Chicago!

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

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 153 - August 31, 2017

Today was definitely a no-go day according to SailFlow and Marine Weather for our cruise from Portage, Indiana, to Chicago. It looked bad last night, and it looked worse this morning. Wind from the northeast, 15 mph and up, waves of four to six feet. When I went to the office to return the key, the Harbor Master at Marina Shores at Dune Harbor said he had just returned from the breakwater and the waves were huge with whitewater breaking on top.

They say worst thing in the world for cruising the Loop is a schedule. We have a paid reservation at DuSable Marina, tickets for the Architectural River Cruise in the morning, and a hotel reservation for tomorrow night at The Blackstone. I told the Harbor Master we were going to poke our nose out, and if we thought we  could not make it, we would turn around and come back.

It was not our day to die! The hardest part was clearing the breakwater at the Portage Burns Waterway breakwater. Huge waves were crashing into the breakwater sending water high in the air. There was a lot of current coming in through the opening to the waterway. But we powered through. 

What we found when we got a little way off shore and pointed our bow toward Chicago was that the waves were indeed big but they seemed more like swells than steep waves. We would go up one side and down the other, almost no crashing down into the trough. We were able to hold a nearly straight line to Chicago once we got out and moving.

Screenshot of Portage to Chicago Track

Pretty soon we could see the Chicago skyline, and there was no need for the GPS to know which way to go!  We took one hour shifts each at the helm, and crossed in under five hours. The most difficult thing once we got here was trying to find the entrance to Monroe Harbor and DuSable. What we saw out the window and what Garmin Blue Chart Mobile was showing us did not seem to match up well. I chose to believe my eyes and not Blue Chart Mobile!

Monroe Harbor and DuSable Marina

As we were coming in, we got our first look at the Chicago skyline up close!

Chicago skyline approaching Monroe Harbor and DuSable Marina

When we entered the breakwater, we first came to Monroe Harbor, an immense field of 1,000 mooring balls. We had originally considered taking a mooring ball, but quickly gave that up, since we really wanted easy access to shore for Baxter and our bikes without having to take a water taxi. We next came to DuSable Marina, where we radioed in and confirmed our slip, which is E-31. The transient slips are on the outside ends of the docks, which are from G down to A, and we also understand there are transient slips on the inside ends. We had requested a slip at the inside end adjacent to the Riverwalk, but no such luck. E-31 of course was on the outside end of Dock E.

After we got tied up and registered, we had our margaritas and then I took the bikes down. We called Pet Care Plus, where Baxter will be boarded and groomed tomorrow while we are at the Blackstone, to make final arrangements for their "pet taxi" service. Since it was by then late afternoon, the margaritas kind of doubled as our sundowners too!

We headed first for Navy Pier on our bikes, after stopping at the marina office to see if we could extend for an additional day, which fortunately we were able to do. We found out the Navy Pier has nothing to do the Navy these days! We passed the booth for the Architectural River Tour to confirm where we will depart from tomorrow, which it turned out is right behind the booth. We have e-Vouchers on my iPhone for the Architectural Tour - sign of the times I guess! Anyway,the Navy Pier is home to all kinds of lake, harbor and river cruise boats, an amusement park with a Ferris Wheel, event venues, the Miller Lite Beer Garden, food vendors, and retail shops. Tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, it will host the Great American Lobster Festival. We walked the pier to the end and back, stopping to buy some cinnamon roasted pecans for later!

Navy Pier banner

 

Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier

Tall Ship cruise boat

Spirit of Chicago cruise ship

When we extended our stay, we asked the Harbor Master, who looked very young to us, but I guess everyone does these days, for a recommendation for his favorite Chicago pizza place, and he recommended Bella Bucinos, so we fired up Google Maps and Apple Maps to find it and promptly got lost!

There is a freeway, U.S. 41, that separates Northshore Drive and the Riverwalk from downtown, and there are only a couple of ways to get from the marina to downtown conveniently. One is Randolph and the other is Wacker. Neither one, we found out, is bike friendly! We went via Randolph, on the sidewalk, and once we got up to Michigan Avenue, we just were completely puzzled, since the streets on the GPS did not seem to be the same streets were seeing on the ground! After a while, though, we found Bella Bucinos.

We opted for the thin crust special, which they cut into square pieces because, frankly, a deep dish pizza is mostly bread. Maybe it is full of good stuff too, but basically it is too much bread for our tastes. Bella Bucinos is, I will note without political comment, right across the street from Trump Tower. Maybe we will try a Chicago deep dish pizza before we leave, out of a sense of obligation to try Chicago's hallmark food, maybe not!

Trump Tower right across the street from Bella Bucinos

It was dark by the time we left Bella Buchinos, and we boxed up about half the pizza and head for home in the dark. Bella Bucinos was on Wacker, so we thought we could probably just take Wacker back to the Riverwalk via the sidewalk. Well, almost. The sidewalk on Wacker was closed for repairs, and no way were we going to ride in the traffic lanes in the dark. We turned around and went down the next side street, where we saw stairs and an elevator, so we took the elevator down, since "down" was all we really knew about getting back to the marina! We soon came to a sign that said "Navy Pier and Riverwalk," so naturally we went that way. It turned out that it took us down a trail through a parking area that emerged right at the Riverwalk, and we were home! I am not sure we could do it again, but we have pretty much decided that for The Blackstone tomorrow and Second City on Saturday, we will Uber!

So, today we got two items from our "must do" taken care of - Navy Pier and Chicago pizza! Tomorrow, we will take the Architectural River Tour, deliver Baxter to the Pet Care Plus taxi, and head over to The Blackstone for our fiftieth anniversary, and enjoy our bottle of Prosecco, cinnamon pecans and a fancy dinner out to celebrate, as we say, "forty-eight damn years and two good ones!" That is a joke, people, really!

Pat and Patty, September 1, 1967!

Pat and Patty, 50 years later!