Returning to Sunny Tug After Trip to Britain

Friday and Saturday, September 13 and 14 2019
Day 27 and 28 on the Loop – Alton, IL (0 miles)

 After a trip to Britain to see my dad and visit friends I returned to Sunny Tug on Friday evening, September 13.   It was a long trip back, leaving the hotel at 9:00 pm (US Central Time) on Thursday and finally arriving at Sunny Tug at 9:30 pm on Friday evening.  The flights were: London to Oslo, Oslo to Newark, NJ, and Newark to St. Louis and then about a 1/2 hour Uber ride to Alton Marina.

 I was very relieved to see my checked bag appear on the luggage carousel.  On the way to Britain my bag had been delayed by a baggage handlers strike in Copenhagen, and I had not seen it for five days, leading me to think that it might have been lost forever!

As we came in to land at St. Louis we had a nice view up the Mississippi River and I could see the chain of Rocks Canal that we will be going down in a few days.  This is a bypass to a part of the Mississippi that has a series of impassable rock waterfalls.   The canal is the waterway closer to the plane.

Chain of Rocks Canal - Alton is upriver (higher up in the photo)

While I was away a replacement raw water pump had arrived from Chicago and Jim from Bloch Marine Services of St. Charles had installed it.  I was very impressed with his work on a variety of things that needed to be done on Sunny Tug.


Once I got back to the marina I did not feel sleepy, and decided I needed a walk, so I went over to the next amphitheater where they were having a free concert and carnival. 

This is healthy..... Right???   ;)






Saturday, September 14
Rented a car and headed over to West Marine for some treatment for the black water tank and also some special toilet paper formulated for use in marine toilets (ahhhh ..... the romance of boat ownership!).

Traffic was at a standstill on the way back when I saw this sign!

Comments

Post a Comment

Please feel free to leave your comments.

Popular posts from this blog

Ipswich Bay To Gloucester via the Annisquam River and Blynman Canal

Image
Sunday, July 28 2019 We left our mooring buoy at Ipswich Bay Yacht Club and since this was a "shakedown cruise" I wanted to try every possible system on board so we decided to try out to anchor at a nice sandy beach across from the moorage field.   We motored out there and then tried to find a good spot to anchor that would not get us fouled on the mooring buoys that were already in place, and that would not have us hit other boats.   Caroline also wanted to try and go for a swim. After several attempts we did manage to get the anchor to hold, but the current was too strong for swimming and I was not happy with our position relative to other boats, so we raised the anchor, but we could say that we had successfully done our first anchoring, even if it was only for five minutes! First Raising of the Anchor on Sunny Tug The portion of the trip in the ocean, through Ipswich Bay, was very pleasant.  Caroline took the opportunity to pilot Sunny Tug for awhi...
Read more

Sunny Tug Returns to Shore, Upgrades and Repairs, and Shipping to Chicago

Image
Friday, August 2, 2019 This is an update on the crazy last couple of days since we returned Sunny Tug to Winter Island Yacht Yard on Tuesday, July 30. I had a list of 18 items that needed to be looked at based on our shakedown cruise.  The two  biggies were the electrical system problems and the AIS (Automatic Identification System) not working. Here is a good write up on the West Marine website of how AIS works . The original plan was that Sunny Tug would be picked up Thursday, August 1 to start the transport to Chicago.   She actually left on Saturday morning, but Roland Hanes, the trucker, thinks he can still get to Chicago on Monday. Roland unloading a new Ranger Tug in preparation for loading Sunny Tug It was a long, and at times crazy, couple of days.   It was good getting to help out with some of the work at the yard, so I could learn a bit more about my boat but it was also tiring.  Thankfully, the heat that we first had when I ar...
Read more

Down the Mississippi to Boston Bar - Our First Night at Anchor

Image
Friday September 20, 2019 Day 35 Kaskaskia Lock to Boston Bar Anchorage (96.66 miles) After a peaceful night on the lock wall at Kaskaskia Lock we had an an early start, travelling with Frank and Cally Rogers-White aboard Jubilee another Ranger 29 Tug.   This would be a very long day as we traveled over 96 miles down to Boston Bar.   Also on the lock wall had been George and Nina Hutcherson aboard the sailing vessel Breathe  and Chris and Bonnie Clayton aboard Mi Toi. Before we left a tow with a couple of barges went through Kaskaskia Lock.   It was fun to be this close to a tow, and to hear the radio traffic from the crew member guiding the tow as he stood on the front of the barge. Tow going through Kaskaskia Lock We had planned to stop at Hoppies Marine, a floating barge with power about 47 miles down river, but Hoppies was full so we had to keep going.  This ended up being a good thing, as another Looper who did stop stop at Hopp...
Read more