Havana, but no Cigar

0kay, here is a better picture of Hennepin, taken yesterday morning just before leaving, and from the top of the hill. Hennepin was named for a Catholic Priest that travelled with La Salle as did Father Marquette with Joliet,only Father Hennepin had less character and a better publicist [himself.].

It was hoped that we would bore you with less technical detail today, but as it turns out, as we left Hennepin the bow thruster failed, just as we were depending on it to turn the bow away from a pile of rocks at the end of the the city wall. Disaster was averted through superior seamanship,or perhaps more accurately - plain dumb luck. A check revealed that a circuit breaker had popped, and we hoped that was the end of the story - fat chance.

When we arrived in the Illinois Valley Yacht Club in Peoria, we found that the bow thruster was still inoperative. The motor ran, but no thrust.
We immediately disassembled the bow thruster and found that the shear pin was sheared. This was probably due to a stick being jammed in the thruster propeller when leaving Hennepin. We were able to order a replacement for overnight delivery to our next intended port of call. A quick swim allowed us to verify that the propeller was not jammed with a stick, which had evidently been washed out during the days passage. [While there are lots of "we's" in this paragraph, you can guess that it was John who did all this mechanical stuff!]

With Gail fending off mightily, we were able to negotiate our way out of very restricted space in the marina, and were on our way.

Enroute we passed the "Spirit of Peoria," a stern wheel paddle boat evidently used on the Illinois out of Peoria.

We had to transit the lock and dam at Peoria, which is a "wicket" dam. The dam is actually a contraption built from steel and timber that is hinged at the bottom, and can be lowered to the bottom of the river when the water levels are high. In that case, you actually pass over the dam!

This is a picture of our sonar display as we passed over the wickets lying on the bottom of the river, seen as the spikey shapes to the left of the picture.

Upon arriving at Tall Timbers Marina in Havana, IL where Lincoln gave a speech from atop an indian mound during the Lincoln Douglas presidential primary campaign, we found a package with the shear pin awaiting us. We immediatly installd the pin and found to our great joy, that solved the problem. - 0nce again science and technology triumphs over fear and superstition!!

While John fixed the thruster, Gail hitched a ride with the marina owner to replinish the grocery stock. We will probably be swinging on the anchor for awhile so that was rather important!