Heritage Harbor at last.

August 23-24, 2024

Heritage Harbor Marina is a storied marina. It is the first stop past Joliet after several locks and in the past has been a much needed source of support for loopers, particularly in 2023 when flotillas were needed because of lock closures.

On this part of the journey, we began to experience the larger locks and floating ballards for the first time. These are large stanchions located inside the lock wall rise or descend with the water level in the lock. Despite our mishap prehension, these appeared to work quite well and we're easy to capture and guide.

Heritage Harbor (Ottawa, Ill) is possibly the most welcoming and best managed marina that we experienced on the Loop. We were quite anxious to arrive there given it's well-deserved reputation. They did not disappoint on this occasion either. We were met by the harbor host and by at least three other line handlers who expeditiously tied us up to a T-head. The marina was crowded with Loopers and offered a restaurant, pool and courtesy car. We immediately borrowed the car to go reprovision at a grocery store, along with Dennis and Tammy from Exodus and Mike from Checkmate. It was nice to rest for a day without other concerns and we were sorry to depart. The harbor host gave a briefing on our last evening covering anchorages and other services down the lower Illinois River and the Mississippi River as far as Paducah, Kentucky. With river levels low the next portion of the trip may well be challenging.