Day 72 - Our 19th Crossing of Lake Michigan to Sand Bay
I had every intention of getting up at 6am and taking Kona for one last real beach walk. When my alarm went off and it was still dark (!) I simply couldn’t will myself out of bed. The days are getting shorter for sure as it was coming up at 4:30 last I remember. Even with my newly set 7:30am alarm Captain and I had a hard time getting up. Two snooze buttons later we got up and just got to work and pulling the anchor. I was glad we prepped yesterday and were ready to go. We were on the fuel dock at 8:10, just 10 minutes after they opened anyhow. We needed a pump out, water and a top off of fuel so Captain took care of that while I walked Kona and got one last shore coffee to support the local business.
We were on our way just after 8:30am. The winds were supposed to be light and a nice beam reach. I had suspected we may get to motor sail at least half the day. The winds ended up being from the stern and nearly non-existent. We did raise the main right away but it was just banging around and so we brought it back down within 10 minutes. The seas were “calm” however there was significant residual swells from the few days of big wind. We spent the majority of the day just getting tossed port to starboard, port to starboard, left, right, left right. You can hear all the bottles going back and forth and watch the sun beams just move back and forth all day. Kona was sliding pretty bad so we brought her bed up to the cockpit and wedged it so she could be comfortable. We enjoyed a Kringle that Jordan and Eli had left for us the night before for breakfast.
I finished Fahrenheit 451 while underway. I really enjoyed it and found it to be a much simpler and easier book to read then 1984. I was super excited to see that half the book was study material and commentary that I didn’t have to read, triggering all the required reading requirements from school days. I enjoyed how simple it got the point across and how it went from a gradual build to “woah! This took a turn fast!” I picked up Handmaids Tale as my next book. I have read this one in school but I am on a dystopian kick for some reason. Maybe it’s easier than reading then real dystopian news we are going through.
We kicked over 1000 nautical miles this year! We are almost at 7000 total over the eight years we have had her. Those numbers are starting to push impressive. Sad to say according to our diesel hours we have had to motor or motor sail nearly 4000 of that! Boooo!
Eventually the swells got less and less and before we knew it our 19th crossing of Lake Michigan was done! The big ditch of Sturgeon Bay is always a nice sight to see. Our home marina used to be here and every time we “come back” this was always our last stop. Everyone on board itching to get past the bridges so we could dock, unload, clean and get home asap! Captain and I both realized that this is the first time we have entered from the Lake side and continued all the way to Green Bay without stopping.
There are three draw bridges through Sturgeon Bay. The first bridge is pretty tall and is lifted on request only. That was raised for us right away. Sadly, our timing had us arriving at the next bridge at 4:20, 5 minutes after it’s scheduled on its quarter of the hour lifting. So, we held too for half an hour for the lifting and then waited for the old Ohio Bridge for 15 minutes for its top of the hour lifting. While waiting for the last bridge we read the big board at the bridge that gave all the hailing information and lifting information. There was a line that said “commercial traffic lifts bridges on request” therefore bypassing this wait that we were doing. Turns out Ciara Madeline is actually a commercial vessel. Captain went through a lot of red tape and paperwork to get her US Coast Guard documented so that, in theory, we could take up to six paid passengers. We could have just gone straight through and really messed with traffic. 😊 Regardless it is always really cool to hear the bridge gates go down, watch all the cars stop then watch the bridge slowly rise and separate leaving just enough room for our mast to go through. I love stopping traffic! Hahaha. In all fairness, I am still a little kid and get really giddy when I’m in a car and I get stopped by a draw bridge (especially if we are in front and can see what is going on). I always wondered what boats are going through and about them. I wonder if others do that for us too!
After we were done with our last bridge we glanced over at our old marina. We weren’t really expecting to see anyone as it is a week day and most folks are up for the weekend only. We took great joy in seeing that our old slip was still empty which means they never did make up our business by letting us go.
We continued through the bay and made a turn to port at the end (we usually go starboard up to Egg Harbor). Just around the corner is Sand Bay where Captain has many memories spending summers with his grandfather and uncles. His uncle Brian is up here along with his cousins from the other side of the family who we had never met. The bay is mostly private homes and isn’t the most protected so we don’t come here often. The weather for tonight at least will be fine and since we are “with” one of the private homes we had beach access for Kona girl.
We had to set the anchor three times! The first time we dropped it the depth meter was reading four feet! We draw six feet, so Captain assumed it was weeds throwing off the depth meter. I could feel the anchor hit bottom super early and when I told Captain we took our boat hook and just went to “feel” if we were close to the bottom. Sure enough, the hook came back with just over six feet of it wet! Yep, it was shallow and lucky to not bottom out! We pulled anchor and went back a hundred feet or so. Dropped anchor and this one was skipping along the bottom (small rocks there I suppose and nothing to grab) so we lifted it, again. But the third time? The third time she stuck!
As soon as uncle Brian saw we were settled in he came out in his jet ski to say hi! He offered to take Kona to shore and to our surprise Kona girl actually got on the jet ski! Slowly they made their awkward way to shore but Kona was wagging her tail and happy to have a bathroom break soon! Brian came back to get us and all the extra food we were bringing to shore for dinner.
At shore we met Kurtis and his sons and everyone enjoyed playing with Kona. We enjoyed the sunset (now also pretty south in the sky as well ☹) and a wonderful brat dinner with a lake side fire afterwards. I was pretty tired and tapping out around 11 so we loaded up the Jet Ski, Kona, myself, our bags and Captain and made our way back to Ciara. Kinda fun to use a jet ski as a dinghy! Looks too fancy tied up to our boat for sure!
It was a long but good day. Hard to really understand the accomplishment of how many times we have crossed this large body of water now. We really know these waters pretty well and now we are really in our home territory. Not exactly sure what the next few days will be like and that is okay, for now I look forward to a good night’s sleep. It is much darker and quieter here for sure!
