Top 10 observations about full time cruising.

10. If you think you have ALL the bases covered, you haven't.
9.   Best weather forecasts are what you see off the bow of your boat.
8.   All marinas are not created equal.
7.   Lake flies are little Mother F*&^#$%ers!
6.   Notions about watching your food intake are silly.
5.   Just because NOAA says waves are 1 ft. or less, don't believe it.
4.   Radar and chart plotters are worth their weight in gold.
3.   Working Wi-Fi is a precious thing.
2.   The boat can always be washed, again.
1.   Mother Nature rules!!

Lake Michigan gets the last laugh.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Morning. Decisions.  Stay in South Haven another day or head to Chicago?  Since Chicago is such a milestone on this trip we were both anxious to be on our way.  I was thrilled when we got out of the   harbor and the lake was flat!!  The sun was shining and it was my perfect lake wish come true.  Not so fast.  An hour into the 7 hour trip a little fog rolled in.  I went up on the bow to help look out for Dave as he watched the radar.  Pretty soon it was so dense you couldn't see much past the bow of the boat.  O.K. fine.  How long can this last?  We drive in and out of fog with our cars in minutes don't we?  HA!  Lake Michigan got the last laugh.  We went through 6 hours of dense fog where maybe if you were lucky there was visibility 1/4 mile ahead.  High stress but still a flat lake so it could have been worse.  We saw a total of 4 boats all the way to East Chicago and one of them was a freighter that asked us on the radio to let him know his intentions so we could either pass in front of him or behind him.  We let him pass in front but we still never saw him!  Thank God for radar!

We arrived at the port (that we still could not see) and navigated in with the radar.  How in the heck do airline pilots do this???  We did it though and we were both happy that we accomplished this challenge incident free. 

East Chicago is actually in Indiana.  Smack in the blue collar, union card holding, rust belt.  Industrial land.  NOT a pretty little town but a very secure marina with a Raymarine tech that wee need to straighten out some issues with the auto pilot. Also about 1/4 the price of a marina in the city.  So, we are about 15 miles out of Chicago.  Just a short train ride in.  Archie, the Raymarine Tech is also commodore of the IHYC yacht club and he has graciously opened his yacht club to us which is, luckily, on the grounds.  I am using their internet right now as my Verizon Wi-Fi hot spot piece of crap device stopped working last week.  I spent about an hour on the phone trying to get it working with a tech I could hardly understand. He is convinced it is my 2 lap tops that are the problem and not Verizon.  I think not.  First stop home is to the Verizon store. 

We plan on going into Chicago tomorrow.  There is a jazz festival on the waterfront all weekend.  Love Chicago and the mid-western people.

I am a bit anxious to get home and have my little Carmen sleep over our house and also Lili and Cooper are coming to BA-TAAA-VI-A (that's how Lili said it when she was just learning how to talk).  Hey, indulge me here.  I am first and foremost a Grandma & Ganny!

These cute little Michigan seaside towns are starting to piss me off!

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

We are in South Haven and yes, it is another adorable little seaside town.  All this cuteness is making me think of the Chevy Chase movie where he bought a house in a cute town in New England and comedy ensued.  What is the name of that movie???  Anyway, cute town, nice people, sweet little shops and restaurants, flowers everywhere, dynamite 3 month old municipal marina!  etc., etc.  Michigan waterways rock and again, New York State (ESPECIALLY ORLEANS COUNTY) doesn't even seen to realize what an asset it has with Lake Ontario!!  Enough NYS bashing.  I will try to stop. No promises.

Dave's Turn:

Small rollers surging their way into Grand Harbor kept Blue Moon in a constant state of motion all day and last night.  The 18-20 knot winds are predicted to calm down.  They did and we headed  for south again.  The westerly winds  turned into northwest winds and we had a following sea the four hours to South Harbor.  We passed the 1000 nautical miles mark on our voyage and, knock on wood, have avoided any major incidences or for that matter any minor ones too!  The Volvos are performing better than expected with fuel burn averaging 5.6 gallons per hour at an average 1,450 R.P.M.s and 9 knots.  This is a different style of boating than Robyn and I have done in the past and we are both enjoying the slower pace.  She keeps worrying that we need to buy more fuel when we don't!

