Wow, it feels good to be underway again! The starboard engine was a little reluctant to wake up this morning, but after a full minute of cranking, it finally decided to wake up smoothly. We both loved Racine, and it was hard to untie the lines. However, further adventures await so we departed at 8:25 am, and we should arrive at Port Washington, Wisconsin in the mid-afternoon. The photo at the right immediately after we exited the marina and turned to head out the Root River to Lake Michigan. The marina is off to the right (south in the photo), and the platform at left is an observation deck with rows of seating on the grassy hill in front. It looks like a small music venue, but we saw no signs that it had been used recently.
At the same time that the photo above was taken our view back over the stern was up the Root River (photo at left). On the right side is one of several large private marinas. The bright blue structure near the center is the Main Street (bascule) Bridge. The docks on the left side of the river are private docks at several condos. Port Washington is about 48 miles north up the west coast of Lake Michigan. Along the way we will pass the city of Milwaukee, and we are bypassing Milwaukee mainly due to a large weekend long celebration at the music and entertainment venue that is adjacent to the marina. On the first loop trip we stayed at Milwaukee. We liked it there although it was a fairly long walk to a really good variety of restaurants and shopping in the downtown.
About 5 miles north of Racine we passed the very beautiful Wind Point Lighthouse and its various out buildings, including the light keeper's house. Obviously, I have this love affair with light houses, which I hope you will learn to share with me...
The trip was in beautiful weather with a light (~6 mph) breeze out of the southeast and resulting "waves" less than inches. There were larger rollers (old waves) from about the same direction so we did do some rocking about. In the photo at the right you can just see the shore in the distance in haze. We had chosen a straight line course, which meant that most of the time we were far enough off the shore to not see much. The tug in the photo is the Genesis Victory, which is actually pulling a large barge astern of her (photo below).
The Genesis Victory is 31 meters (or about 102 feet) long. In the photo we are closer to the barge than the tug so there is some distortion, but using 102 feet for the tug, you can see that the tow line is very long. This can present problems at night if a boater does not read the lights correctly then they might try to pass between the two "apparently" unrelated boats with disastrous results.
The next photo (at right) is a hand held photo of the chart plotter screen with the first page of AIS data on the tug Genesis Victory. AIS is the Automatic Identification System that is required on all commercial boats in US waters. I have talked about the utility of this system before, but this is just the first layer of information available to us. In particular, the course and speed of the vessel as well as the vessel type and length so we know what to look for, but in this case we do not know that she is towing a barge. Other than dodging a few fishing boats that were trolling for Coho salmon and Lake Trout we had an uneventful trip. The fisherman were trolling in water between 120 and 150 feet deep. These sport fish, including their food, are temperature sensitive and will move out into deeper cooler water as the surface waters warm up over the Summer.
The big surprise of the day was the invasion of hundreds of small (immature?) flies. We have screens for the windows on the flybridge, but we have never felt the need to use them before now. Of course, by the time that we realized that we needed the screens it was already too late. Fortunately, the flies were pretty benign, and in this case they were so slow moving that you could accidentally steep on them while moving around on the flybridge. The photo at the left shows part of the sole on the flybridge, and all of the dark specks are flies and/or pieces of them. Lucky had a great time catching them, and she was especially proud that she could even catch them on the fly (pardon the pun). Fortunately, the cleanup job was much easier than expected since they did not seem to get smashed into a "bloody" mess. However, it was not a job that anyone was looking forward to doing, except perhaps for Lucky and we were not about to let her do that.
The photo at the right shows our view of port Washington through the haze as we approached the harbor. The weather had not really changed over the day, except that the haze got thicker. Much of the downtown area goes up the side of the hill, and for once I will not have to worry about satisfying the stairs climbed section on my Fit Bit. Racine had been pretty good for vertical feet on the walk into town and walking up and down the observation deck at the marina (first photo today). I find that stairs are really good exercise for me personally, especially for my legs and lungs. So, I actually do try to get my verticals every day in spite of the unkind comment that I may occasionally make about my Fit Bit.
We passed this lighthouse at the entrance to the harbor (photo at the left) when we arrived a little after 2:00 pm. By 2:15 pm we were moored at the fuel dock as we planned to top off the fuel tanks and get a much needed pump out. The arched concrete base was probably added to the original design of the lighthouse to raise it above waves during the worst of the Winter storms. As we continue further north, we will be in successively more remote areas and further away from the refineries that make the fuel. Thus, the Admiral called around the marinas in our vicinity, and as luck would have it, our marina for tonight had the lowest price. We took on 248 gallons of diesel fuel, and with the tanks full we probably will not need fuel again "this year". That sounds better than it really is since we will not actually be travelling that many miles between here and our winter storage at Winter Harbor in Brewerton, NY. However, we will be spending about a month in Canada where the fuel prices will definitely be a lot higher so at least we can avoid that problem.
Our plan is to depart in the morning, but that plan could always change depending on weather or mood. We will however be cleaning the sole of the flybridge and a couple of areas on the main deck before departing. The Admiral also definitely has plans to fit some of the screens before we depart. The screens fit over the window opening and attach firmly with Velcro all around. Hopefully it will make a difference!
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