21 Aug 17

The wind got up a bit during the night and blew straight into the harbor mouth, so we rolled around a bit at the dock. However, by the time we got up at 07:00, it had calmed down to S5, as predicted. So, we decided to move on a bit south to Frankfort, to keep ahead of the curve. We were keen to make it into Frankfort in time to view the eclipse, assuming the clouds hold off. The eclipse was at about 25% occultation as we tied up at Frankfort Municipal Marina at 13:45. We were busy trying to view progress through our homemade pin-hole camera when a kind lady on the shore leant us her viewing glasses - very cool. We hung out with them and watched the eclipse for the next hour or so, until it got past max occultation of 79%. Then, we went for a walk around town, did a bit of grocery shopping and got back to the boat in time for happy hour and dinner aboard. Forecast for tomorrow is not so great for traveling and particularly bad for a cross-lake run, and it is not much better on Wednesday, although it would be OK for a run south along the Michigan shore, so we have a bit of planning to do.

44-37.904’N, 086-14.111’W; Log = 36.7, Sum (2017) = 1857.4 N-m

22 Aug 17

The front came through during the night and the wind got up and it rained just a little bit. We slept well, otherwise, in spite of the constant rolling and snatching up against the dock lines. The decision to stay here for the day was easy and we loafed around through breakfast and mid-morning. The Admiral had a nice long phone call with her Medicare insurance advisor and I busied myself re-caulking a few feet of teak deck seams in the after part of the cockpit. Then, I used my new Loos Gauge and adjusted the standing rigging; I cranked the tension on the backstays up from 9% to 13% of breaking strength (Selden, and others, recommend 15% of breaking strength for appropriate tension on backstays and cap shrouds), but I did not have the nerve to go all the way to 15% yet. I was also able to reduce the bow in the mast and correct a bend to port at the lower spreaders. Hopefully, we will sail better now. I have yet to figure out how to get the mast to stop pumping when we are tied to the dock with 10-15 knots of wind on the beam. Finally, I washed the topsides and decks off a bit, but we are still plagued by spiders and spider poop. The evening was lovely and sunny and we had dinner aboard.