Chi-Town

We had a weather window of one day, today, to cross the lake, so we took it and are back on our mooring in Montrose Harbor after a smooth 10 hour transit from Holland, MI. Spending the night on Carrie Rose and will consider touching land after some coffee in the morning.

Chafe Update

Frankfort to Manistee, Manistee to Pentwater, Pentwater to Whitelake, Whitelake to Holland . . . Some were comfortable runs, others not. The weather is changing with more west winds of both the southern and northern variety. We know that at this time of year it makes sense to cross to the west side of the lake up north, and travel to Chicago on the lee, and therefore more comfortable shore. But we like Michigan and are reluctant to leave.

Michigan’s harbors are part of river and/or lake systems. This is unlike Wisconsin and Illinois ports that are attached to the coast; this, and the fact that the wind blows from the west, means that the western shore offers calmer seas and therefore placid harbors. In Michigan any combination of a west wind makes the lakes and rivers surge. The lake flows into them and meets an out flowing current that has nowhere to go, and hence it goes up and down and so do we.

We rock on all axes: x, y and z. It can get exciting and leads to much consternation about how to tie to the dock or slip. In Holland I had seven lines out and could have used more if I could have only reached the post on my port rear quarter. It was too far away and so I made due with what I could reach.

Rocking, rolling and yawing also creates chafe. Dock lines have disintegrated before my eyes, so once Carrie Rose is secured I begin the task of adding chafe protection. As with most things in boating every captain has their preferred method and device. I inherited approximately eight foot long stiff white tubes with overlapping slits that run the length, and if that is not enough detail for you, difficult to get at holes in each end for fishing through securing lines. These shoelace like lines are necessary because the movement that eats the dock lines will move the tubes to one side (and eat the dock lines) if they are not secured.

Needless to say once this is accomplished we’d rather not leave the harbor for a few days. It is nice to have a day to recover and that is a story for another day.

Sunset in Frankfort, MI

Ridding the boat of these is my first task each morning

Whitelake smoking at dawn

Holland's inner lighthouse

Coasting

This was written in June on the way to the Nordic Tug rendezvous in St. Ignace, MI.


I thought we had enough time, is a common refrain on Lake Michigan. At present I am sitting through the third thunderstorm of the last three days. I thought I had enough time to get to our destination by today but I did not. Prudence dictates I remain in the harbor and it gives me some unexpected time to look around and absorb the scene. In the last few days I have seen a cast of characters pass through the different harbors I have been sequestered in.

The best were two elderly gentlemen in a small open sailboat of British design who are sailing, weather be damned, south along the east coast. After seeing what they have been through I feel like a wimp for staying put through these few “inconsequential” major storms.

Then there was the couple that spent the last eight summers cruising the Great Lakes in their large traditional (read slow) ketch. They go where they want, when they want with no strings attached.

A fellow Nordic Tug owner whom I have met at rendezvous’ appeared late yesterday in the heart of the worst of the worse weather. I “caught” him as he turned into his slip with the wind blowing his little ship a beam. Once tied up he described fighting progressively higher winds and seas as he approached the harbor only to turn back three miles to rescue a disabled sailboat.

This reverie could go on but I will stop. The storm clouds have move on to reek havoc over the horizon and blue sky has returned, as have the tourist that fled at the first sign of rain. There is a bit of going native about cruising even if every harbor town is full of ice cream and t-shirt shops. I have hardly seen a soul on this trip up the eastern shore, that is excluding the fishermen three miles out from every harbor mouth,

I have had the lake to myself. This was most evident while passing through the Manitou Passage. A lonely stretch of water bounded by South and North Manitou Islands to the west, and Sleeping Bear and Pyramid Points to the east. It is primordial compared to other areas of the lake I have experienced. The forces and the time involved in shaping this terrain, both above and below the surface of the lake, occupy my thoughts as I negotiate through the various nuns and cans, and lighthouses that mark the passage.

