Once in a Blue Moon: Tuesday, August 27: Frankfort to Ludington, MI

Date: August 27, 2013

Day on the Cruise: 134

From: Frankfort Municipal Marina, Frankfort, MI

To: Harbor View Marina, Ludington, MI

Statute Miles: 54.0 SM

Time: 5.0 Hrs

Cumulative Miles: 3,127.7 SM

On Board: Susan, Chuck, Maggie, Trooper, Peanut

We are in Ludington, MI tonight, about halfway down the "Mitten".

Thunderstorms came through about 2:00 in the morning and woke us up. Wake up call was at 5:30. The first thing I did was check the weather and saw two big clusters of thunderstorms as far back West as Minnesota, moving to the East. No travel for a while this morning.

We watched the storms on radar all morning. We identified the final cluster and made plans to leave as soon as that passed Frankfort. The last line passed and it stopped raining at 11:30. We were off the dock at 11:45 and headed out the harbor. The forecast was for 0-1' then maybe 2' seas all the way down the coast. It actually turned into a pretty decent day until 2:00. The wind started to pick up and the waves got bigger. The wind was from the South and the waves were from the same direction. We handled the waves up to 3' fairly well. We didn't handle the 5 and maybe 6 footers well. For the first time on this trip, the boat would go airborne and crash down as waves came at us. Not good.

We played this game for more than two hours. Susan and Maggie hunkered down on the back seat on the Flybridge. I tried to hang on in the helm chair. It rained off and on and spray constantly came over the fly bridge. The wind blew out our port side curtain on the flybridge, which was hanging on with a broken zipper anyway.

We passed a 22 foot aluminum boat out in this mess. He was really struggling in the waves, and we were really close to shore. We also passed a 40' sailboat under power that was also struggling in the high waves. The harbor break wall and entrance came into view and we turned to make a run to get inside. This put us broadside to the waves, and we really rolled. A big boat went into the harbor just in front of us and he had to move way over to get around a small aluminum fishing boat, maybe 16' long, who was right in the middle of the entrance to the harbor at the break wall. He was in calm water just inside the jetties, but he was in the middle of the entrance. I was struggling to steer in the huge waves and had to deal with this guy!

I blew a long blast on my horn and this did no good. I managed to get the boat way over to the left side of the entrance and got into the harbor, narrowly missing the small boat. I then called the Coast Guard Station at Ludington on the VHF radio and reported the guy as a hindrance to navigation. I have had it with idiot fishermen in these lakes. They deserve what they get!

We refueled and got a Pump out then got our slip. As soon answer powered up the shore power and turned the air conditioning on, it went off on a high pressure malfunction. I had to down into the engine room and clean out grass and fish from the raw water strainer for the A/C pump. This was the second time in two days that I had to dot his because of all the grass in Betsie Lake in Frankfort. Just what I wanted to do after a frazzling day on the water.

Our marina is right next to the big car ferry ship named "Badger" that goes between Ludington and Manitowoc, WI each day. This is a 60 mile trip each way. She came into Ludington about 6:30, then left back out just before 9:00 tonight heading back to Wisconsin. This ship is used by big commercial vehicles as well as cars. The ferry is the only alternative to driving down to Chicago and then back North to Wisconsin. It is an older ship that still has a coal fired boiler that provides steam to power the vessel. The boiler and the ship are on the National Historic Register. Environmental groups are trying to shut this ship down because it leaves coal ash in the air over the Lake.