Robyn:
Tonight we went to a movie in the cute little town to see "The Butler".  Excellent.  Academy Awards for everyone.  Powerful movie.  Tomorrow we might shoot across the lake to Chicago but only if Lake Michigan is in a good mood.  It's about an 8 hour trip.  I will personally be glad to have Lake Michigan behind us.  I am more of a calm river enthusiast and hopefully the Mississippi and Tom-Bigbee Rivers will be a whole lot more placid than the big lake. 

Mother Nature is still in charge.

Sat-Sun-Monday-Tuesday August 24-27, 2013

We left our anchorage in nothing-town-Arcadia and landed in Pentwater, Michigan for what we thought was to be just for the night.  Mother Nature had other ideas.

Pentwater is another adorable Michigan seaside town and the pride of the residents shines.  The local yacht club was having a wooden boat show.  We got there late so this was the only picture I could get.

 

They were nice enough to let us have dinner at their beautiful facility even though we are waaay out of reciprocal range.  It looks like a very active yacht club and there were children there!  They have a great location right inside the channel with a large deck overlooking the water.  Very nice.

 

After checking the weather report we decided, along with our neighboring boaters, to spend another night and wait for Lake Michigan to calm down.  This is our first time being "weathered-in"  since we left Point Breeze on July 18th.  Not bad.  Probably won't be the last !  Pentwater is such a nice place we really didn't mind.

 

Monday morning came and the winds were still howling and there was a storm approaching so we waited for all that to pass and left around 1:30 p.m. for Grand Haven.  We arrived in Grand Haven at 7:00p.m. and saw a nice little regatta on our way in the channel.  Lake Michigan was still pretty lumpy so it was not a great ride there. 

 

We got a slip at the municipal marina.  It's a so-so marina but Grand Haven is another cute seaside town.  I'm starting to see a real pattern here.  As long as we stay out of Detroit, Michigan will leave us with positive memories!

 

We were rocking and rolling at the dock all night because the winds just won't seem to calm down and the marina neglected to install a break-wall to help the situation!

 

Tuesday

 

Our boating buddies left for Point Breeze in the morning  This Friday is a huge day in their life as they pack their oldest son, Robbie, off to college.  There will be tears!  We will miss having Rob around too.

 

Can't say enough about the Browns.  Our life has been so enhanced by having them in it.  We have so much fun with them and we all have each other's backs.  Good stuff!  Will miss them terribly!

 

 

Dave spent the morning talking to marinas in Chicago.  We need to leave the boat there for nearly two weeks when we go home next week.  We also have a happy and huge milestone coming up in our family.  More on that later :)

 

We are spending another night in our rocking and rolling slip in Grand Haven before we set off for South Haven tomorrow and then hopefully Chicago on Friday.  Things are moving right along and Chicago seemed so far away when we started this; now it's just a few hours away.  Was hoping Buddy Guy would be playing at his club Legends while we are there but he's not. That's were my honey proposed to me so long ago.   

 

 

STOWAWAY!!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

The Captain and I rode our bikes around Charlevoix this morning and continued to drool over the exquisite houses and landscaping.  Another word about Michigan.  We had some silly preconceived notion that Michigan was all Detroit like or worse yet, New Jersey. From what we have seen so far we were so wrong.  The water color is Caribbean blue  here in the north and super clear.  We are totally impressed.  We have seen t-shirts that say "4 out of 5 Great Lakes prefer Michigan". Yep.

Lake Michigan was in a better mood on or way to our anchorage.  Nice gentle ride. We arrived  at a pretty little cove with a sandy beach.  First sandy beach of the trip.  There were a few boats anchored there and we found a nice spot in the deep water and let out 180 feet of anchor rode.  That is alot!  It held nicely in the sand bottom.  We cruised around on Little Moon for awhile and then came back to the boat and we had a cleaning spurt.  While vacumning I moved the curtains aside in the salon and this little furry stowaway was looking at me!

 



So I did the mature thing and started shrieking.  John & Brandon came to the rescue and wrestled the little flying vampire outside. But he wanted to come back in!

