Day 74 to Sturgeon Bay and scenic Door County

      We departed early and cleared the marina at 6:55 am.  The first order of the day was to head a short distance up the Manitowoc River to get some unobstructed views of the submarine USS Cobia at her mooring at the maritime museum. Yes, this was a special side trip to get some photos for Grandson Will. As we approached the maritime museum, we got some great views of the Cobia (photo above right).

      The Cobia was one of 28 submarines constructed in Manitowoc for action in World War II. After launching and fitting out in Manitowoc, the subs went to Chicago and down the river system to the Gulf of Mexico. There they were fitted with the periscope and other antennas and railings that would stick above the conning tower. These had not been added in Manitowoc in order to reduce her bridge clearance for the Chicago and Illinois Rivers. They were also put in a floating dry dock to transit the shallow rapids of the Chain of Rocks on the Mississippi River below Alton, Illinois. This area of the Mississippi River now has a lock and dam to raise the water level for traffic the river today. The photo above left shows a nearly bow on view, which is a view that I find to be particularly menacing like in all those old WWII submarine movies.

      The photo at the right shows the permanently mounted forward deck gun. They had a plug for the barrel to keep it from filling with  water when the sub was submerged. Obviously, this gun adversely effected the hydrodynamics of the sub when submerged, but the gun was used to sink unprotected and unarmed surface ships. Thus, the valuable torpedoes were saved for use on more important targets like tankers, freighters and other naval vessels.

     The last (I promise) picture of the Cobia is a close up of the anchor and the bow planes, which are diving control fins, in their retracted position. The fins are extended when the sub dives, and for example, can help her dive faster even as she is still venting air out of her ballast tanks to achieve neutral buoyancy.
      Today we are heading 59.8 miles to Center Pointe Marina at Sturgeon Bay, WI. This is at the end of a canal that joins Lake Michigan to Sturgeon Bay on Green Bay and is in the southern part of the very scenic Door County area.  We will be there for at least three nights. Several of our next planned stops will be in Door County which is a popular tourist destination. While we are in Sturgeon Bay we plan to learn of "must see" locations from local boaters and also we plan to rent a car in part to tour Door County on the land side to check out some of the potential marinas.

      As we approached the Sturgeon Bay Canal, we got a great view of the Sturgeon Bay Canal Lighthouse. It serves as a beacon to mariners, including lake freighters seeking to use the canal. The man made canal is less than 250 feet wide (my guestimate) and about 5 miles long. It connects Sturgeon Bay on Green Bay with Lake Michigan. Ships heading out of port on Green Bay and heading to destinations east and/or south on Lake Michigan can save probably 50 miles by using the canal, but I definitely would not want to be passing a lake freighter in what would definitely seem like sharing a phone booth.

      As we were entering the channel into the canal, we got a great view of the red channel marker (photo at right), which is yet another different shape. It is short and stubby, but it no doubt has a lot of internal bracing to protect it from major storms when waves would undoubtedly break over it. We proceeded along the canal at (more or less) no wake speed, but it was a pleasant trip in great weather.

      Under the general heading of be careful what you wish for, as we were approaching the canal, I had remarked that we had seem very few seagulls on todays passage (photo at right). As we entered the little harbor before the canal, suddenly there were seagulls everywhere. I guess that they had just been waiting to greet us on our arrival...

       After we had checked into the marina in Sturgeon Bay, we walked across the bascule bridge to a local restaurant called the Greystone Castle (photo at left). It was your average bar and restaurant inside, except for the décor on the walls. As you can see, a diverse collection of animals were represented on the walls, but fortunately none were on an endangered list. I had pan fried Bluegill filets, which were absolutely wonderful. I am sure that I must have had Bluegill before, but it would have been a very long time ago when I was growing up in Lorain, Ohio. I cannot wait to have it again!

      We did some exploring on our way back from lunch, and on the way back across the bridge we got an excellent view of the USCG Cutter Mobile Bay. She does duty during the warmer months pushing the buoy tending barge that is attached to her bow. The barge, which goes all of the way back to about 30 feet in front of the pilot house of the Mobile Bay, is interesting because it has its own small pilot house from which the anchor and bow thruster are controlled. So, it is not a regular passive barge that just responds to the tug, but it can assist with positioning of the barge during the buoy tending as well as docking by using its bow thruster. During the winter months, the Mobile Bay without the barge serves as a (light) ice breaker on the upper Great Lakes. She is too small to break up really thick ice or ice ridges, but she can easily plow through thinner ice and also keep existing openings from freezing back over. Thus, she can spend a lot of the winter months steaming 24/7, and I understand that the noise of the ice hitting the steel hull can seem never ending.
      We continued to have cold drizzling rain so the Admiral issued the executive order to crawl under the electric blanket and take a nap, and I dutifully obeyed orders. We toyed with the idea of renting a kayak for an hour to test drive one of their Hobie Kayaks with a foot powered propulsion system, however, the weather just would not cooperate. The Admiral insists that she does not want to buy one now, but the important qualifier is the "now". However, this is not all bad since I really like her present kayak...

      After the nap Lucky was ready for a LONG walk, and then the Admiral and I walked to dinner and strolled back for a quiet evening before going to bed early once again. Well, not quite early as Lucky and I headed out one last time when the news came on at 10:00 pm. It was on this last walk that I smelled an old familiar smell -that of lilacs in bloom (photo at left). Lilacs are beautiful and very fragrant for about a week when they are in bloom, but for the rest of the year they are just another green shrub, although they can be trimmed into shapes or made into a taller privacy barrier. You might gather that they are not one of my favorite plants, except for that one "week".
     Tomorrow morning we get to sleep in! Whoop!