Updated on July 7, 2016
Adios, Lake Michigan!
Post-Fourth, heading out under the Mackinac Bridge–the largest suspension bridge in the US, and the gateway to Lake Huron.
…and we’re officially in Lake Huron, folks.
One of our new friends in Northport said he calls Lake Michigan “5 by 5”–the waves are 5 feet high and 5 feet apart (as opposed to his home waters of Charleston, SC, which are more like 5 by 150). We had great wind for most of our time on Michigan, but the waves generated by those winds were…challenging. T spent some time being pretty seasick–there was a lot of napping in the cockpit–and we all ended up really worn out by the end of our traveling days.
Our first two days in Lake Huron have been light on the wind, but easy on the waves. We’re enjoying the break. As we head into Canada, our internet will be spotty and our phone service nonexistent, so expect the blog and our Facebook account to be a bit light. We’ll pick back up when we return to civilization!
Posted on July 7, 2016
Busytown
You all remember the Richard Scarry books, right? The impossibly busy cities, with a hundred (labeled) things happening at once, so a kid could stare at the same page for hours?
Welcome to Busyharbor.
We’ve been hanging out in some pretty quiet spots, but Harbor Springs for the Fourth of July weekend is a par-TAY. We came in from the lovely little town of Northport on Saturday afternoon, and it was like that opening scene in the movie “Jaws”—people everywhere, from Jet Skis to tubers to kayaks and SUPs to floatplanes to big sailboats sailing deep into the harbor, and our first taste of actual superyachts taking up entire branches of the municipal pier.
We dropped almost all of our chain in 65 feet of water, towards the back end of the designated anchorage, and settled in to watch. (Hughy—remember when you told me that 300 feet of chain was too much? Joke’s on you, my friend…) There’s a whole category of boats here who just motor upwind, then shut off the engines and slowly drift downwind until they’re about to hit something. Then they power up and do it again. There are also tons of beautiful powerboats who clearly did not neglect their buffing regimen, doing really long loops of the harbor; they pass us a few times throughout the day. Why motor around, when eventually the world will drive by you?
Some of the fancy yachts motoring past our boat
Weirdly, we don’t seem to be getting much love from the Hinckley picnic boats and the Cobalts. We’re accustomed, in our Midwest-nice manner, to give a wave to a passing boat. Most of these guys seem to have perfected that gaze that looks right through you, as though scanning the party for the cooler people. My approach is more like that of a puppy, or enthusiastic second-grader: Hi, guys! Where’re you from? I like your boat! Aren’t boats great? Hi! ……*crickets*. You know who always gives the wave? The professionals. Harbor Police, staff driving tenders for the megayachts, guys from the local yard—they’re all about the wave. Hi, everyone.
We’d heard good things about the fireworks here, so we decided to stick it out for a few days at anchor and take a short break from our regularly scheduled Projects and Upgrades. We’re still struggling to find parts to repair the seal on the lower unit of the outboard for the dinghy, and had no luck here, but we stocked up on some groceries and met our weekly requirement of ice cream. T and I also lucked into a personal tour of the lovely racing boat, Talisman, proudly docked among the powerboats. T’s thinking of converting his bunk to a pipe berth—he likes the leveraging system.
We went to the small-town parade, and watched a great fireworks show right off the stern of the boat. And when the fireworks were over, there was no driving home–we just went downstairs and went to bed.
Posted on July 5, 2016
Naming names
Boat names have all kinds of history associated with them. People choose names to honor their sweethearts, to be funny, to stand out. When we purchased her, our boat was named “Brothers’ Bliss,” although it’s clear from the paperwork that wasn’t her first name. (We actually have a stash of cheap Mae West PFD’s labeled “French Kiss.” Really?) We didn’t feel too bad switching that one up, and “Milou” had been the plan for a long time.
