Under the Mackinac Bridge
Danny’s Fault is now over 360 nautical miles from Bruce Mines and sitting in Milwaukee harbor. We are currently, September 4, sitting in the rain, leftovers from Gustav. Today is the first day that we have just sat still. Tomorrow we will do a little of visiting of the city and maybe leave in the afternoon or maybe just wait till the next AM. Most of the trip has been rather uneventful. I say uneventful but we had the second best sail of our lives as we crossed Lake Michigan. The sailors following this blog will understand what that means.
After spending Saturday afternoon watching the Michigan game with Gary Harris, a friend that I taught with we left Frankfort, MI, headed the 50 some miles across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin. Within the first ½ hour the wind filled in from the South at 12-15 knots. We set our sails and never touched them again until we reached Wisconsin. Otto, the Autohelm, steered the entire way. We sailed at hull speed, 5.5 to 6.5 knots, all the way. For the non-sailors reading this, that is as good as it gets!!
We have been to the following anchorages/ports so far:
Government Bay, in the Les Cheneaux Islands, just NW of Mackinac (anchor)
St Helena Island, 6 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge (anchor)
Lake Charlevoix, south arm in front of Chris/Dick Sobak’s new house (anchor)
Leland, MI, (anchored in the harbor—tight)
Frankfort, MI, (dock--$30)
Kewaunee, WI (dock—first of the big $ dockage--$45)
Manitowoc, WI (dock--$45)
Port Washington, WI (dock--$45)
Milwaukee, WI (dock--$50)
Paying for the docks reminds me another reason why I like the North Channel. When we get to Chicago the charge is $1.95 per foot plus $10 for electricity. Ouch. Can’t wait to get back to where we can anchor again.
We called the marina in Chicago that will take our mast down so that we can begin our river trip. We have an appointment next Wednesday at 2PM to get that done. We will then leave on Thursday morning and head into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal for our first day on the rivers. We will have to get to Joliet that first day in order to get a place to anchor.
Our next destination is near Waukegan, IL, at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Being retired military we can stay there for $.70 per foot. Too bad there are not more locations like that along the way. Before that, we may bail out at Racine or Kenosha, just to see what is there.
While at Great Lakes, our sailing friends off of EZ Baby, who live in Chicago, will be getting together with us. We will have ground transportation again for a while. Sounds like grocery time.
Back in Charlevoix we bought a new chart plotter for Danny’s Fault. It is a Garmin 440s, which is similar to what you may have in your car but it costs twice as much (it’s for a boat!) It was finally time to upgrade. My old GPS was a hand held model with a fixed mount. I was required to enter the latitude and longitude all of the waypoints. This could lead to many errors. Now, I am poorer, but at least I know where I am at.
On a different note, recent US news has had quite a bearing on Jude and I. We have installed Sirius radio on the boat and this allows us to listen to CNN every morning. Last Monday there were two stories, Gustav coming ashore in Grand Isle, LA, (our destination) and Gov. Palin of Wasilla, Alaska (where we will be buying our new home.) How many people do you know that have ties to both of these stories?
Our friends Andy and Sue Galliano, who live on Grand Isle, took our 5th wheel down that way 10 days before we left Bruce Mines. I have not talked to them as of yet. The last I heard was that our RV was in Raceland, LA. This was right in the path of Gustav. I did receive an email after the storm that our “portable home”, as Andy put it, was safe and sound in Greenville, MS, some 350 miles away from the coast. We are obviously happy about that, but we have heard absolutely nothing else from them. We have left messages on their cell phones but we must just sit and wait. I am sure their families are okay, but we know nothing of their property, their family’s property, and more important their boat!! After having made many friends down on GI, we are at a loss for words as to our feelings for them. Things were just getting finished being brought up to standards after Katrina.
Over the years we have had a list of bad boat names; Wet Dreams, Crusty Seaman, Brain Dead, Salmonella, Foul Movement, Sunny Beach, Climax, Master Baiter, My Buckin Float, Bull Ship, and Butt Hole. Puking Dog had always been on the top of the list of bad ones until we saw this one here in Milwaukee. Yes, the graphic shows big turds being thrown both port and starboard. With that I will sign off for now.
Rob
Wrote the above on a rainy day. Today is Sunday, 7 September and we are just north of Chicago at the Great Lakes Naval Station. We are tied up along a wall/pier that is completely open to the South east. All of Lake Michigan can come at us at any time. The wind is not predicted SE but our alternate plan is to head out behind the outer pier if the wind shifts. Thankfully no SE winds are predicted. When we arrived yesterday afternoon there was a pig on a spit. What a great bit of luck, pig roast for dinner. This is a very friendly harbor. Only about 1/2 of the customers that we have met are prior military. I was surprised how many were not.
We will stay here until Tuesday AM when we will head down to Chicago. We have reservations at Belmont Harbor for a slip for Tues and Wed. We will also have them take down the mast on Wednesday. This sets us up for a trip into the Chicago River on Thursday morning. We are definitely looking forward to this part of our trip. We will be glad to get out of the Lake and all of its potential for bad weather.
BTW, our RV is making about as many miles as we are. It made it through Gustav by traveling north to Greenville, MS. It is currently there waiting to see what Ike has to say.
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