Get the Life Jacket on Daisy, Right Now !!! Put Yours on too.

Daisy Chill'n from Tall Timbers to Grafton

We departed Tall Timbers in Havana thinking we would anchor out near Blue Island, about a 60 mile day (this would typically be more than we want to do in a day).

As the day was nice, and we had a great group to do this leg with, we decided to keep going and anchor out at Willow Island.   (Did you notice?  First BLUE Island , then WILLOW Island?).

Sweet Water, Infinite Sea, and Blue Willow all found a nice place to anchor in the middle of the channel behind Willow Island.  In full disclosure, there was a lot of debris floating down the river, AND this channel.  Before long we noticed that the debris had now included large logs and basically trees in the 30+ foot long range.  The anchor rode accumulated brush and debris, and I cleaned it off.

Debris coming down river

Vicki prepared a wonderful dinner that included a peach dish, a cheese pasta dish, and some of our favorite wine that we brought along, good stuff..  After dinner, I took Daisy to shore for a brief walk and poo, the current was very strong (about the speed of twice the pace of a brisk walk), and the debris caused me to do a slalom course for fear of hitting the debris and causing damage to the dingy propeller.  Evening descended, we lit the Trawler Lamp, and had another glass of wine.  The stars started to come out, and it was a great clear night to star gaze.  A great evening to wrap up the day. We went to bed around 10 PM after setting the anchor drag alarm to 60 feet (if it went off,  I'd know for sure that we moved).

THEN:

At midnight the anchor alarm went off, Vicki says 'what is that water rustling sound?'  We got up in a hurry, only to notice that the boat was listing at a slight angle.  (put in your reaction here, no swear words).

There was a light fog in the air, and the temperature was chilly.  I got dressed (some) and went to the bow pulpit.  WHAT is this?  A rather large log, 50-60 feet long and about 18-24" at the stump had drifted into our anchor rode, it then proceeded to take our boat (anchor alarm) toward the island bank, stick itself into the muddy island bank, at an angle to the boat, and still attached to our anchor rode.  The log had accumulated brush, and debris causing the water rustling sound.  The force of the water on the log and debris, also created a force downward on our anchor rode, thus this caused the boat to slightly tilt to port.  I was in panic mode (no figure of speech, it was serious).  The debris was accumulating on the log and brush pile.  I could not see a way of exiting this situation.  "Get the Life Jacket on Daisy Right Now!!! Put yours on too." (I have been paying hell for that sequence).

As I had the dingy down, with motor on, I had to remove the motor, gas tank, paddles, and then tilt the dingy up and secure it.

I then started the engine and tried to move forword and back, zero accomplished!  I am still accumulating more brush and debris.  All I could think of is.... Is there another large tree coming my way to make my night more intense.

Next plan.

I have three high intensity LED flashlights, and a spot light. I also have a rather loud horn.  We could not see Infinite Sea ahead of us (we thought he was smarter than us, and moved.... alas, we learned later, that he drifted a mile down river and had major problems... maybe later Ill add that story).  I then proceeded to put the LED flashlight on strobe mode (help mode?), and pressed the horn button to hopefully awake Sweet Water.  Nothing for what seemed to be 5 minutes (I really do not know how long it took to awaken them), so I press on to get them to at least keep an eye on us.  Tim, captain of Sweet Water came to help us. (think of ET the movie with flash lights in the fog for this next portion of the story)  I threw two 35 foot lengths of 1" diameter dock line that was tied together to Pam, Admiral of Sweet Water, (she lost her eye glasses in the process, and we feel bad about it), She cleated the line off,  and Tim,  pulled us to the side, when Vicki finally says "It broke loose.  Hell yes!!!..  We lifted our anchor, then, we untied the lines and then both of us proceeded to re-anchor,  we went down stream.  I stayed up all night (freezing) on watch duty.  I cannot thank Tim and Pam enough from Sweet Water. Thanks Guys.

All is good (again), Thanks for peeking in.

This is NOT the log that I had at Midnight

Vicki and Daisy Chill'n on the Illinois River