Day 3 - Bon Voyage
The alarm went off again this morning well before 7am. Three days in a row of early rises, long work days and late nights, but we are setting off! Just around 7am Ellie and Scott came by to cast our lines and say goodbye! We had our hugs and waved as they tossed our lines to us and we awaited the 7:30 Michigan Street bridge.
Soon after we cleared the bridge we motored past our old marina, our “home” for the last 8 summers. A person living in the condos opposite caught us leaving and posted our ship on local Facebook pages. That was nice :D
We had a nice wind, so as soon as we passed the channel, we hoisted the sails and were on our way! We sailed most of the way to Egg Harbor, and then the winds died. Kona may have acted like she was happy to be up here but she was pretty whiney and shaking a good amount of the time. We think she will settle into transportation days; we know they aren’t her favorite. We promised her good shore time later. I started my first book of the trip, Tristan Jones, “Saga of a Wayward Sailor.”
We stopped in Egg Harbor to get our waste tanks pumped out and fill up the diesel. We like it there because it is easy to get in and get out of there with Ciara.
The water in the Great Lakes is pretty low this year. I have seen islands already where I have never seen islands so we are going to have to keep an extra eye out on the charts and from deck. It is also making fixed docks really hard as it can be nearly a 4-foot step up from our boat to land. Not a big deal, but proving to freak Kona out a bit. For good reason, she has to calculate her boarding techniques in order not to knock her shins on the cockpit. I had to fight her to get her back on in Egg Harbor which almost made me slip into the water. We recognize the potential issue here and will work to make sure we have safe and happy puppy boardings this summer.
We finished in Egg Harbor and set on our way. Our goal was Horseshoe Island another few hours up the Door Peninsula coast. There were forecasted thunderstorms by 3 so we were making good time to arrive around 1:30. No wind, so motor sailing. We were getting hungry so I made us some spicy ramen underway. I added some freeze-dried rotisserie chicken to the soup to add some protein. 1st use of freeze-dried food. I dropped the anchor, complete with our brand-new anchor rode, and we were settled in as the only boat just after 1:30. We walked Kona and both decided the thing we wanted to do the most was a well-deserved boat nap! And the thunderstorms never came.
Captain asked me what I wanted for dinner and I told him to pull up the menu. He was shocked to see I had a nice protected sheet that had a list of all the meals aboard Ciara. He liked that addition very much. We chose Tikki Masala and that would require us to use our freeze-dried raw chicken, making it the 2nd use of freeze-dried food in a day. The curry turned out amazing and I shocked how there was no way we could tell the chicken had been frozen. So far, we are very excited to how well the machine has performed.
We went to shore for a night campfire. I had hoped to see the Northern lights but they peaked before the sun was down, so I will have to await another night. Captain got to try out his new battery powered chain saw which worked really well and was like a hot knife in butter. Don’t worry about the picture! I was going to take a picture of him using it but Kona wouldn’t get out of the way, so I ended up holding her while he actually was cutting.
Oh, speaking of pictures. I have noticed that the mobile version here isn’t showing my captions to the photos I have posted. If you are seeing this blog on a computer, you can see them but at the moment if on a mobile devise not so much. I’m playing with it as I can, but with limited internet now it may be spotty. It’s a work in progress-please ignore my dust…
The fire was amazing. Captain and I sat by the fire and looked at the stars. We reminisced on last summer and all the summers before. We both recognize the “work” of sailing we can feel. A bit sore; beat up from banging shins and not knowing our space. But we both feel like we just settled into her and picked up where we were mentally late last summer. The world does melt away out here. I’m still very much wanting to check messages and be social but the agony of the current events and the dragging on of suburb life are gone.
It has taken me years to really appreciate the beauty of the Great Lakes, but then again, I had to learn to be a sailor. It takes at least a little bit of adventures spirit. The same spirit that has been a driving force my entire life. It takes passion to do the hard work. The same passion I have always put into whatever my current obsession of the day/month/years was. And it takes some luck, creativity, goals and boundaries. We sit tonight together on this journey, grateful we made the choice to do so and were able to achieve our dream.
Bonus: As requested, I’m going to try and add details to Ciara here and there to the blog.
As I was pulling dinner out last night I realized we don’t show how we stow a lot on Ciara. So here is a good example of our settee’s in our saloon. This particular settee is also were Bert sleeps. If you go behind the back you will see there is a huge storage space. And for reference, each grocery bag there is full of freeze dried food. So have an entire grocery bag of ground beef, 10 lbs. Etc. Quick math looking at my spreadsheet says we have over 50lbs (pre freeze dried) of meat and meals back here. The other photo is an artsy shot of our dinner backlit by our ship oil lanterns. Everything tastes better on a a boat, and the atmosphere can’t be beat!
