26 Aug 17
We both woke up early this morning to be ready for an early start across Lake Michigan. The forecast still looked good, so we got underway at 08:00. The “Badger” was about an hour behind us and caught us up at 10:00, giving us a one-whistle pass about 1/4 mile to starboard. The wind was SE 9 - 13 all the way, so we motor-sailed (with jib and main) all the way across. We throttled back a couple of times to try to sail, but could only make 5.0 - 5.5 kn of boat speed (vs. 8.0 - 8.4 kn motor-sailing), so we throttled back up both times. With a shorter distance, I would have been happy to sail, but it would have delayed our arrival by a couple of hours. As it was, we got into Manitowoc Marina at 14:15 CDT (we crossed into Central time about half way across the lake; it’s been four years since “c’est le bon” was on Central time), just before it started to rain. The “Badger” was leaving harbor just as we came in, so we had another close encounter with them. We had dinner aboard and just chilled for the evening, catching up on SNL, Bill Maher and John Oliver and their excellent skewers of our fearless leader.
44-05.763’N, 087-38.902’W; Log = 54.8, Sum (2017) = 1962.4 N-m
27 Aug 17
The wind is up today from the SSE (i.e., more or less on the nose from here all the way to Chicago) with a bit of rain predicted, so we stayed put and took in the excellent Manitowoc Maritime Museum, which included a tour of the USS “Cobia”, a WWII submarine. There were about 15 people on our tour, including 5 small children and it was close; I cannot imaging having 80 young men on that boat for 60 - 90 days, with very little in the way of personal hygiene. Only the cook and helper were allowed to shower daily; the rest, including officers, were lucky to get a brief splash once a week. Four of the 28 subs built and launched from Manitowoc were sunk by enemy action during the war. We got back to the boat about 15:00, just before it started raining again. Dinner aboard. We may head south to Sheboygan tomorrow if the winds lay down a bit, or move around a bit more to the east. In the meantime, all our thoughts and prayers go to our friends, relatives, neighbors and fellow residents in Houston, who are getting hammered by rains from Harvey; epic flooding.
28 Aug 17
The wind howled from the SE all last night, but we slept well. When we got up, we immediately went to the news to check on the situation in Houston with TS Harvey; a slowly unfolding disaster of epic proportions. But there is not much/anything we can do from here. Our house and the people in it, as well as all our friends, relatives and neighbors are all doing fine, thank goodness, at least this morning. The wind was still a bit high and on the nose for a run to Sheboygan, not to mention the sea-state after last night’s blow, so we decided to sit tight in Manitowoc. We did some laundry, watched the news from Houston, cleaned the boat, watched the news from Houston, went for a walk around town, watched the news from Houston, had dinner and then finally watched the news from Houston. A bit nerve-wracking to watch this disaster unfold from afar, knowing there is nothing we can do about it. My brother’s house in Kingwood is within a couple of feet of being overwhelmed by waters from the San Jacinto River - Lake Conroe - upstream - has opened the flood gates and is letting an unprecedented 79,000 cfs of water over the dam to avoid an overtopping catastrophe, but this may not be good in the short term for those living near the San Jacinto River downstream.