The Newton's Adventure on America's Great Loop: Driving Miss Paula

Driving Miss Paula pose

8.22.2010 Andrew’s friend Paula came out for cruise. We traveled 27 statute miles from Heritage Harbor to Spring Valley Boat Club. The journey included the lock at Starved Rock.

Paula was excited about going through a lock ever since she saw the blog entry where Greg and Howard managed the lines on the Erie Canal. Now it was her turn.

Andrew contacted the lock master who asked us to lock through with a commercial tow boat. This was good news because waiting for the barge to lock through and for the chamber to be refilled could take over two hour.

The lock master dropped us lines for the bow and stern cleats. You don’t tie off in a lock. Cleats are used for leverage as you take in or pay out line. Of course if you’re in a small boat you can just hang on to the lines.

The Lock master gave me instructions to tie off the lines when he opened the gate and sounded the all clear horn. The tow boat with its three by two barges would be departing first. This meant that we had to hold Freedom close to the wall so the tow’s propulsion didn’t whip us around in the chamber.

The bad news was that the Tow boat had already brought 6 barges down and had to hook them up before clearing the lock chamber.

The temperature kept rising as we locked down. Paula was on the bow and I was on the stern. Andrew stood mid ship to fend the bow off the wall. We were in direct sun light. It was 98 degrees. We waited over an hour for the tow boat to complete the task. We got a little sunburn but Freedom made it through the lock unscathed. It was a good day on the river.