We were much more organized this morning and pulled out of the slip at 9:05. Our goal was to go 44 miles to a marina in St. Joseph MI.

Taken by our friend Tom – he and his wife have a boat that was just two slips down from the one we had, so they saw us off this morning.

The forecast had called for waves 1-3 ft with winds out of the south. We knew it could be an uncomfortable trip, but very doable. Unfortunately the waves were closer to 3 with a bigger one every 10 seconds, so we were up and down and slammed around. We thought we had the dinghy securely fastened on the lift but less than half an hour after we got out on the big lake the dinghy started trying to come off again. This time we caught it early enough that we were able to get it back in place and tied down with even more lines in 15 minutes. (Idon’t think our dinghy wants to make this trip with us -it keeps trying to run away).

There are lots of sand dunes along the shores of Lake Michigan and not much else except ….

Cook nuclear power plant.

Finally when we were just a few miles from St. Joseph the water calmed down and was a very pleasant ride the rest of the way. 

The pierhead and lighthouse at the river mouth.

We had made a reservation at a marina that’s part of a resort hotel so we are able to access all the amenities of the hotel. And there’s a very good restaurant in the hotel so we were able to have a nice dinner there.

We had no problem getting into the slip, but it seemed to take forever to get the boat tied up so I could get off and on easily and safely. I definitely could use longer legs!

And then we had to figure out yet another way to secure the dinghy – ugh 😒

While we cooled off after all that work we checked the weather forecast for the next few days – it’s not looking good so we’re opting to stay put for a couple of days. We hope that we will be able to get to Chicago Sunday. In the meantime, we will try to get a few things worked on and maybe even go to the pool – life is tough!

We are using a tracking device that will allow you to follow us whenever we have been on the move. It will record our location on an hourly basis.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0UGjuScikx3sEHI5oWXIfu4G61Dr39Dx5

Our anticipated 10:00 start ended up a 10:35 start for a variety of reasons. But with a wonderful send off from dockmates Claire and Kathy and my P.E.O. sister Rhonda from Lafayette who has a cottage in Holland ( and who brought donuts and other pastries -thank you, Rhonda!) we left our slip and headed south.

If you ever need a good shipyard and marina on the east side of Lake Michigan, this is the place to go. They treated us so well and the service dept. went above and beyond on many occasions for us. Thank you Thom, Mike, Jake, Matt, and all the others who helped us.

Jake, who runs the parts dept. and ship store, and who patiently answered my  questions  almost every day.

A last look at our slip with Claire, Kathy, and Rhonda waving goodbye to us.

Just after we pulled out of our slip

Passing the Holland lighthouse, Big Red , one last time

Soon after getting out into Lake Michigan we hit some intermittent big waves. I was headed below to look for something and realized our dinghy was no longer on the lift and the lift was no longer where it was supposed to be. Rich was eventually able to get the dinghy loose and tied to the side of the boat and we went more slowly than planned into Saugatuck. The river current was really strong and we had to go against the current to get into a slip -yet another adventure!  (Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have no photos of this part of our day).

Rich was eventually able to get the lift working properly and the man who installed the lift came down from Holland to make sure it was okay. We got the dinghy back on the lift and securely fastened down, but unfortunately the hull now has a hole in it. It’s a double hull so it still floats if we had to use it in an emergency. The installer from Holland has a good friend in Chicago who can repair the hole, so it ended up  better than we had hoped for.

By the time we got the dinghy issue resolved and i had cleaned up the inside of the boat it was time to get ready for dinner. Our good friends Mickie and Tom, who have a slip just a few down from where we are, joined us for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Saugatuck. It turned out to be a great birthday!

Tomorrow we head to St. Joseph MI, a trip of 44miles.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we officially begin the Great Loop, so I thought this would be a good time to have an “open house” and give you a tour of the inside of our boat. This will be our home sweet home for the foreseeable future.

These are the steps from the middle outside deck leading into the main salon. The doorway to the right of the steps leads to the master cabin which is at the rear of the boat. Do you see the TV on a ceiling mount?

There are three recliners to the left as you come down the steps. The galley ( kitchen) is beyond the recliners. I have a two door fridge/freezer in the galley that holds a surprising amount of food and drinks – we won’t starve or die of dehydration. The door to the right of the fridge goes into the forward/guest cabin.

