Sweet Home Chicago

Sail #6 (if you can call it that) of our sailing extravaganza:
New Buffalo, MI to Chicago, IL

This was the final leg of our first ever sailing vacation adventure. After a wonderful 3rd of July game and drinking day that was capped off by fireworks we were sad for our trip to be over. However, we were looking forward to a nice relaxing sail back home. Unfortunately, as always, we had a bit of excitement while in the marina before we were able to enjoy our relaxing sail.

New Buffalo Municipal Marina

We had no issues getting out of our slip however we had to head further into the marina to fill up on gas.  As we were turning down the canal we were cut off by another boat who wasn't paying attention to what we were doing. As the first boat pulled up we noticed there were only a couple of fuel docks and the boat once again not paying any attention to anything else parked right in the middle of both docks and left us with no room to pull in. So, for 10 or 15 minutes we had to motor and circle in place to wait for this other boat to leave. In hind sight it was a great learning experience since we don't push ourselves or Further as hard as we can until we have to. This moment we had to really test her steering, which we learned is really good and we can maneuver her in very tight spaces. It also gave Brady an opportunity to get more comfortable with our motor as well.

NO wind

As soon as our gas tank was filled we headed out onto the open water. We had a little wind when we first started but we were able to put up the sails and enjoy the ride. However, after about a half an hour all the wind died on us. There was no wind coming from any direction so we had to turn on the motor hoping at some point the wind would come back. Unfortunately, our last sail of the trip turned into a motor. We did not stumble on ANY slight gust or change of wind on the lake for the rest of the 8.5 hours back to Montrose Harbor! The lake was beautiful, and it was unlike anything we have ever seen before. The water was SO still it looked as though we were floating on a huge piece of ice. The only ripples we saw that day were the ones we were making. It was VERY eery. Thankfully there were no flies out so the only things we had to deal with was the sun and sound of the motor. As much as we LOVED our trip, we were all very, very excited to be back at home relaxing, enjoying our couch enjoying some good ol' AC!

Enjoying the ride!

Home sweet home!

Great Lakes, Great Times

Sail #5 of our extravaganza:
South Haven, MI to New Buffalo, MI

Lighthouse at South Haven

Enjoying the relaxing sail.

We left South Haven earlier than any other marina so far on this vacation. It was Sunday, July 3rd and every town in MI was having their 4th of July celebrations that evening. Fortunately we already made reservations to stay at the New Buffalo Municipal Marina but we wanted to avoid rush hour since we still aren't too confident with our motor and our maneuvering skills. Thankfully it was an uneventful and relaxing sail to New Buffalo and the harbor was completely empty when we arrived.

Elaine!!!

After securing the boat we decided to relax with some snacks, drinks and Yahtzee. Time must have flown by since we played Yahtzee for a handful of hours. Our Yahtzee tournaments often get really competitive. There was one point where we were yelping and smack talking a bit louder than we expected, I blame it on the alcohol, and I poked my head out to see that we were surrounded by people waiting for the fireworks! Hopefully they weren't able to hear us while we were playing. During these serious games of Yatzee our iTunes Genus program came up with the best summer boating mix that summed up our trip!

Yahtzee, booze, snacks
and fun!

Since time flew by we didn't realize
that the fireworks were about to start. We headed up to the Stray Dog to order some carry out and eat dinner while enjoying New Buffalo's 4th of July fireworks. All in all it was a wonderful way to end our first year of boating adventures in Michigan!

Our last MI sunset, beautiful!

Water Wonderland

Sail #4
Saugatuck, MI to South Haven, MI

There wasn't much to remember about this sail since it was very short. One thing we did learn is that most marinas on the lake are booked in advance for the Fourth of July weekend and if we wanted to stay in South Haven we had to be one of the first boats to get to the city to claim one of their transient slips. You can add the stress of waking up early to get to your destination for the night without a reservation to our normal stress of docking. We decided to stop here instead of Saint Joseph for two main reasons; 1) we wanted to go somewhere new and 2) Saint Joseph's wasn't our favorite town of our trip. #2 led us back to #1, wanting to explore somewhere new.

