Daily Stats Start: 10:10 AM- Gafton Illinois Finish: 3:00 PM - Alton marina - Alton Illinois Time: 4:50 Daily dist: 15 miles Total dist: 105 miles Companions: Jason Cummings Weather: Overcast with drizzle becoming steady rain after dark Notes: David Diederich met us at the put in and offered his sailboat to stay in. Thank you so much Dave! As I write this the wind is driving a cold rain that is pushing across the area in a fast moving weather system. All day long I paddled in and out of rain showers thinking that it was going to be a long cold night camping in these conditions. Thankfully, I’m not out there. Instead I’m warm and dry inside a cozy heated sail boat.  Me with David Diederich At the put in this morning in Grafton Illinois we were met by David Diederich who is a local paddler and general river enthusiast. David showed up at the put in with a huge banner that said “Good Luck Jake” as well as printed charts highlighted to show key landmarks in the area. Two of those landmarks included the location of his cabin on an island a few miles above Alton or his small but heated and cozy sail boat in the Alton marina along with an invite to stay at either if the necessity should arise.  Sign that Dave made It was a bit of an ordeal to get all of my gear loaded into the Ikkuma for the very first time. Loading all the gear in a kayak for a long trip always seems to go through an evolution. On the first go it’s a tedious pack and re-pack process where you end up all but standing on the hatch covers to get everything in the overstuffed hatches. The second time around you fill little nooks and crannies you missed the first time and gain a little more room and everything starts to fit. A few more times and everything seems to have a place and you can load up and get underway almost with room to spare in a timely manner. Today was the “stand on the hatches” stage of boat packing and it took quite a while for me to be ready to launch. So it was that finally at 10:10 AM I pushed off from shore and was underway once again. As luck would have it, just as I launched a local paddler, Jason Cummings, paddled up in the beautiful strip built kayak he built himself. Jason paddled with me for the first five miles back to a boat ramp near the town of Portage Des Sioux where he put in earlier this morning. As he noticed as we paddled along he did a bit of a Portage to Portage paddle of his own.  Jason Cummings After leaving Jason off at the landing I burned twenty minutes fussing with my camera which had just decided to start taking green pictures again which is a problem it had earlier this summer. It was a problem I needed to have sorted out before I passed St. Louis by completely as it would be the last chance to go into down to get a replacement camera if, god forbid, it was necessary. The wind was a factor today as it blew directly upstream cancelling out any help the flowing river would give. Because of that, it was a bit slower go than I expected and I crawled the sixteen miles to Alton in about four hours. I stopped at a park on the south shore opposite town to eat lunch and take one more try at fixing the camera. Luck was with me and the camera finally quit taking photos that make everybody look green. My daily plan now is to pull off the river by 3:00 to allow enough time to set up a comfortable camp before dark. It was 2:00 and I was about two miles above the first lock which meant that by the time I got done with that I wouldn’t have much more time to paddle before it was time to set up camp. The red circle showing the location of the cozy heated sail boat was just across the river so in the sputtery cold rain I decided to trade 4 or 5 miles of down river progress for a warm night out of the rain. With the cold rain sputtering against the deck of the boat I know that was one of the best decisions I’ve made on this trip so far. And once again I’ll be eternally thankful for the kindness and generosity provided me by almost total strangers.  Warm and dry inside Dave's sailboat Tomorrow I’ll be getting a nice early start and will have the new experience of locking through two different locks before I get to the free flowing river and paddle past down town St. Louis. With luck my camera will keep taking good pictures and my blog won’t include photos of a green tinted arch. CommentsThom 12/12/2009 10:13:01 pm Way to go Jake. Glad to see you're back on the water and making progress. Jan Kleck 12/13/2009 8:18:02 am Way to go Jake - and Jason - and Dave. I guess it is true what Jen says - "the greatest people in the world are kayakers" - and I now add sailors to that sentiment. The way people respond to your adventure and needs is the greatest part of this story. How uplifting at this special time of year of giving to others! And you are the one making this happen and then sharing with all of us. As Thom says, "Way to go Jake." Hope you have a good day of paddling! Brenda Holdorf 12/13/2009 11:24:14 am Hey Jake. I am enjoying reading your blog. Keep posting when you are able. Hope now that you you are back in open water things go smooth. Larry 12/13/2009 12:23:57 pm Way to go Jake. For your next gadget, consider a small solar recharging unit. Some can also act as a second battery as well. Patrick Staley 12/13/2009 1:26:33 pm What type/brand/model of camera are you using? Someone here can research the green tint problem. Sometimes these cameras try to do color correction at capture time. My canon G10 has several color correction setting that I sometimes turn on accidentally. Canon calls them "scenes", e.g. underwater, night lights, incandescent, etc. Or you may have accidentally reset the white balance. If you can manually set the white balance that should fix things. These cameras can also be sensitive to temperature swings. Patrick Staley 12/13/2009 2:04:17 pm More ideas on the green tint problem: Patrick Staley 12/13/2009 2:17:37 pm Here is a color corrected version of the "Good Luck Jake" photo: Jane Hardy 12/13/2009 7:38:52 pm Among your San Diego paddling pals, the Season's Greeting is: Have you read Jake's blog today? We're all with you! ME Jake Stachovak 12/13/2009 8:20:46 pm Patrick. The camera is an Olympus stylus 1050SW. I think the problem does have something to do with some sort of color correction setting. It seems as though the solution is to take a close up photo of a plane white surface. I did that out of frustration yesterday and poof my pictures look normal again. Thank you for looking into how to fix the green pics I have. If you could find out if this "fix" I discovered isn't a fluke I'd appreciate it. lyn stachovak 12/13/2009 8:48:05 pm Maybe your camera started taking good pictures when you were taking pictures of SNOW (it is white). Just a thought. Portag dug 12/13/2009 10:45:33 pm Loving the portage to portage paddlers out there. Tom Schneider 12/16/2009 6:09:13 am Best of luck on your trip. I wish I was with you, but will follow you on here. You will get the hang of packing soon. It's a pain at first. Leave a Reply | Best of the Blog
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