I get the same feeling when I focus my telescope back in time from the moon, to the planets, to the Milky Way, and to our local group of galaxies and beyond. My mind relaxes, shedding filters that are normally in place and roams. It is a common thread for most voyagers. It is why you can meet people as you wander and instantly fall in sync with them.

At least for me there is superstition involved in this. When I was growing up my Sicilian mother (bless her soul) enforced many different entreaties. The oddest being that opening an umbrella inside the house meant a family member would die. I am sure I killed off a few of my dear aunts due to my inattention. My traveling companion Charlotte is a good antidote to this line of thinking. She always speaks the obvious in any situation. I seldom do, fearing I will tempt faith. I am not convinced this is a good practice but I have silenced my objection to it.

One thing that differentiates coasting from other types of boating is housekeeping. Besides charting and never ending maintenance someone has to shop and cook, wash the dishes and make the bed, and do the laundry. Granted the grass doesn’t need to be cut or the garden weeded but the above more than makes up for the lack of those chores. This is why charter captains and their pampered guest exist.

Maybe one day I will succumb to be pampered but not today. Today I will swing in each beam sea, drive into whitecaps and squalls, ghost through early summer fog and wait out weather in a safe harbor.

Coasting involves pairing down to the essentials, no end of endless horizons and fellow travelers that are not so much about the trip as they are about the spirit of the trip. So when I really think about it I do have enough time, because how much time does it take to absorb the spirit of a place.

Cruising Log WEEK10

There comes a time to leave. It may not be in the best of circumstances but it is time, so we headed south. South from Elk Rapids means north for 20 miles to exit Grand Traverse Bay. If the weather is iffy, as it was, Northport is the last refuge in the bay to bail out. We have spent many days waiting for better weather there and were not looking forward to another extended stay. We decided to try for Leland or maybe Frankfort.

The Manitou Passage is a channel of sorts; North and South Manitou Islands demarcate it to the west, and Pyramid Point and Sleeping Bear Point to the east. It constricts the lake in both the horizontal and the vertical plane: 6 miles across and in some places 6 feet deep. From Grand Traverse Light on one end to Frankfort on the other, Leland is about a third of the way through.

Leland’s harbor is an afterthought, tacked on the coast to give boats a way out of the Passage’s often riotous weather. But Leland requires getting off track and heading east away from Pyramid Point. This means the next day you have to make up the lost ground and with the weather forecast none to hopeful we decided to tough it out to Frankfort.

Whether it was a good choice or bad one is hard to judge. I do know that if someone would have made us an offer for Carrie Rose during what turned out to be a 87 mile, 9½ hour trek we would have given it serious consideration.

Frankfort is a lovely town on the banks of Betsie Lake with a good bakery, several fine restaurants, a well-stocked hardware store and a bike path running through the marina. Our stay was extended by a guest’s arrival from Chicago. Marty drove up the 6 hours and drove us around an area that we have only seen from the lake: Sleeping Bear Dunes Light House and national seashore, the maritime museum at Glen Haven, dinner in Glen Arbor, and a survey of Leland Harbor, never before seen in its new configuration.

Tuesday we cruised to Manistee, an uneventful trip except for stopping dead in a nearly empty lake to prevent a wayward fisherman from colliding with us. The marina has a new boathouse and is located on the banks of the Manistee River about a mile and a half from the lake. The river had an odd combination of an outward flowing current with a strong inward blowing wind and this lead to a minor mishap while docking. I managed to destroy several of our engine intake louvers in the process.

Besides the constant stream of fishing vessels of every possible configuration an enormous lake freighter ghosted by in the early afternoon, and as predicted by the harbormaster did the same at 2AM with its now empty bulk even larger than before. There is no room for error in its transit. One false move and the entire riverfront would be splinters of fiberglass and wood, not to mention bones!

Pentwater is our next stop but don’t hold me to this . . . you just never know on the big lake.

