This was a strange stop. It is a working dock made up of a collection of barges tied to the shore. We pulled alongside and tied up to the outermost barge. The dockworkers ignored us. There was a very steep set of stairs leading up to the office. I was glad to only have to make the trip up to the office once because the stairs were marginally safe. At about 2am the tug that calls Beardstown home set off…
We ended up staying in Seneca for three nights because the Mersailles Lock decided they were not taking PCs (pleasure craft) at all during the weekend. So we enjoyed our time off the water and took care of some work. When we arrived Friday night I forgot to turn off the nav lights, and as a result my start battery was dead when I got ready to go to the fuel dock. When I tried to recharge it the thing…
Our trip from Joliet was not what we had planned. It was supposed to be an easy day with two locks and a nice afternoon at a quiet marina. We decided that we would wait to leave until after I had finished working and the big crowd of boats had headed off. This turned out to be a mistake. By the time we arrived at the Brandon Road Lock they were too busy to take us through. It took about…
Today our plan was to leave early and go through the Chicago lock and then through downtown. This was a great plan. We got an early start. All was good. But as soon as we got into the lake headed to the lock entrance we were engulfed in a thick bank of fog. This is one last gift to us from Lake Michigan. Fortunately we were only going a few hundred feet to the lock and after a few minutes…
The last time we visited Chicago was about 15 years ago. We stayed at a hotel on Michigan Avenue and visited the museums and the Navy Pier. I remember it not being the nicest of places back then, so it was with some mixed feelings that we decided to stay at DuSable Marina in downtown Chicago for three nights. The trip from St. Joseph to Chicago took us across the bottom of Lake Michigan and as should be expected the…
This stop was chosen specifically because it would allow us to make the trip to Chicago the following day without another intermediate stop. I had been watching the weather reports for the lake and it looked like that would be our best bet for a couple days. So we departed Grand Haven about 7 in the morning and made the long-ish trek down the coast to St. Joseph. It was an uneventful ride and we arrived to a mostly empty…
We were blessed with another really nice day on the lake, so we made the trip down the coast of Michigan to the city of Grand Haven. The first stop was at the North Shore Marina to top off the Diesel tanks, and then we headed to our reserved slip at the municipal marina. I had been to Grand Haven over 30 years ago to see the nightly light show, and I remember there were boats along the waterfront. On…
We were eager to get going again after spending four nights in Leland to wait out the weather. So the night before we planned to leave we moved the boat up to the fuel dock where we filled up the diesel. We then tied up on the dock closest to the entrance to the harbor so we could get an early start. We left the next morning to find calm water and light winds. It was really nice and the…
Weather again became the boss, so we ended up spending four nights in a little fishing village/tourist town called Leland. This ended up being a great place to spend a few days and get work done. We parked next to a 27’ Ranger Tug that was the same year as ours. They looked like momma and baby tugs On Tuesday there was a gale warning, and sure enough the weather showed itself as a formidable force. I added lines and…
Today we had good weather that allowed us to make the trip under the Mackinac Bridge, to the west past Grays Reef, and south across Little Traverse Bay to the city of Charlevoix. The difficulty here is that sometimes the weather in the straits is different from the weather on the lake, so we needed both to be cooperative. The trip was fun and the water was mostly settled, and we arrived just at the right time for the highway…