Picture of South Haven's river way and marinas

When we arrived early Saturday afternoon, the boardwalk was hopping with people and river to the marina as well as the marina itself was packed with boats at least 2-3 deep on either side. This was our first experience with any sort of traffic in a very small area and fortunately it added to our normal stress level we get when docking the boat. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but if not, here's why we are so stressed when it comes to docking especially in new ports. This is not to say that I'm not confident in Brady's steering and navigating because I am, he is really in tune to Further and the way she moves but as I have mentioned before, our motor isn't the best. As we were trying to head into the North side of the Municipal Marina, which is located on the north side of the Black River, I felt as though we were playing Frogger with all of the other boats in the river. (Even just thinking about it while typing makes my heart beat faster.) We basically had to cross all 'lanes' of traffic to get there. Most other boats were trying to get out to the lake as fast as they could and were not paying any attention to what they themselves or what everyone else around them is doing. This creates a perfect equation for an accident waiting to happen.

As soon as we safely got across all lanes of traffic, it was on to our next challenge, locating our transient dock and docking the boat, our two least favorite things to do at this time. Why you ask, well docking is a time of very high stress because you can 1) cause lots of damage to your boat, and only your boat, if you are lucky 2) cause a lot of damage other people's boats and 3) cause damage to yourself. Communication in finding your dock and docking is key however trying to communicate while there is lots of other noise around you to drown out your voices is not at all ideal. That plus the marina had a not-so-ideal shape to it. It is shaped like a corkscrew with only one entrance/exit. The stress never ends!  We only knew our dock number, but not how the numbers where laid out.  So while we were coming in we had to keep looking for the numbers until we figured out the pattern and where we would end up being.  In the end We had to do a tight 270 degree turn into our temporary dock.

Close up of the north side of South Haven's
Municipal Marina and our dock location.

As we are trying to get into our spot we were being watched by everyone who were on their boats in the marina just waiting for us, the young novice boating couple, to do something, anything wrong. However, Brady with his amazing skills, got us into the dock with no issues and I was able to tie up the boat quickly before the nose could pop out and touch the boat sitting closer to us than we would have liked. Thankfully this was another good docking experience! We enjoyed a couple of ice cold drinks to celebrate and help calm our nerves and ease our stress levels while Brady decided to work on our lines and I worked on a discussion post for school. Later that afternoon we wandered into town and grabbed some dinner. We are both looking forward to the day these become a little less stressful. Hopefully this happens with either more experience or an upgrade to our motor or a combination of both!

The Storm

Night of 6/30/11

Our second night in Saugatuck started off as any normal steamy hot summer evening does but this one ended with a twist... 

After enjoying an amazing dinner and ice cream in town we wandered back to the boat to enjoy a couple of drinks under the starry sky. A bit after turning in, we were abruptly awoken by huge drops of rain coming through the hatch that was wide open over our bed in the main salon. This has happened a few times that we have spent the night on Further and by now we know our roles on what we need to do to hunker down the boat. Since we had a couple of extra things out on the boat from the day it took us a couple minutes longer than usual to store everything that was out, mainly our makeshift sun shade. Brady, as he usually does, puts in a couple extra ties on the boat as well before a storm hits to make sure we are nice and secure. Usually that is that and we can easily head back to bed while the storm hits. 

Well, not this time... A little while after we got up and put all the things on the top of the boat away and hunkered down for the storm we were once again woken up, not by the thunder, lightning or the heavy sheets of rain that was pounding on our deck but by the storm seiche that was very quickly raising the level of the Kalamazoo River and slamming us hard over and over again into the dock that we were attached to. After taking a couple of minutes to figure out what was happening we jumped into action since we were afraid Further would get damaged if we did nothing. That and we were hitting the dock so hard we weren't able to sleep! We both put on our rain jackets and headed outside to figure out what to do. We might as well have gone out in our clothes since it took about 2.5 seconds of being out in the rain for us to be soaked to the bone. 

