You know you’ve been on the boat for a while when you hear, “Let’s go back home and have dinner.”
OK – We have been on the boat for a while – three and a half months to be exact and the boat is starting to feel like home. Here are some statistics:
· Miles traveled – 1,478
· Hours traveled – 146.7
· Miles/hour – 10
· Gallons of fuel – 1,030
· Miles/gallon – 1.4
· Total nights on board - 107
· Anchorage – 23 nights (21%)
· Slips – 64 nights (60%)
· Free dock/wall – 20 nights (19%)
· Locks transited- 86
After spending one night on anchor in Saugutauck, we decided to head south to South Haven ahead of the forecasted rough weather that was to arrive in a few days. One of the highlights of our visit to South Haven was seeing a 4th-grade classmate of Chrisy's, Mark - who she has not seen since 4th grade - for dinner at Admiral Jack's. Mark is a collegiate tennis coach and has coached in a lot of places (even the Penn) and is currently coaching at Kalamazoo. He's a super guy who has fabulous stories to share. Looking forward to our next reunion, but we both promised it would be a lot sooner than the last time!
Incidentally, Mark was having his morning cup of coffee on his deck and just happened to video this blue hull boat on its way to South Haven. At dinner, he shared the video with us and could not believe it actually was us, on Egret. He still didn't believe us until we took him to see Egret after dinner.
We were stuck in South Haven for four days which is not a bad town to be stuck in. A pretty massive cold front (even made the news in New Zealand) came through and churned up the lake and made a mess. After the front came through, we still had 20kt winds. Fortunately, we were tucked into the last row in our marina which provided us with a bit of protection from the surge that rolled in off the lake. Some of our other looper friends weren't as fortunate and rolled around quite a bit in their slips. One stressed dock line even broke a cleat. The sailboats which are normally more stable in anchorages had a particularly difficult time with the surge that flipped them around like a Bozo punching bag that you might have had as a kid.
Here's the entrance to South Haven during the cold front.
Taking a break from our pretty quick pace down the Michigan coast hasn’t been the worst thing. Roger was able to get a haircut, we took a couple of bike rides, and we had lots of walks with Millie. Fortunately, we had some cushion in our schedule. We are booked into a marina in Chicago starting on September 2nd. We have tickets to the Lumineers on the 3rd and the Cubs
on the 6th. We know – schedules are dangerous, but that’s why we have a cushion. The forecast is for the wind to let up around Wednesday night giving the lake a chance to calm down before we travel on Thursday to New Buffalo – then on to Chicago on Friday.
Update: the weather held as forecasted, and we made it to Chicago on schedule Friday 9/2. There is a real sense of satisfaction with getting to Chicago. When we started our research on the Loop we read lots of warnings about Lake Michigan and how it can be some of the most dangerous cruising because the lake gets really rough – really quickly. It feels good to basically be off of the Lake with only one rough passage.
We’re also looking forward to the Lumineers concert, the Cubs game, and getting Millie groomed. As soon as Chrisy heard that we were going to Chicago she announced, “I want to go to a Cubs game and Wrigley Field.” Roger said, “What?” He’s not sure he’s ever heard the words “I want to go to a baseball game” cross Chrisy’s lips. But here we are going to a Cubs game.
There’s a route convergence going on in Chicago. Some of the loopers came down the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan and some came down the Michigan side, but everyone needs to join up in Chicago to go down the Illinois River to the Mississippi River. Making the congestion worse has been a lock closure on the Illinois River. There’s a backlog of well over 50 loopers in the Chicago marinas waiting for the end of the lock closure.
So, “What do you do all day?” We sit around and talk to other loopers about the weather and strategies for timing our trip down the river system. Do we get the jump and go early? Do we wait for all those who are in a hurry to go through first? There’s only so much space on the lock-walls to tie up to for the night and only so much space in anchorages. It’s certainly better to not have a massive cluster of boats with us going down the rivers. The good news is that the lock opened a little early so while Chrisy is enjoying the Cubs game there will be loopers headed down the rivers. Stay tuned for our decision.
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