Our first morning on the west side was spent cleaning the boat. It had been a while since we washed the outside of the boat, and she was getting a little nasty. Louise and I broke out the vacuum and started on the salon and cabins.
These photos were taken on the same day. Sunrise and fog within about 30 minutes of each other, in the middle is the view when we were having breakfast.
You learn about lots of things when you get into serious boating, types of rope, navigation, the care and feeding of marine toilets etc. But one thing I never thought I would learn about was arthropod poop. There are two types we have become familiar with. The first is bee poop, or yellow rain, which we first learned about at Newboro lock station and have also encountered several times at Black rapids lock station. The other kind is spider poo.
Spider poo is this nasty sticky black goo that hardens to form a solid blob that is really hard to get off of surfaces. You have to soak it, and then apply liberal amounts of elbow grease to get it off. There are special cleaners for it, but we just use dish soap, and our Royobi power tools.
The black splotches are made by spiders. This stuff is gooey and sticky and then hardens and becomes difficult to remove.
We started by using the vacuum to get rid of as many spiders and webs as possible. Then we broke out the power scrubber and pressure washer and went down both side decks and the transom area. Spiders do not like soapy water, and the combo of the pressure washer and scrubber was pretty effective at getting rid of both the poop and the spiders that made it. We spent some extra time on the windows, as the black stains were really bad on some of them. Took all morning, but we got the lower decks and salon done.
The marina had free bicycles you could use, so Chrisie and Louise went shopping while Steve and Bill went through the museum and lighthouse beside the marina.
Patent medicine from the old apothecary store in Escanaba. Always effective! totally safe!
Bum-chica-wa-wa
Still for home use only. Note the repaired axe slashes on the side.
After finishing the museum, the boys took two bikes to meet the girls at Stonehouse restaurant for dinner.
Takes you back in time.
The place did not take reservations and was packed. Luckily the girls got there early and got us on the list. Really creative meals. We each had something different.
After dinner we did some grocery shopping and cycled back to the boat, where several boat crews got together for docktails. We met a gold looper, and also visited with Mike and Amy, two local boaters who were visiting from Wave Pointe, a marina more to the south. We sat around chatting until it got dark then turned in for the night when the bugs started to come out.
The next day we were up at the usual time, but had planned to take it easy and leave the dock around 8.
Soooooo, after spending hours cleaning spider poop off the boat and getting rid of every spider we could find, this is what we saw through our front window first thing in the morning.
Buh-bye.
Both boats set out, with a bit of fog visible far out on the lake. Luckily we did not encounter any fog along our route, and had a smooth cruise to our next destination, Menominee Michigan. This trip we experienced time travel, as the port we left was in the eastern time zone, while our destination was in the central time zone. We had planned on a 6 hour cruise, which would put us at our destination at around 14:00, but we arrived at 13:00 after going through the dimensional warp.
What were they thinking?
We got set at the wall in the marina, then activated the ROAM app to check-in with customs. The app says "pending" until an officer processes your request. The app was pending all day and all night. Louise got in touch with some other Canadian loopers who told her the app does not work in some locations. Great. They gave her some links to an interactive map with contacts for the app.
While we were on the boat screwing around with the ROAM app, lots of locals stopped by to look at the boat. The red colour really stands out from other boats, and we get lots of comments on it. This time however, most of the comments were about our Canadian flag. Apparently they do not get a lot of Canadians here.
Les Boys hanging out.
When we were in Escanaba we picked up some fruit fly traps. The last few days we had been dealing with a bit of an infestation. We recycle all our cans and bottles, and it turns out that our recycling container had become a fruit fly breeding ground. So we emptied our recycling and hosed out the container, then set up a trap nearby to deal with the horde.
After going for dinner at this small bar near the harbour, we checked out the boater's lounge. Wow! This place was huge. They had lots of different rooms, a full kitchen and coffee bar, big TV. Since the weather was forecast to be bad the following day, we decided it will be better to hang out there than on the boat.