Back when Michu and I were first dating, we ran into a friend who’d recently circumnavigated. Now, I don’t remember this whole conversation, but Michu claims that over dinner later, he asked me what I’d name my boat if I were planning to go cruising, and I’d immediately come up with “Milou.” In the original French version of the TinTin comic books, TinTin’s dog, Snowy, was named Milou—a loyal friend who always helped him out of scrapes, and occasionally got drunk. The name also has the advantage of being easy to spell out to the Coast Guard—Mike, India, Lima, Oscar, Uniform. That was about twelve years before we bought our boat, but the idea stuck.
That’s not our only naming convention around here, however. There’s the rest of the fleet: The Wee Scunner, our inflatable dinghy named for an epithet from a Terry Pratchett novel; the Niffler, F’s kayak, named for the magical creatures in the Harry Potter novels who are so good at finding treasure; and the rowing dinghy, Wee Jock (full name: Not-As-Big-As-Big-Jock-But-Bigger-Than-Wee-Jock-Jock), from the same Pratchett novel.
The stove is named Vasili. When you use the stove, and then set a hot pan on the stovetop with the flame off, the stove manages some alchemy of heating and cooling that causes it to make a huge pinging noise. It sounds disturbingly like the rigging has failed, but it’s just the stove. So obviously, The Hunt For Red October runs through our minds every day: “One ping, and one ping only, Vasili.”
We finally got our autopilot up and running a few days ago, and it is LOVE from all quarters—so much less tiring to not have a hand on the wheel, even when the sailing is great. We’ve named it Cogsley, after a robot from the Amulet series of graphic novels; slightly grumpy and sarcastic, but extremely competent. We feel that our autopilot would have no patience for the erratic courses that we sail when we are tired or distracted, but will take over and do a much better job. Except for the time Cogsley somehow failed to anticipate that one huge puff that knocked all that stuff out of the galley. Up your game, Cogsley. Sheesh.
The engine shall so far remain nameless. It’s for the best.
Updated on July 1, 2016
South Manitou
Sometimes, when you get up really early, you can upload a whole bunch of photos to the blog before the rest of the marina uses up all the Wifi bandwidth.
Updated on July 1, 2016
Cost to Cruise–June
Boilerplate disclaimer: This is not what it will cost you to go cruising.
People’s constant advice, discussing cruising finances, always seems to be: It’ll cost what you have. We did not find this helpful in our planning, however true it may be. What we’re trying to show is the cost to us, more or less, for one month to go cruising. We’re going for monthly expenses, because they’re easier for us to track; so you won’t see the boat insurance amortized, you’ll just see that expense when we pay it. It won’t be what you’ll spend, but it was the kind of information that helped us out when we were trying to wrap our heads around that magical number for our cruising kitty.
If you have questions about the cost of our refit, we are woefully unprepared to answer them; we weren’t very good at keeping track. I actually ran across a huge stash of receipts the other day, and made the call to pitch them; we’ll never know exactly how much we spent, and we’re probably better off that way. Now that we’re on the water, it’s easier to tally our costs.
As far as June goes–it was a short month. We started keeping track of finances on June 11th, the day we left our house and officially moved on the boat. We did not include any of the embarrassingly large amounts of money spent on last-minute provisioning or repairs, or anything pertaining to our house or the refit.
We’re modeling our expense chart after the good folks at Terrapin.
Marinas: $449 Grocery: $360.53 Restaurants: $180 Supplies: $42.75 Booze: $39 Ice Cream: $14 Laundry: $12.25 Transportation: $0 Communications: $0 (but much cursing at the Wave antenna) Entertainment: $27 Pumping out: $10 Boat parts: $11.50 Fuel: $30--dinghy; $34--stove GRAND TOTAL: $1210.03
So, it’s important to remember: we started with an almost full tank of diesel; we had a bunch of groceries aboard, and will continue to be well-stocked in maple syrup and sushi rice for quite a while; we didn’t include party expenses, and the box wine from that party has really held us over; and we’ve been treated to a lot of meals by friends and family this month. We spent more on marinas than we anticipated, but the lure of hot showers is too powerful to ignore. We expect to do better on that front, but not until we get to warmer waters…quite a ways down the road.
We also have to confess: we still have our Netflix subscription. The kids are really into watching The Flash. Clearly, we can’t quite cut all the ties holding us to land.