There was a piling to our left that was about 15 feet away that we were trying to lasso with no success. Brady tried over and over again but it was just far enough for us not to reach. We tried to use our boat hook and place the rope over the pilling but once again, we were just out of reach to get the rope over. Finally after about 10-15 minutes of madness, and being serenaded by the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald playing in the background - fitting right?!?, one of us come up with the brilliant idea of walking our line to one of the large front dock cleats about 40 feet away to help inch us closer to the piling. This was a feat in itself since the storm surge was coming in SO quickly it felt like Further was going to be pulled under the dock! It was SO incredibly hard to move her at all. I honestly don't know how we did it but thankfully we were able to slowly inch Further off the dock and move us securely to the center of the slip so that we could avoid any damage and finally get some sleep! 

I wish I could have been watching us during this situation. I'm sure we looked like a couple of crazy people doing who knows what in the middle of a storm. I'm sure the situation wasn't a quarter as bad as we thought it was during our reverie state of mind. In the middle of this chaos, someone guy did yell and ask Brady if we were about to head out in the storm. I'm sure we looked like we had no idea what we were doing. Chalk it up to another lesson learned.

Next time we will be sure to use ALL available pilings to secure us away from the dock when on a river, because the seiche on the Michigan side of the lake, especially when on a river is a lot stronger than in Chicago!

Adventures in Saugatuck

There are a few things that are amazing when traveling by boat; 1) you travel with your house, this is the biggest bonus I have come up with so far, and 2) you create your own travel schedule, which works better with our travel personalities and is pretty nifty as well. If you really like where you are at you can stay longer, if you don't, you can leave at any time. It's that simple. Yes, it is similar to traveling in a car but most people don't live in their cars, do they? Last, this one goes along with #1, you have a bathroom available to you anywhere at anytime!

So, after arriving in Saugatuck we found out that like many visitors to this town we fell in love with it! Everyone there is very welcoming, there are many different places to explore, as well as lots of great restaurants and bars! Best part about it, is that it is kept up very nicely and very clean! This is our ideal town! Because of this we decided to stay an extra day so we could explore this town as much as possible!

Takeout from Marro's, yum!

We arrived in town a bit late. We are beginning to realize that we need to leave for our next destination earlier than we have been to make sure that the harbor doesn't close before we arrive and so that we can dock the boat before dark. Both of these things can be done if you arrive to your destination late but we prefer to avoid this situation all together. After tying the boat up, having a celebratory drink and putting everything away, we headed into town a bit late and almost everything was closed. Fortunately for us, we found a wonderful restaurant, Marro's, where we could order some delicious takeout.

We are SO fancy with our plastic
wine glasses!

We woke up the next morning to a scorcher! The temperature inside the boat was getting up there well before 9 am. So, we decided to see if we could find somewhere cool in town to enjoy a little breakfast. When we gave the hostess our name at Ida Red's Cottage we didn't blink when she told us there was a longer wait for indoor seating. A wait, we can do that if it means we can enjoy some air-conditioning!

Our jimmy-rigged boat sun shades!

After breakfast, we wandered around downtown Saugatuck and lingered in some of the shops just so we could enjoy the air conditioning before heading back to the boat for lunch. BTW, down town Saugatuck has many fun shops, that even Brady enjoyed, to browse around and kill time. The best part... I was able to start my Christmas shopping with some of the unique stuff the shops had.

Brady hard at work!

The chaos of boat projects.

I'm not sure what got into us, maybe we were a bit delirious from the heat, but we decided to do a couple of boat projects and clean when we got back. Our brains were working well enough to jimmy-rig some sun shades to try and cool down the boat. It worked better than nothing at all! (FYI, This was the exact moment when we decided to invest in a real sun cover as soon as we got back from our trip!) After freshening up we decided to celebrate completing another task and cool down by going to Phil's for dinner and air-conditioning and following it up with some ice cream!

