Lemonade out of Lemons

Photo I took at mid-lake, Lake Michigan during our overnight crossing. This was the view as we sailed across the lake. To say it's disconcerting sailing 7knts into pure blackness is an understatement. It's when you see lights and have to go through the mental gymnastics of figuring out what your looking at that's interesting.

We took advantage of our stop in Waukegan for repairs, in addition to sorting our leaks and bilge issues. Among the list of repairs and improvements was replacement of the halogen reading lights in the master cabin and installation of 2 led reading lights with USB ports. We cleaned the bilge, her pumps and filters, and re-spliced the centrifugal, which must have been cut accidentally at some point. We took the opportunity to have our dodger isenglass patched and installed a marine co2detector, after discovering the one we had was not marine grade and therefore would be prone to alarming in a lot of humidity. I even found time to read a whole book.

One of the best parts was getting to spend some time with a friend of mine, Jeremiah, who’s boat, Bliss, was right next to us in Waukegan. I haven’t seen him in 5 or so years, since we took the classes to get our Captains licenses. Taking tours of each others boats and swapping sea stories was a great way to unwind and relax.

I’m writing this underway for Ludington. As usual, the exact direction we want to go is the exact direction the wind is coming from. This always seems to be the case. But as I write this, we are making good time under motor in relatively calm seas.

Unfortunately, neither the sea state nor winds held in the middle of the lake. Things got a bit wild out there, of course it was all made worse by the fact that we were motoring directly into them. No fun. The night was the darkest I've ever seen, with only the sliver of a moon, and I could not even see the horizon. We drove to a heading and tried to react to the constant waves breaking over the bow. Once we got across, we decided we were ok to change course and head north to Frankfort, so that was a good 2 day passage and we felt good about the mileage we made, 154 nautical miles.

We also had a few laughs at the chaos we heard ensuing on the VHF as the air and water show was underway in Chicago. The most confusing call to me was a sailboat hailing the coast guard to come get them. They had lost their engine because they maybe?? ran out of fuel, they weren't sure… after the coast guard didn’t arrive in 10 minutes, they called again and explained again how they were ‘stranded’ just outside of their harbor. In fairness, I don’t know what harbor they were aiming for, but I do know they had the mainsail up, with 2 adults onboard. The coast guard politely informed them that their harbor master

had been notified and they would be reaching out to them via telephone. Coast guard out! 🤪