Point Betsie lighthouse, just 5 miles from Frankfort

The welcoming Frankfort, MI lighthouse

Manistee River amongst the butterflies

One humongous ship

One humongous ship at 2:30 in the morning

Slip 29

Slip 29 in Elk Rapids will be our home for the next couple days until the weather calms down. We came over from Northport, MI on Saturday. Elk Rapids is quite south (20 miles) on the east shore of Grand Traverse Bay. It is a pretty town with a protected harbor, a well-stocked wine store and a first class pizzeria.

The Antrim Chain of Lakes, the main one being Torch Lake, empties into the bay here via the Elk River. As with the other wonders of Michigan who knew this existed. There is a spillway, which leads to a rapid of sorts, two beaches and a privately owned (by a family that lives on the premises) hydroelectric plant at the dam. Charlotte is catching up on her watercolors and I am waiting for inspiration, this along with walking on the beach and visiting every art gallery in town.

Sitting here waiting out the latest string of thunderstorms has me reminiscing about our experiences in northern Michigan and Canada. It is a challenging area with — get ready this is a long list — islands, shoals, freighters, rivers, international borders, commercial fishing nets, the Straight of Mackinac culminating with the bridge, fog, large light houses, hit and miss weather forecasts, magnetic variation, ferries, narrow channels, unpredictable currents and to top it all off, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron with their long fetches and large waves. Then there are the rocks of the North Channel.

This is not to mention the technical skills of navigating the above and at the end of each day anchoring with no way to replenish supplies other than what we remembered to bring. It is a crash course in piloting and navigation. All it needs is tides to complicate matters further!

Shelter

This entry is out of sync. It was written on 7/21/11 but I thought it captures the feel of anchoring in the North Channel. It is interesting to look back at this while secured to the east wall of Northport Harbor in Grand Traverse Bay surrounded by 50 and 60 foot powerboats with their AC running.

Shelter

Amendroz Island is straight west out of Little Current for 8 miles then a right-left-right. There is an entrance on the east side but the ultimate authority in these parts, The Great Lake Cruising Club’s Port Pilot and Log Book, says to go north around the Bourinot Reef and then come straight south into the anchorage. We did and are now anchored in 18 feet of water with 100 of chain off the bow. Our trusty Bruce anchor is well dug into the mud and rotted sawdust of years past when our ancestors were busy chopping the entire island’s trees down to build cities which eventually burned to the ground.

Now that latitude and longitude have come into vogue I will share my coordinates — N 46˚ 03.138, W082˚ 08.357 — in the hope the reader will locate this special place for yourselves and have a look. It is in the friendly confines of Canada: country full of down to earth, joyous people, most of whom are very glad not to be U.S. citizens. That said, Canada, if my unscientific survey is correct, is a country that moves to Florida for the winter. They live in fifth wheels, doublewides, your common condo and boats of every description.

A buffeted small green sailboat has just sailed in and placed itself about 100 yards port of Carrie Rose. With its anchor barely in the water the solo sailor jumps in the tepid bay for a swim. And the larger sailboat I drove behind (never drive in front of an anchored boat if possible) on my way to anchor, went out to test the Main Passage made turbulent by 30 knot winds and returned to anchor closer to shore. It is shallower there but also a bit more protected.

Carrie Rose is swinging to the gusts. She is having a tug of war with the wind and the 100 feet of chain off her bow. I have decided to monitor the one small deciduous tree amongst the conifers. Its gray trunk stands out from the multiple shades of green. So far it is a stalemate and will remain as such until the wind moderates this evening.

Every cruise brings on another set of stressors. This cruise is no exception but sheltered in this protected cove from a strong west wind most of our travails seem worth it. It is a hard thing to judge. Some distance is needed and distance we will have. As the crow flies we are 342 nm from our mooring in Montrose harbor. That is a lot of diesel!

Cruising Log WEEK8

We spent the weekend in Petoskey, MI on the south side of Little Traverse Bay. This is our first time venturing into the bay as we are usually racing up and down the coast trying to make a deadline but not this trip, so we detoured in. Petoskey is a lively town and was made even livelier by the sidewalk sale and farmer’s market.

