Pure Michigan

Trip #2 of our sailing extravaganza:

       New Buffalo, MI to Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, MI

After resting and relaxing in New Buffalo for the day we decided to head up to Benton Harbor/St. Joseph to see what they had to offer. After checking the day's weather and lake conditions and the rest of our pre-sailing checklist, we shoved off for our easy 22 mile sail, or so we thought. Checking the weather is something we do the night before and morning of before every sail. During this trip we got in the habit of checking the weather at least once a day even when we weren't sailing. The main site we have been using to do this is NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They are a federal agency that focus on the conditions of oceans and other bodies of water as well as the atmosphere. So far they have been almost spot on with all of the reports we have gotten from them. The only bummer is that you can't get any condition predictions further than 36 hours out. 

The lake after the winds and waves
calmed down.

Anyway, when looking at the morning's report we noticed that there was a small craft warning to the north of Benton Harbor/St. Joseph however to the south of Benton Harbor it stated that there were only waves 1-3 feet with 10-15 knot winds and no mention of any kind of an advisory. Not only that but winds were going to be dying down in the afternoon to the north and south of Benton Harbor. We thought we couldn't have asked for a better weather report and decided to give it a go. Worst come to worse we can always come back to this harbor, right? 

Our heading for the day's sail.

We left the dock beautifully, I think Brady is starting to get the hang of this part of the sail, however there was a strong current coming from the west of us that pushed our bow off away from the Lake and towards the bridge.   We ended up just going with it and doing  a 270 degree turn. (Brady gets eerily silent about 15 minutes before we leave and about 30 minutes before we dock.) This couldn't have happened at a more perfect time or place (we were the only boat in the harbor and we had a ton of room in case anything went wrong). We finally got to put Further's turning radius to the test and we happily found out that she is able to turn in very tight spaces with no problems. Because of this westerly current into the harbor we found that motoring out of the harbor was the most difficult part of this trip. This was NOT the way we wanted to start our day. We headed into some of the biggest waves we have seen so far and Further was getting thrown around a bit. These conditions didn't settle well with us because there were some very shallow parts of the harbor that we didn't want to be pushed into nor did we want to run aground when going down off of a big wave. Thankfully we exited the harbor with no problem but I do think we got a few pieces of gray hair that day.

It turned out to be a beautiful day
for a sail.

Once out on the lake, the wind was coming directly from the west so we were on a reach to our next destination. This is a very comfortable point of sail and Further is built to run fast on reaches. We started off by sailing with two reefs in the main and we really started to playing with our sails in order to better learn how to fine tune them. Late morning the winds calmed down, we were able to take out the reefs and it was smooth sailing.

We pulled into West Basin Marina about 1:35pm and it was a bit of a tricky harbor to get into. First the mouth of the harbor was very, very narrow with a wall of boulders on both sides of the entrance. Praying that our motor wouldn't die on us at that moment we successfully made it into the harbor. The next hurdle we had to overcome was getting into our dock. We realized that we would have to do a 180 degree turn to get into our assigned dock in a VERY tight area. Thankfully we were able to test out Further's turning radius earlier that day! After we both took a big deep breath we once again successfully turned her within her length and started to enter our slip. Then we noticed the last and final hurdle we had to 'jump' over... high wooden docks and pilings! After Nadine successfully looped (more like lassoed) the dock line over one of the super tall pilings the height of the rope caused the spring line to come off the cleat. But with quick thinking she was able to recover quickly and prevent the boat from ramming straight into the dock. Other than this one little-tiny hiccup, we had a very smooth docking experience which was amazing since we had a number of obstacles trying to prevent us from doing so.

Celebrating another great day of sailing and
our docking skills!

After relaxing on the boat and celebrating our great docking achievement we decided to grab a bite to eat in St. Joseph's (it was a nice 15-20 minute walk into town) at Silver Beach Pizza which is a huge restaurant and bar that is built in an old train depot. The best part about it is that it still is an active amtrak station! The restaurant was packed because they are very well known by locals and tourists for their excellent pizza and BIG schooners of beer!

After taking in another beautiful sunset, St. Joe's has great overlooks along the river to do this, we headed back to the marina to find out from our kind neighbors that Elaine was barking most of the time we were gone.  They were very nice and said they didn't mind though.  This wasn't that shocking to us since she would always bark when we left her alone in our new apartment until she got used to the place. We are hoping that after this week she will be used to the boat and we will be able to leave her on it for a few hours at a time. Until then, we might be giving her a little bit a benadryl to calm her down when we go explore the harbor towns.

Enjoying a couple of ice
cold schooners!

It was bed time as soon as we got back to the boat (which happened to be around 9:30pm). This was a bit funny because we were the youngest 'cruisers' in the marina. But we had to wake up early for our long sail up to Saugatuck to continue our wonderful harbor hopping vacation! (Click here to see more pictures of St. Joseph/Benton Harbor.)

Firsts we encountered on this leg of the trip:
1. Successfully turned Further within her length two different times!
2. Being able to recover after a docking malfunction.
3. 'Lassoing' the high wooden pilings!