Illinois River - 9/30/05

We left Peoria yesterday. We are headed down the Illinois with a couple of sailboats, "Indigo Lady" and "Aanoosh" and a tug boat, "We Be Blest". We all anchored at the same spot, Snicarte Island, just off a bend in the river. Not too much time to visit with each other after getting anchored and fed for the night. It gets dark so early now. This is the first night we encountered lots of mosquitoes. Had to close everything up to protect ourselves.

This spot was so quiet and so peaceful and then quite a bit after dark we started to see big spot lights out on the shore of the river. This went on for quite a while and we started to hear the drone of tug engines. Finally, maybe 1/2 an hour or so 2 big barges rounded the bend in the river. This was our entertainment for the evening believe it or not. There just isn't anything quite like anchoring out somewhere unknown. It may not be everyones thing to do but we are loving it.