This boat won the sailboat races they had our first night here. The "torpedo" at the front is an extra boom that extends to hold a spinnaker. The extra area of the sail provides more thrust for the boat. This boat beat all the others by a wide margin.
Next day was forecast to be rainy and grey all day long, but the morning started out sunny and really windy. The waves were from the south, and they were getting into the harbour creating gentle swells. Every boat was rocking, which would continue for the rest of the day. Louise went shopping with Chrisie while I did some small boat repairs and engine maintenance. Around 13:00 the rain clouds appeared, so we went to the marina boaters lounge to hang out. Louise and Chrisie baked Louise's blueberry pie, and we all had pie and ice cream, then each of us did our own thing, watching videos or reading.
The boater's lounge is in the old waterworks building. Apparently the building was to be torn down by the city, but the marina volunteered to use it, and restored it to made it into an absolutely fabulous boater's lounge. Above you can see ONE of the lounge areas, this one has a fish tank.
They have a coffee and breakfast bar. Cappuccino machine, hot chocolate, juice, buns, rolls, help yourself.
Cappuccino in the lounge.
Are you old enough to recognize this?
One of the bathrooms. Has a full bath, shower, and even a TV and DVD player. Everything is immaculate.
Old barometer. You predict the weather by the position of the liquid in the tube. Plaque said it was from 1620.
Ice cream and blueberry pie, it doesn't get any better.
That evening we went to the Spirit House. This is an old funeral home that has been converted into a distillery. Each week they host trivia nights, and tonight was the night. We named our team Lucky Penny, and had a great time answering trivia. Out of 12 teams, we came in 5th. Heading back to the boat, we passed a coffee shop that advertised breakfast, and since we had not eaten dinner, just munchies at the trivia night, we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast the next morning.
Lucky Penny trivia team
Our score sheet from trivia night.
The coffee shop the next morning served all kinds of different coffee styles, and we enjoyed our breakfast on the front porch. Louise got a cappuccino with butterscotch. The place made omelettes that were were really good, and the four of us had a great breakfast before getting the boats ready to get underway.
Louise got the gourmet coffee.
Triple mushroom omelette.
The crossing to Wave Pointe marina was pretty smooth. Miss K had to take evasive action when they came upon a fish trap. The marker buoys are hard to see, and so you don't get a lot of warning when you approach one. Once you see one buoy, you have to quickly search for the others, so you know which way to steer to avoid the nets. When Miss K spotted the second buoy it was right in front of them so they had to do a crazy-Ivan turn to avoid it. We passed a few more traps later in the morning, but these were far enough away that we could avoid them without any extreme manoeuvring.
We were amazed to see the water was absolutely covered in algea to the point it that the water was green, even 10 km out in the bay. I guess this is why they call it Green Bay. Steve saw lots of fish on his fish-finder. No wonder they set fish-traps out here.
We pulled into Wave Pointe marina and got settled in. What a beautiful resort! We had another ROAM app hiccup, the app would not recognize our location and so Louise had to call Chicago CPB. They noted our info and approved us. Apparently we will run into similar situations all down the inland rivers. Fun.
What an awesome place to be trapped in. Several boaters stopped by to check out iFloat and Miss K. They were all interested to hear about the loop, and where we have travelled.
Louise and I went swimming in the pool, while Chrisie, and later Louise, did laundry. Later in the afternoon we all went to the bar for $2 draft during happy hour, and listened to Joseph, the bartender, tell jokes. He and Steve went back and forth in a "battle of the jokes", and both of them were really good at telling funny stories. Back on the boat, we made burgers for supper and, as is our habit, checked the weather forecast. Things were not looking good for the next few days. Strong north winds were coming in that would shut down small boat travel on the lake for several days. We had a narrow window to get to Sturgeon Bay the next morning, and so planned to scoot there before the lake got rough.