The bikes finally got off the boat and took us the 9 miles up and back to Harbor Springs where we put our name on a waiting list for Monday and sure enough made the cut. Harbor Springs is an upscale old time resort with boats of all descriptions and large bric-a-brac “cottages”. And it is a perfectly protected deep-water harbor.

It was a short cruise across the bay (our shortest yet) from Petoskey. We will stay here for while, take the dingy out for a cruise, that is if it ever stops raining, and just kickback and wonder where to go next.

Petoskey Harbor

On our way across the bay

Across from the Harbor Springs Municipal Dock

Afloat

Each waterfront has a distinct feel. Sitting here in the pilothouse looking out at the shoreline their differences became palpable. I conjure up the smell of a walk along the beach, a trek out to the end of a pier or a stroll through the harbor. It is the result of a lifetime of experience.

When I was a kid my father took me to Chicago’s lakefront. We looked at the boats and due to dad’s disarming charm, immediately entered into conversations with the captains. These are some of my fondest memories of him. Life was not as sophisticated back then. No electronic gadget kept people glued to a screen. Everyone was on the dock puttering around, doing this or that. They were ripe for a distraction, which my talkative father provided.

These excursions usually took place on warm summer afternoons except during smelting season. Then we would roam the harbor’s edge on cold spring nights. The fisherman kept warm by burning scraps of wood in 55-gallon drums. It was a colorful scene complete with nets, lanterns, and bundled up men huddled around fires drinking, smoking and gossiping.

When I got myself a big bike the first place I headed was the lakefront. I spent most of my summers there. I still do. Eventually I got off the shoreline and onto the water; this lead to my first encounters with seasickness. Every year I would go out sailing, get deadly ill and throw my guts up for a few hours. After that the rest of the season would usually be okay. I realized the sooner I got it over with the better.

Seasickness is a class of malady for which there is no definitive cure. Therefore there are millions of them. Well, I exaggerate; there are hundreds of thousands. None of which are very effective. Please believe me, I have tried them all: ginger, eating prior to sailing, eating afterwards, pretzels, electronic wrist bands, acupressure, Dramamine, meclizine, scopolamine, herbal oils, beer, looking at the horizon, never going below deck and in the most dire circumstances, prayer.

Thankfully with the passing decades my semi-circular canals have calmed down, so being afloat entails much less gastrointestinal drama. Now I have time to ponder other things like the feel of the wind blowing across the deck; sunrise and sunset; the gentle rocking that lulls me to sleep; the pride of a well executed passage. Separation from land provides space for inspiration and reflection.

These are the secret pleasures of the watery world. They are in plain sight and because of this difficult to comprehend. When someone walks to the edge and looks out on the water they sense it. It is the reason why pastel colored condos line every harbor. People instinctively want to be part of it, but it is illusive unless you are afloat. That is truth as I see, feel and know it.

Water is a tuff taskmaster. It is not forgiving. Flying of course is worse but boating is not far behind. I try to find the balance between finishing projects and still having the time to be on the water. Some years are a wash. I never catch up. But even in those years I am afloat and there is value in that.

My fellow harbor mates come and go to their preordained schedules. If I am around I wish them fair winds at their departure and provide them a hearty welcome when they return. We chitchat a bit and then go our way. Except for the few obligatory stories of hair-raising events or breakdowns, being afloat is a private matter.

There are a few great writers able to convey the experience. Some that come to mind are Hal Roth, William F. Buckley, Melville, Conrad, Lynn and Larry Pardey and Joshua Slocum; the first man to sail alone around the world. Download any of them to your Kindle and enjoy the journey.

Of course, they have been to many different shorelines and thus all have unique tales to tell. As I sit here their stories are also palpable. I can see the books lining my bookshelves, just begging to be cast off into another young impressionable mind.