046 - Fog Bank a Comin

To all those who insist on paper charts as a backup to electronics, “what good are they in fog?” What was a surprise to us was the frequency of fog on the lakes, it wasn’t anticipated by us, seemed like a New England issue not a lake issue. But the water is cold (60s in the big water) and the air is warm which is perfect for dense fog. We learned at the shipwreck museum that a large percentage of ship wrecks on the Great Lakes are ships driving into other ships, mostly in dense fog. Radar, GPS, electronics charts and AIS should mostly preclude this cause of shipwrecks. We expected the number one cause for shipwrecks to be bad weather (think Edmond Fitgerald) but bad weather only accounted for ¼ of so of great lakes shipwrecks. With far better forecasting today, this too shouldn’t be an issue like it used to be. But back to our story, without radar, we played our fog horn, set a watch on the bow, watched the AIS for ships (we could see them but they couldn’t see us), put on life vest and safety harness, and issued whistles. We made it fine but it was a long 6 hours the first time and even longer 8hrs the next. Radar would have been nice.

I sure don’t want to go in the water, I’m already cold.

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049 - Currents

I admit the picture doesn’t show much, but this was 5.5kts underneath Peace Bridge near Port Huron. We were doing 1/2kt against the current. People on the shore were walking faster than us. It was impressive. I’m glad to be on Lake Huron where there are no currents. The lake does slosh around with wind but I can handle that, I really don’t want to fight 5.5kts of current again, it was taking the boat and tossing it all around like a cork. I was working the tiller harder than in a following sea. You can see a bit of an eddy in the lower right but you’ll have to trust me on this one. The dramatized blurry picture below shows the turbulence and terror of the experience. It also captures the Loch Huron monster in the middle left – it’s unexplained what that silver hump is. Yikes!

051 - Med Style Anchoring – It’s so European

It’s complicated but it really lets you pack them in. Having done it now 3 times now, I hope I’m done with it. For us it’s complicated by the tender hanging off the stern and our stern anchor rode being 300 ft long in the bottom of a lazarette under a pile of other items. All the rode has to come out into the cockpit for attaching to a tree on the shore. It makes for a messy operation. Let’s see if I can explain. To anchor med style, you have to be able to backup well, which being a sailboat puts us at a distinct disadvantage (can you hear me saying powerboat would be better here too, but I won’t say it). You also ignore the winds as you will back into a parking spot between other boats anchoring the same way. You “simply” pick a spot, throw out the bow anchor in front of it, back into the slot and tie a rope to something substantial on the shore, and put out bumpers for your neighbors. That’s all you have to do. So we pick...

032 - Bugs in the Middle of the Lake. Really?

Yup, bugs in the middle of the lake. Why the not the shoreline? How do the bugs get to the middle of the lake? Did they fly out here and if so for what, to find a boat? Or do they breed out there and if so, why don’t the fish eat the larvae or the insects themselves? It’s one of those questions in life that probably has an answer but it’s just to fun to be outraged over the unexpected. It all made me laugh at the “Breaking Bad” episode on “the fly” where he destroyed the lab for one fly. We didn’t destroy the boat, but then we had more than one as are documented in the photos above. We found out after the fact that the FAA had radar blips for the billions of mayflies that hatched while we were on lake. I believe it. I’d never seen anything like it. So thick we had to wash the deck of the dead and their green goo. It had a nauseating stench with it too. But it was just the beginning. We were inundated o...

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