Izzy and Jeff's Most Excellent Adventure: Carp Captive Caper

Hi All...Ben here,
We're topless again here leaving Chicago. As you can see from the picture below, the process of taking it all down has really exhausted me, although Jeff and Izzy seem to be pretty peppy. Of course they have thumbs so the work was easier for them.

We pulled up the lines at the DuSable Marina in Chicago on Lake Michigan on a beautiful sunny morning, and made our way to the Chicago Lock just next to the harbor. Here is our buddy "Blue Arrow" heading to the lock.

And here we are going into the lock to tie up.

This lock lowered us down two feet to the level of the South Chicago River,

and set us free to go under all the low bridges through downtown.

Here is Nicoline showing the technique for going through the lock. Lake Shore Drive is the first bridge, and it looks really low.We're glad we've lowered our radar arch and bimini topWe passed tall buildings like the Trump Tower,and cruised under more than 20 bridges before we got out of downtown Chicago. There seems to be a bridge at almost every street.People were walking across the bridges looking down at us passing underneath them. I wonder if they wish that they could jump on board with us and sail away instead of going to work.

The most famous bridge is the Michigan Ave Bridge. Here is Blue arrow following us under it. Soon we left all the city bridges and the clear clean water behind us, and came to the junction of the “Sanitary Ship Canal”. I think the translation is “sewer” because the water immediately turned brown. Gone were the smells of coffee and cinnamon that we enjoyed as we cruised in the city. Now we had new smells: gas, soap, manure, dust, sulfur, ammonia.

We had new bridges too. Some had unusual ways of lifting up to let the boats and barges pass through.The narrow channel became crowded with barges, and Jeff had to do some tricky driving to stay out of their way as they pulled in and out of their loading docks with their tow boats.You're probably wondering about what the "Carp Captive Caper" is all about in the title of this post. Well,we had been hearing about the Asian Carp that are "invading" the rivers up from Louisiana. I guess these fish eat everything in sight and can get to be 60 pounds or more. That’s a fish as big as ME! I found this picture of an Asian Carp in Louisana on the internet...not sure what's going on in this picture, but it's in the south, and things might be different there.These fish must be quite nervous critters because they actually jump out of the water when they’re the least bit excited, often leaping into passing boats, smacking us boaters in the head, and leaving a bloody mess in the boat. I’m glad my navigation seat is really high up on the flybridge. Maybe I should get a helmet to wear in my yard.
Everyone is real concerned about these guys getting into the Great Lakes and ruining the fishing industry there, so about a month ago the Army Corp of Engineers put an electric charge into the water for about a half a mile just south of Chicago so the carp couldn’t get up the river into Lake Michigan.The problem was that boats couldn't go through the area of the electrical charge either until there was enough testing to see if boats or people and dogs were going to be safe. All of the Loopers in Chicago were stopped from going further south. Held captive by the
Carp! The only way to get through that stretch was to disconnect the boat batteries any electrical devices, and hire a tow boat for a fee of $600 to drag the empty boat through the half mile electric fence. No one could stay on board the boat being towed...not even the dog, and the process took several hours of waiting in line and tying up to the tow.
The Loopers were upset at being held Carp Captive like that, because they needed to get home down the river.

Luckily just a few days before we got there, the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers changed their minds about boats needing a tow, and let us go through in our own boat under power as long as we followed a few rules. Jeff was really happy that he saved the $600.

We still had to stop at the Coast Guard boat before the "electric fence"and get instructions.Instructions:

Stay inside the cabin of your boat even if you have to “go” outside to your “yard”
Don’t put your hands or paws in the water
Don’t put your boat pole in the water
If you drop your leash or ball in the water, don’t try to get it
Keep your life jackets on
If one your owners falls in the water, don't jump in to try to save them
Don’t touch your tongue to your metal water bowl

We followed the directions and got through safe and sound. I was ready with my life jacket on.That's us going through the electric water...no sparks or anything.Now I guess I can go back to fishing...I wonder how carp tastes on the grill...We went through some really big locks tied up to barges filled with a variety of things - coal, scrap metal, rocks, sand, gravel... If there was a red flag on the barge, it meant that it has some hazardous material on board like gas or chemiclas, and we couldn’t share the lock with it, so we had to wait for an hour or more until it went through alone. These barges can be real long and wide and have up to three tug boats pushing them.You don’t want to meet one like this on a curve in the river...or under a bridge. Our first stop after Chicago was in Joliet, IL where we tied up to the wall of the town dock just past the bascule bridge, for free.

As luck would have it, we arrived just in time for the Mexican fiesta in the park only steps away. Jeff was glad to have a cold Corona after the busy day on the river dodging barges, so we put on our Mexican scarves and joined Jan and Nicoline in tasting some authentic carnitas, quesadillas, black beans, spicy shrimp, followed by a churro for dessert, while listening to the lively music. Jan and Nicoline tried their first corndog, too.Nothing like this in Holland, I guess. I’m not so sure they were as impressed with the corndog as they were with the shrimp and churros.

These past few days we’ve had first hand experience with those notorious carp that everyone is trying to keep out of the Great Lakes. The electric fence must be working because there are lots of them around Peoria. Now when we cruise down the river, we see lots of fish jumping into the air in our wake. They range in size from about 1 to 2 feet long, and can jump 5 or 6 feet in the air. It’s pretty strange to see.

Here's a picture of Izzy R and Blue Arrow tied up in Peoria on the free city dock along the river wall.

We had the place to ourselves that night, and everyone went to Joe's Crab Shack for seafood. Jan and Nicoline must have had a messy dinner.This is sunrise over Blue Arrow taken before Izzy and I went to PetsMart for an early morning cut and fluff the next day.Leaving the town dock that day we passed the Spirit of Peoria paddleboat that took tourists up and down the river.As we pulled out into the river we noticed those pesky carp fish jumping in our wake again while Izzy was putting the lines and fenders away in the cockpit. She came up the stairs to get her camera to try and get a picture of the leaping carp, when she heard a loud thud, then a lot of thrashing about in the cockpit behind her. Sure enough, one of those wacky fish had jumped right into our boat, making a bloody mess! She had to clean up the carp cockpit, but she was glad that she had gone up to get the camera at the time it jumped in. "Carp cockpit" is better than "carp face".I bet Dimitry would have liked to be here for this part. This kind of fishing is pretty easy. Izzy threw it back...must be a girl thing.