Slogging to Harbor Springs!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 125 - August 3, 2017

Some time in the early morning, the winds had abated, or perhaps shifted direction, at Hog Island, and it was calm inside Fisherman's Bay. But a check with SailFlow and Marine Weather told us the forecast for today on Lake Michigan is bad and the forecast for tomorrow is worse! The forecast for today told us we would be seeing one to two foot waves becoming three to five foot waves by noon!  The winds were supposed to be building to 15 knots from the east, which would be on our beam. The distance from Hog Island to Harbor Springs is about 36 miles, and at our cruise speed, we would not get to Harbor Springs until after 2:00 p.m. Since we have a service appointment at Irish Boat Shop in Harbor Springs for Friday, we headed out with a bit of trepidation!

Here is our track, which crosses some big open water!

Screenshot of Hog Island to Harbor Springs Track

Fortunately, the conditions we actually saw were waves of about one foot or less most of the way, becoming one to two feet by the time we were approaching the entrance to Little Traverse Bay. The waves were not from the east but on our nose, i.e., from the south, and the winds could not have reached forecast speeds. Cruising into one to two foot waves is more "slogging" than "pounding" but we are wondering if Lake Michigan is EVER really calm!

Irish Boat Shop is way more than a boat shop! It is a marina, new boat showroom, ship's store and full service boatyard with two TraveLifts.  I had selected them based on Active Captain reviews for our outboard service, which involved a couple of internal filters that get changed at 400 hours (we are at 476) that I could not do myself. They said it would be no problem, and wrote me into their schedule. I also told them I needed a new prop, but we left that a little bit open ended.

Irish Boat Shop puts transient boaters on their outside face dock, and because of the likelihood of winds making the outside face dock unpleasant, they do not like to put boats under 30 feet there. But they bring boats getting serviced into a slip in the marina, and Betsy who handles all the dockage chores, guided us into our slip and helped us get tied up! We are directly across from a Nordic 40 (hey, it is the same as the Nordic 37, but Nordic apparently thought calling it a 40, counting the swim platform and the bow pulpit, would sound better, sorry Sam and Jan!). This same Nordic was next to us at Mackinac Town Dock, and they are flying the AGLCA (America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association) burgee as well.

John, one of the service guys, came down to our boat, and we talked about the service we needed and the prop. Since we have all the service parts from West Coast Marine in Bellingham, he said the service would not be any problem for their mechanic.  He looked at our wounded Honda three blade SS, wrote down the numbers, and told us he would see what he could come up with. He came back a little later with a price on a Michigan Wheel three blade SS prop and hub kit for the Honda BF150, and while it was pricey, it was not out of line. Most importantly, he said it could be here tomorrow!  Needless to say, we told him to go ahead and make it happen! There'll be a BOAT unit (Bring On Another Thousand) or better involved in the service and prop before they are done tomorrow!

We settled in, had our sundowners, and a fancy dinner of toasted cheese sandwiches!  Then the lightening started flashing, the thunder clapping, with a count of eight between.  Then a count of four, then they were pretty much together.  It poured heavily for a few hours.  We have been treated to quite a few of these storms on this trip.  

I will be very relieved when the outboard service is done and we have the new prop tomorrow. I figure I will have to do at least one more routine outboard service before we cross our wake in Florida, but that will not involve anything I can't do myself!