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!