Day 5- Tuesday - May 9 –06 MM 690 to MM580 Today we did locks 8, 9, 10, and 11. We left Lake Lawrence Marina to rain and about 20 kt winds. Still not terrible, but nasty just the same. Did I mention that I love my radar/chartplotter? I love my radar/chartplotter… Seriously, it just makes going in inclement weather a lot easier… The clouds seem to be descending on the surface of the river at places. (Everyone remember the song “Smoke on the Water”?) Well, Indulgence has 3 really good windshield wipers. Unfortunately, the one directly in front of the helm station decided to take a dump. While Dave tried to see through the rain, I crawled up into the helm station from below and found a wire that had come loose from the switch. Man, what a difference it made in the stress levels. I’m still a ways away from being totally instrument qualified… I like to see something to go along with my electronics. OK, Jeff, I’m getting there….
Sometime over the course of the day, we traveled into Iowa, on our starboard (right, you landlubbers) side, and kept Wisconsin on our port ( the other side, landies). We made a fuel stop in Lansing, Iowa and put on 210 gallons at 3.00 gal. With discount for quantity, .05 for each 100 gals, it ended up at 2.90 gal. It was pouring rain while I was fueling, but the lady running the place for the city stood right there and got drenched. I think I know more about her now than I do my own family. Seriously, she was a wonderful person. Anyways, fuel burn so far has figured to 1 gal/mi including genset time. Can you say happy :) ?
I noticed that I didn’t have a phone signal almost all day, so figured that business out here just didn’t get done. (Nextel, you know) Funny thing though, when it got later in the day, and the weather cleared enough to turn off the radar, I got the signal back. Full strength. Seems that the radome was directly over where I was to use the cell phone. Lesson learned!
We called ahead to Dubuque, Iowa to the DuBuque Yacht Basin and got an overnight slip. Getting into the marina was an adventure since the water depth on my sounder went below 3 ft a couple of times. We finally figured out where and how to tie. Cocktail hour was well deserved today!
We decided to go up to the restaurant for dinner tonight. Good thing, too… We met the owner, Charlie, of Catfish Charlie’s, and what a nice guy! He bought us Walleye Cheeks and Onion Rings as appetizers on his dime. We chatted with Charlie for quite a while, had dinner, and made our way back to the boat. Tomorrow will come soon enough