Next morning the forecast had changed slightly, and our window was now pretty narrow, but we decided to give it a shot anyways, since we were only looking at about a 90 minute trip. We got underway, but it was not looking good as we started rolling almost immediately after leaving the harbour, even though we were still in the protected part of the bay. In fact I had to throttle back as Louise was having trouble moving around the deck to police up the lines.
As we turned the corner and came out of the bay we got slammed by 2 to 3 foot waves on the nose.Every once in a while there was a 4 footer. Ooops, this was not supposed to arrive for another 3 hours! We pressed on, but when we made the next turn the ride became waaay too rough, and so we decided to abort and go back to Wave Pointe. As we were returning to the the bay we passed a couple of bass fishing boats heading out. One of them pulled a "wheelie" going over a wave, whereupon both of them turned around and headed back into the bay. We got tied up to the same slips we had just left, to hunker down for the weather.
Steve decided to do some work on his engine, which had been "slobbering" a bit - excess fuel in the exhaust at idle causing some smoking. He checked his impeller and found some damaged vanes, so had to replace it. He has a Yanmar engine which requires a lot of messing around to change the impeller - you have to remove the alternator and then the whole water pump to get at the impeller. Why can't engine-makers design marine engines so that service items like oil filters, impellers and such are accessible? Changing the impeller did not resolve his issue, so the next day he planned to check some more things.
The resort was having its annual pot luck dinner that day and this year it was Italian themed. We were invited by Mike and Amy to join the feast, and so went up around noon. For $15 each we had all-you-can-eat food and all-you-can-drink beer, wine and beverages. They also had a band that played all afternoon. It rained on and off, but we stuck it out on the patio, and Louise and Chrisie even danced in the rain. Seven hours later we returned to the boats, and all of us immediately turned in. What an awesome day! We met lots of really nice people, and spent the afternoon laughing and enjoying the music. We sure picked the right time and place to weather out the storm.
Out on the patio with the band. It rained on and off all afternoon, but we stuck it out under the table umbrellas.
Part of the lunch spread.
One of the dessert tables.
Both crews with our hosts Mike and Amy.
The next morning when we got up the wind was howling, and the burgee flag at the front of the boat was flapping like crazy. We took our time having coffee in the morning, then Louise went for a walk while I took a nap. Steve was working on his engine, so Chrisie also went walking and met up with Louise in the boaters lounge. Turned out there was still free beer available, so they each sipped some to finish out the morning. Yes, the morning… The afternoon was pretty quiet except there were two families with small kids who took over the hot tub and boater's lounge, so we mostly hung out on the boats and got some small chores done. The families let their kids jump on the furniture and take the cushions off, then made a huge mess in the hot tub area. Nice. The Coast Guard put out a small craft warning all day, and the weather forecast was bad for the following day, so we were here a bit longer.
The twins on the dock. Lots of people have been commenting on our boats. They don't get a lot of loopers here, and because the boats are so similar we have had a steady stream of visitors.
We are kind of by ourselves on the dock, which adds to the effect.
The following day was a repeat of the last. Louise and Chrisie hung out in the boater's lounge and pool, and even had more leftover free beer, while Steve changed his engine filters and I cleaned our bilges. The weather was showing a window for us to get to Sturgeon Bay the following morning, so the plan is to go in the morning. This has been a great place to be pinned, but time to move on.
From time-to-time we have hit our heads on the microwave cabinet, so I installed a rubber pad on the corner to ease the pain. I used some headliner adhesive, so had to mask the area before spraying it on. The application worked, but was not my greatest repair. You only get one shot to adhere, and if you miss, it is there forever. I missed, so will have to do some MacGyver work to camo it.
That night the wind shifted and got stronger. It was really humming when we went to bed. Although it eased out in the morning, it was still too rough to move until this afternoon, so our plan was to leave around lunch time.
Boat name of the Day: The Jolly Wanker
