buoyed by this revelation, I told Stacey, cautioning that we needed to verify it was still there. The last review was from 2021. If they were still operational, this place was clearly “off canon” for Great Loopers. Stacey whipped out her iPhone, and fingers flying, confirmed Kuchie’s continued existence. Our uncontainable excitement carried us all the way to the dock, where Stacey succeeded in lassoing a dock cleat from the deck for the first time ever—and on the first try.
​
Tied up and happy, we shut down systems as usual, pulled on our shoes, and stepped onto solid ground for the first time since leaving the warm bosom of Joliet’s concrete bulkhead. Across a crumbling—but somehow serviceable—dock we marched, up the high riverbank over time-worn stairs, past happy diners enjoying cold drinks, hot food, and a working waterfront vibe enhanced by the recent arrival of a beautiful DeFever yacht. We made our way inside, walked past the unmanned host podium, and toward the bar. We hadn’t gotten far before a slightly-irritated hostess asked, “Two?” behind us. We turned around, gesturing toward the bar, and she said, “Oh, do you want to sit at the bar? Go ahead.” We thanked her and stepped up to our respective perches and started chatting with Karis—our bartender. Stacey commented on the uniqueness of her name, and she said, “Yeah, it’s like Paris with a K.”

Stacey immediately understood that her name was a point of both pride and irritation for Karis and made a point to use it liberally, which the beleaguered barkeep clearly appreciated. We ordered.

I am not sure frequent readers of this blog fully appreciate Stacey’s relationship with the ambrosia known to astute culinarians everywhere as macaroni and cheese, but suffice it to say, she would bathe in it given the chance. One look at the menu and I said, “They saw you coming.” There, among the burgers, sandwiches, and seafood platters, was an entire “mac and cheese” section. At the top of the list was an American Fusion dish so curious, so unlikely, that Stacey gasped—Jambalaya Mac and Cheese.

Karis immediately piped up, “Oh yeah, that’s the best thing on the menu.” Nothing else needed to be said. Stacey ordered it.

I, on the other hand, ordered a burger and a beer. It was all very good—and exactly what we needed after a long day of trials and tribulations.

Check paid, we momentarily went back to the boat to pull on another layer. The sun was heading down, and there was a nip in the air. Appropriately clothed, we made our way back up the bank to the road and enjoyed a two-mile sunset walk that took us by a rail yard and allowed us to have a conversation with a very timid-but-curious deer. The doe stood not twenty feet away and watched as we chatted with her while she enjoyed her evening meal of wild grasses on the roadside. We slowly moved along. She was still there when we came back by a few minutes later, and we chatted some more. Eventually she scampered into the nearby woods, and we made our way back to Stinkpot and turned in.

Monday, we rose with the sun and dropped lines just in time to join a fleet of looper boats making their way to the Peoria Lock. We fell inline with them and locked down. We had our eye on a 40-50 mile day, but it wasn’t to be. We weren’t an hour or two below Peoria when our starboard engine just died. There are not too many things that will kill a diesel engine that is happily rumbling below decks—it usually comes down to fuel or air, and the air filter was fine. Since I knew we had an as-yet unconfirmed fuel leak, it was clear to me that the leak had worsened and the engine was “sucking air” at the leaky spot I hadn’t yet found.
I had a suspect after feeling around for fuel—a section of flexible fuel line that led from the flared copper lines to the mechanical fuel pump. I deemed it a repair I could not make underway, and we decided our only recourse was to run to the next Stinkpot-accessible anchorage in Havana to deal with it, which we did over the course of the next five or six hours at a screaming 4 knots, arriving a bit after 3pm.

A little Googling revealed that Havana had an ACE Hardware not far from a dinghy dock. The plan was that I would remove the leaky hose section and carry it to the store to match up the ends with what I could find at the store to install a proper piece of fuel hose that I already had aboard. Once at anchor I set to work preparing the dinghy to be launched and then moved to the engine room to “hug” the diesel engine and remove the fuel line. I disassembled the copper line end first and moved to the engine end, and as soon as I had my diesels-soaked (gloved) hand on that end of the line, I noted that the connection was loose. I put a wrench on it and gave it a little more than a quarter turn (with a good bit of grunting) to drive the connection home. I reconnected the line to the copper, noting while doing so that the copper was exerting “loosening pressure” on the opposing end, so the situation would surely repeat eventually. I, then, bled the line, smiled to Stacey on my way to the helm station where I started the engine. It gloriously roared to life. I deemed this a win for the moment that would carry us to a place with land services and retail locations—even if I had to wrench on the connection daily.

I re-covered the dinghy, and we spent a quiet night in Havana dining on frozen leftover chili from the freezer in a beautiful spot secure in the knowledge that we would be underway on two engines in the morning.

Tuesday, we weighed at first light and ran a mostly uneventful day to an oxbow just south of Beardstown, Illinois. Upon arrival, I noted a red stain on the new sorbent under the starboard engine. Given the location, it was clearly transmission fluid—not dyed diesel. Another leak—the main seal of the starboard transmission. I topped it with Lucas Transmission Fix and replaced the sorbent. Judging by how much I added, this issue had likely been ongoing for a few days and had been masked by the diesel leak.

Wednesday morning, we weighed again at first light and moved to another oxbow anchorage. No fuel leak, but the transmission was still leaking very slowly. The Lucas seemed to help slow it, but not stop it completely. We dined aboard again, burgers this time, enjoying the peace and quiet of this river stretch. Stacey was fascinated by the local fish sunning near the surface—they would spook, then move a mile up and down the river in a murmuring wave. Asian carp occasionally flew out of the water, giving the boat a precarious bash.

Thursday morning, with fresh sorbent under the transmission, we weighed anchor and headed for Alton. It was a pleasant, uneventful run, arriving around 1:30 PM. We were greeted at the dock by Greg Brown, the gregarious dockmaster we fondly recalled from 2019 during our Great Loop adventure. He remembered us as “Three Fridge Dave,” a nod to our previous refrigerator replacement saga aboard our Bayliner during our last time through.

Since arriving, we’ve shopped at Aldi with the help of new local friends Lori and Joe, received Amazon and Walmart deliveries. Our dining in Alton consisted of several excellent local establishments: Decaro’s (Italian), Morrison’s Irish Pub (felt like home), Mac’s (a sprawling, nearby bar/restaurant/casino that had a t-bone special Stacey enjoyed. My meal was less memorable), The Old Bakery Beer Company (for burger night—their Irish Red was on point).

Saturday, I resolved a long-standing, potentially quite dangerous electrical issue aboard that had eluded me since purchasing the boat. It was a misconfiguration of our Victron inverter/charger, compounded by several well-paid non-electricians trying their hand at failed fixes. I don't know who needs to hear this, but marine mechanics are rarely good marine electricians, but they will empty your wallet in precisely the same manner. After a day-long slog, involving cutting wires, stringing up new ones, testing, chasing ghosts, testing some more, the system was finally fixed at about 9PM.

Sunday, our dear family friends Rollo and Carolyn picked us up, helped us buy bags of sand for temporary ballast, toured Pere Marquette State Park, and treated us to a lovely meal at the Grafton Pub. We are lucky to have such wonderful friends all over the country.
​
Thursday morning, we’ll drop lines, fuel up, and point the boat south on the mighty Mississippi.