0530 I am wide awake and listening for any signs of wind on the boat or in the marina. Hearing none, I get restless for I think it is a go but Terri and I have a pre-arranged plan to wake at 0600 and then do our weather routine. I have probably kept her awake with my snoring (audio overload) as she calls it. Our weather routine consists of some favorite internet weather sites as well listening to the VHF and sniffing the upwind air off of the bow. All this seems to be more than the effort weather forecasters appear to prepare. Tongue in cheek yes, but the results seem to verify my statement. The next 30 minutes I assume the position and listen to a radio network that I have followed all the way down the East coast of Lake Michigan. It is the American version of the CBC in Canada, and it seems to be driven by the BBC in the night hours. This has been a source of news, amusement and anguish for me these last 10 nights. But what it did not have is commercials and a big mouth shouting DJ and all of the mediocrity that the modern radio stations seem to offer these days. I don’t care about the traffic and weather together on the nines but I do want to support any radio station that is commercial free and seems to have hosts and producers that are not constantly walking with a left leaning limp. It is now the magic hour of 0600 and I arouse Terri. She is barely asleep as she, like myself is in the zone and must answer the call of Chicago. Let’s go, she says and before you know it we are making preps to slip lines. Coffee is made and I watch Sonata and Seamore another looper we have met depart before us. Let’s go Terri and soon we are on our way.
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| NAV LIGHTS OF BOATS FOLLOWING US OUT OF THE HARBOUR |
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| ALL THOSE DOTS ARE RADAR REFLECTIONS SAILBOATS COMING INTO THE HARBOUR |
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| WATER OVER THE BOW |
As we leave the marina and steer west it is like we need a traffic report to merge into oncoming traffic for the Salmon are running here as well. The line of fishing boats coming down the river is endless. We do manage to merge and form a line behind one of the smallest row boats in the fleet. I shift into neutral so I can stay a respectable distance from him and not run up his rear end. The boat behind me is getting impatient and crowds me as if to pass me. But he does think better of it for now he does see the boat in front of me and a parade of sailboats coming up the channel. Remember the sailboat race I told you about in a previous post? Well it started at 1700 yesterday in Chicago and the fleet was now here 13 hours later. I am sure the victors were long tied up but the bulk of the fleet was now entering the harbour. This, as well as the fishing boats that were leaving the harbour churned up the channel as to test an old Navy man as to who has the right of way. Slow down a bit is my answer and slow down we did. As the fisherman poured out of the harbour and head north to the Salmon grounds, the sailboat racers appeared to be on a tack that would take them south of the harbour entrance. You guessed it, the sea opened up to the West. As this just happened to be our intended course, Terrmar for or a short time made revs for 10 knots and set a course for the windy city. It works and we break free into the unpredictable Lake Michigan. We were on our way! Michigan was behind us and Illinois was somewhere off of our bow. I was excited and pumped to be on the way. Chicago was our first big city and Terri and I were going to paint it red.
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| CONFUSED SEAS |
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| SOLDIER FIELD AS SEEN FROM OUR DOCK |
The wind was forecast to be less than 10 knots out of the south with waves less than 1 foot. Perfect, if that were true but don’t forget what I said about Weather Forecasters. It turned out to be anything but true. South West 20 gusting 25 is more like it. Things could have been worse but as it turns out even Smudge was getting used to it today. But Michigan wasn’t done with us yet. Within one minute the wind switched to the North and now we had waves working against the wind, which makes for a very unorganized sea. Now we had beam seas seemingly coming from both sides. One wave off of the port side seemed to exaggerate the wave off of the starboard side and so on and so on. But even this couldn’t last forever and in less than an hour the wind seemed to switch back to the South West but as we approached Chicago it veered back to the North West. We both agreed that it wasn’t that bad and it could be a lot worse.
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| OUR FIRST VIEW OF CHICAGO |
Chicago is a big city and as any boater can attest, it is visible from a long distance off. We were still miles away and Terri started picking out landmarks that she recognized. Eventually we were in Burnham Harbour and view wall to wall boats. This Marina can hold 1200 boats and most of them were present, as it was a little too rough on the lake to joy ride. We had heard about the free pump outs here and as we were going to be here a week we wanted one before we tied up. As all things that are free, they too are bound to be busy. This service dock was no exception. We sort of drifted about waiting for our turn and of course the save that opened up for us was a little small for our boat. We would have to hang the bow out over the end of the dock, but that is no big deal and we placed the boat very close to another boat and received a very naught look from the skipper. Hay we didn’t hit anything so what is the problem. Words were not spoken between us but there seemed a permanent scowl upon his face. This free pump that was supposed to be a self-serve process turned out to be staffed by some very capable dock hands. They even did the pump out deed for me. So in Chicago free means $5.00 and that is fine because he did a good job and he let me teach him a bit about Canada as he worked. We found our dock and after another $5.00 for the next dock hand we were secure and happy.
Chicago, Terrmar has arrived!
Mark
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