A Beautiful Start

On Tuesday (June 10) we started our 2008 cruise by moving Meridian up the Chicago River from the Canal Street Marina to a slip in Chicago's DuSable Harbor.

Apparently our strategy of storing Meridian within sight of the dreaded Amtrak Bridge paid off. We didn't even have to call for a lift, as soon as we boarded Meridian, the bridge went up. Either Meridian made friends with the bridge over the winter or the bridge operator read our blog from last year. (For anybody else cruising the Chicago River, when you get to the Amtrak Bridge, just call the "South Branch Amtrak Bridge" on Channel 16 and request a lift.) We just left the dock, made a u-turn up the river, and cruised under the still-raised bridge. Phil thinks it must have become stuck in the up position, as he never saw it raised for that long a period of time before.

It was an ideal day for a river cruise, and we were joined by our friends Alicia, Joe and Luke. We made our way up the river passing underneath the bridges and skyscrapers of downtown Chicago, transited the Chicago River locks, took a quick cruise around Navy Pier, headed down to Burnham Harbor for fuel (a painful $5.10 per gallon of gasoline. Ouch!) then tucked Meridian into a slip at DuSable Harbor.


Once in DuSable, we relaxed for a while, with Bernie and Alicia enjoying the aft deck while Phil, Joe and Luke did a test run in the dinghy. As you can see, Joe and Luke didn't fully trust Phil's steering ability -who warned them?!? - and wanted to keep a measure of control for themselves. Or maybe they just wanted to go faster?


All in all, it was a great start to our 2008 summer cruise.

Our plans were to leave Meridian in the slip for another day while finishing our packing and cleaning, then to cross Lake Michigan on Thursday for South Haven.

. . . to be continued . . .