 

No way!  He finally flew to the upper helm and later when it was almost dark out he flew away.

 

We recovered with our brush with the little devil and made a nice dinner and enjoyed the Big Moon rise over the Blue Moon before we settled in for the evening.

 

 





Michigan is a boater's playground.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Charlevoix is a wonderful surprise.  We left Mackinac Island for a pretty long run down to Charlevoix the Straits of Mackinac.  Lake Michigan was a bitch.  6-10 footers for almost 6 hours.  Again Blue Moon showed her strongest attribute by taming those waves and giving us as smooth a ride as possible.  Our former boat, the Sea Ray DCONBLZ would not have handled the conditions so well.  Besides the bumpy ride there was a drama at sea ahead of us.

John just happened to be taking a picture of a lighthouse out in the big waves when  he spotted something in the water.  It looked like a small craft upside down!  Oh no!  Are their people in the water looking for rescue?  Could we even help them in the rough water without endangering ourselves?  John kept watch and determined that it was an inflatable dingy upside down.  We HOPED that it fell off of a boat and people were not actually crazy enough to be way out there in those dangerous seas.

Dave hailed the Coast Guard on the radio.  They took the lat and long location and told us that a vessel had reported that their dinghy fell off their boat but it was too dangerous to try and retrieve.  Whew! No people aboard!  The boat that lost it was a large Viking, Lady KK.  They had been docked right next to us the night before in Mackinac Island.  We found out later that a bolt broke off their davit and the dinghy broke free.

So, we were happy that all that was lost was a replacable dingy and not  and irreplacable life.

The bumpy trip finally ended.  Those were the roughest seas that Blue Moon has been in so far.  We pulled into Charlevoix Harbor and were pleasantly surprised.  it is a gorgeous little town and the state run marina is dead center in town where there are shops-restaurants-shops!  It is meticiously maintained and Hal the dockmaster greeted us.  After securing the all important Wi-Fi codes we had some lunch and walked around a bit.

We met five other looper couples and they invited us for docktails at 5 o/clock.  We met them and we exchanged boating stories.  They were from Seattle, Kentucky and Ohio.  Some are near the end of the loop and some are mid-loop.  Apparently I am flying the incorrect AGLCA burgee.  Mine states that we have completed multi loops and not in process loopers.  Have to order the correct one.

We took the dinghy for a spin around the lovely harbor.

 

We were dazzled by the houses and boathouses.

 

 

 

 

 

Later I found a cute little children's boutique and Lili, Carmen and Cooper all scored of course.  We had dinner at a Thai restaurant and that was a nice change.

 

Tomorrow we hope the lake has calmed down on route to our anchorage near Leland, Michigan in a cove off of Manitou Island.

 

We can't say enough about how Michigan has its act together for the boating community.  A few years back they formed a Master Plan to create safe, well maintained, reasonably priced marinas every 30 miles or so down the lake.  They have done an excellent job.  Are you listening New York State???

 

 



 

 

Mackinac Island. Lost in Time

Tuesday, August 20,  2013

Blue Moon docked at the Michigan State Marina Docks in the center of all the quaintness that is Mackinac Island.  Like Toronto Island, there are no motorized vehicles of any sort allowed but unlike Toronto Island, there are horse drawn carriages everywhere!

After lunch Dave and I took the 2 hour carriage ride.  I'm glad we did because the driver was a pretty good tour director in spite of his often repeated jokes.  We saw the famous arch.

700+ workers built the original Grand Hotel in the early 1800's in just 93 days!

 

 

The new stables for the Grand Hotel horses.

 

 

The rules for the fancy hotel....

 

Benji was upset that he left his coat and tie at home.

The yards are so beautifully landscaped (they use the excess horse manure compost and it sure does the job!).

 

 

We had a nice dinner in town and went back to the boat to watch the weather reports online. High winds expected.  On the technical side, Dave says Blue Moon has travelled 500 nautical miles and has averaged under 6 gallons per hour fuel burn traveling at 8-9 knots per hour; oh so necessary while traversing the rocky and sometimes shallow small craft routes of Georgian Bay and the North Channel. Slow cruising allows Blue Moon to get better than expected performance and the crew to get a good view of the spectacular sights.