To the right as you come down the steps is a curved settee with a dining table.

And under the cushions of the settee is my pantry!

We replaced the original 3 burner ceramic cooktop with a two burner induction cooktop. I had tried to boil water for pasta on the old burners and after 45 minutes it still wasn’t even at a simmer. I knew I couldn’t spend a year with a wimpy cooktop so out it came and the induction one went in. Now I can get a pan of water to boil in two minutes!

      

There are lots of hidden storage places on our boat. For example, under the rug in the galley is access to our wine cellar and under that, an access panel to that storage space where I put all those paper towels.

The left side of the guest cabin

The guest head (bathroom). There’s a glass enclosed shower that is being used as storage space for gallon jugs of water and soda. I guess I’ll have to find a space for all of that if we ever have guests who want to use the shower.

The master cabin. The sliders in the upper right corner of the picture open on to the back deck (Rich says what I call the back deck is actually the cockpit, which makes no sense to me. I think a cockpit is at the front, like the cockpit in a plane. Who do you agree with?)

From left to right – bookshelf in a space that used to house an old TV ( note another ceiling mounted TV – it unlatches and the TV flips down) with a cupboard underneath for a clothes hamper, toilet, sink, and separate shower.

As you can see, life isn’t too bad on our boat!

We had decided yesterday that we needed to pump out our holding tank (for non-boaters, think 55 gallon storage tank for everything that comes through the toilets -not a pretty thought-and a really shitty job for the dock hand who runs the pump), so at 9:30 this morning we headed over to the fuel dock where pump out is located. Fortunately there were no other boats there so it was quick and easy. Trying to get back into our slip wasn’t so easy. The wind and current were working against us so it took some maneuvering and a helping hand from a friend a few slips over to get us tied up – thank you Claire!

When we hooked up shore power again we discovered the A/C was shutting down. The rest of the morning was spent trying to figure out what was wrong. Fortunately once Rich cleaned out strainers and blew gunk out of the hoses it started working again.

And then the rain started. It poured buckets and buckets and more buckets – and then we discovered a leak above the settee. Water coming inside a boat is not a good thing. And it wasn’t even noon yet! We were afraid to think of what the rest of the day was going to be like.

The lower window on the left is where the leak was.

Luckily the rest of the day turned out to be much better. The rain stopped so no more leaks, the sun came out, and our daughter Elizabeth and grandkids Izzy and Alex arrived to spend the weekend with us.

After 5 hours in the car, the kids were ready to run off some energy, so I took them to the marina playground. Next to the playground was a giant sailboat that had raced in this year’s Chicago to Mackinac race. Izzy is 5’2”, so you can get a good idea of how big this boat is.

Then it was time for the weekly Saturday Z dock happy hour. We were surprised to find they had a cake for us! We had no idea that Z dock was so friendly and welcoming when we selected a slip on it last winter, but we feel very lucky to have become a part of it. Thank you to all the Z dockers out there for making our summer so much fun!

Elizabeth and her kids have a tradition that whenever they’re in Michigan they have to have ice cream every night. So after dinner it was off to Captain Sundae.

a Tommy Turtle Sunday for Elizabeth

mint chocolate chip for Alex

And candy play dough for Izzy ( blue moon ice cream with bits of red, yellow, and green cookie dough)

By 9:30 we were all ready to call it a night!

 

People who do the Loop are called Loopers and we’ve been patiently waiting all summer to meet some. One boat arrived at the beginning of the week and stayed a couple of nights waiting for the weather to clear. We visited with them briefly and then they were gone. They said there were many boats behind them – and yesterday some of them arrived!

Two Looper boats are on our dock and at least three other boats are on other docks in our marina. We joined them for docktails yesterday ( that’s what Loopers call happy hour) and enjoyed hearing about their trips. There were boaters from OH, VT, FL, CT, and MD – and boats of all shapes and sizes. It made us even more anxious to get this adventure started!

I realized as I got ready to post something tonight that I took no pictures of docktails nor did I get any pictures of anything we’ve been doing for the past two days. I need to work on my photography skills 😊

I’ll end with a beautiful sunset I captured a couple of days ago –