It's a good thing we decided to stay in town for another day since some summer storms come rolling into the area that evening and stayed through the next day. The storms gave us a chance to learn about the town's Interurban shuttle service.  We took the Interurban to the Douglas side of Lake Kalamazoo to explore the Steamship Keewatin Maritime Museum. This was one of the highlights of our trip! This steamship was built in 1907 and was a passenger and freight liner in Canada. She was retired in 1966 and was set to be scrapped until RJ Peterson of Douglas, MI purchased her in 1967 for historic preservation.

 As we finished touring the Keewatin, the sun was starting to break through the rain clouds so we were able to enjoy a long and peaceful walk back to the boat from Douglas to Saugatuck.

We enjoyed our final meal in Douglas at Everyday People Cafe. When we walked in, the place was packed! Thankfully we thought of making our reservation while we were in Benton Harbor. The food, drinks, and service were amazing and friendly. It was the best way to end our time in this beautiful harbor town!

We only did a portion of the things we wanted to do here and cannot wait to come back next year to explore more of what these beautiful little lakeside towns have to offer!

The Shores of Lake Michigan

Sail #3 of our extravaganza:
Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, MI to Saugatuck, MI

Leaving St. Joe/Benton Harbor

Getting out of West Basin Marina was a bit stressful for a few different reasons. First the dock was about 3 feet higher than the deck of the boat so I wasn't able to stand on the dock to help us back out. Second, there were huge pilings we had to untie ourselves from (Did we mention we had to tie Further to these because there were no cleats on the dock? Yep, that was an experience.) Third, the fueling station was directly behind us so we had to wait until there was a gap in traffic before we could start backing up. The fourth and final obstacle we had to overcome while getting out of West Basin Marina was to leave the very small entrance to the dock without hitting any other boats as well as giving boats coming into the dock the right of way. This last obstacle was the scariest because, as we have said before, our reverse isn't the most reliable or the strongest. So it can be hard for us to back up or idle anywhere.

A perfect day for a sail!

Before attempting our escape, we talked through our exit strategy, as we always do before leaving a dock. We believe this helps each of us know exactly what the other will be doing. It's also a way to get us in a positive mindset since we both tend to think about everything that could go wrong. Well, when we finally decided to shove off, we executed everything perfectly. It all went as smoothly as we pictured it would when we talked it through.

It was a perfect day for sailing! Barely any clouds in the sky, we had wind and we had each other. We encountered only two problems during this sail; 1) it was too beautiful of a day so we had to create our own little makeshift bimini out of sheets and sarongs and 2) we had a north wind and had to tack back and forth all the way to Saugatuck. Well, almost. We decided to turn the motor on about 18 miles away because a) we didn't want to pull into the harbor at night and b) we already sailed 40+ miles and had about 18 left to go, which would have probably turned into about 36 miles with all the tacking we would have had to do.

Our handmade bimini

Motoring down the Kalamazoo River

The entrance to the Kalamazoo River isn't anything fancy. There isn't a neat lighthouse welcoming us in like there was in Benton Harbor however, we were surrounded by beautiful green trees and foliage of Oxbow! It is a very exciting motor since you have to keep an eye on the buoys that you need to stay in between while keeping out of the way from very large machinery and other boats! We had a very exciting 5-7 minute motor from the mouth of the Kalamazoo River to Saugatuck Yacht Service, a section of Tower Marine that is located in Saugatuck. It was right on the Kalamazoo River a little ways north of the chain ferry. The motoring was very relaxing and the views were spectacular!

Once again had to deal with the HUGE pilings on the docks but thankfully our landing (docking) was almost perfect! I think we are beginning to get a bit more comfortable, maybe not completely comfortable since we both want to throw up every time we come into a new marina, but I do think we are getting better at getting the job done without looking like complete idiots!

Celebrating another great day and successful docking experience!