Chicago IL to Joliet IL - Sep 12, 2016

Sep 10^th – It started out as a rainy cool morning with moderate winds which cleared up as the day progressed.  We’re a little sore this morning from all of the walking we did yesterday.  We’ve been trying to get a hold of West Marine to get parts that they are holding for us, however their phone has been out of order for the last couple of days.  We contacted a Chicago AGLCA Harbor Host, Ken Purcell, to find out if we would be wise to bike over to West Marine and he responded there were no good transportation options and offered to drive us.  We didn’t expect this however we took him up on his offer since we needed the parts to get our AIS system working on our chartplotter.  We had a great discussion with Ken and he dropped us off at Gino’s East Pizza on the way back so we could get our deep dish pizza and before he left us we invited him back to our boat in the afternoon for some cold ones.  After we ate the Exxxcellent deep dish pizza we walked back to the boat along the lake front trail to drop off our parts and then went for another walk into Chicago to see the Chicago Museum Campus that includes the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum and Soldier Field which is the home of the Chicago Bears NFL team.  Once we got back to the boat we were in great need of ice cold beers to quench our thirst.  I then had to prepare the boat for our trip through Chicago tomorrow by taking down our flag, anchor light and VHF antenna to ensure we can get under the lowest bridge.  We expect it will be a long day tomorrow since we must travel about 40 miles at a snails pace through a river system with many obstacles including a lock, bridges, electronic fish barrier, tows, etc.  As I’m writing this Blog entry we are being entertained by the Chicago Yacht Club which is housed in an old Canadian Ice Breaker vessel.  I assume that it’s their year end party since they are all dressed to the 9’s and at the moment the DJ is playing some great dance music.  And just when I thought the blog entry was complete I was startled by a bang which was the start of one of the largest fireworks displays that we have ever seen and we had the best seat in the house!  Apparently Navy Pier has fireworks to music twice a week on Saturday and on Wednesday and we were lucky enough to be here to see it.

    

Sep 11^th – It was a sunny comfortable day with light winds.  We traveled through the middle of Chicago by boat, which was an amazing experience, and continued on the River system to Joliet IL.  It was a long day since we had to travel at a slow pace through a couple of locks, many bridges and past multiple tows.  Once we arrived at Joilet we met Loopers Jim and Cindy from “The Journey”.  I installed the NMEA 2000 components for my Lowrance devices today hoping that I could get my AIS display working on my chartplotter, however no luck thus I’ll have to make a call to Lowrance Technical support tomorrow to see if they are able to help.  The inverter is still acting up thus I may bypass it tomorrow or the next day depending on our travel plans.  I don’t mind delaying it however there’s a risk that I won’t be able to get our shore power to work if the inverter decides to quit.  This trip definitely keeps you on your toes!

Sep 12^th – It was a sunny and beautiful day.  We decided to stay at the free dock in Joliet IL so I can work on the boat.  First I called Xantrex for support on my inverter and then I bypassed the inverter and everything is working well.  Our friend Dave from Manana that completed the Great Loop recently has been following our blog and saw that we had inverter issues ... he gave us some great information that will save us a bunch of $!  Thanks for the advice Dave ... all the work that goes into the blog is paying off.  I wasn’t so lucky with the AIS issue on my chartplotter.   After an extremely long call and many tests the Navionics support people said I need to send my chartplotter in for repair however it’s my main source of navigation information thus it’s not possible at the moment.  When they found out I was from Canada then they said they couldn’t help me and I’d have to contact Lowrance support in Canada.  After I completed my jobs for the day we decided to walk in to Joliet to do a little shopping.  Once we got back we relaxed since we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow as we go through more locks and bridges down the river.

A Tall Ship in the Chicago Harbor

Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier

The Ship at the back is the Chicago Yacht Club - previously an Icebreaker in Canada

The Windy City

Heading towards the Chicago River

We had Chicago's Deep Dish Pizza at Gino's East- Yum!

Heading through Chicago on Aqua-Fennatic

Hummm - Are we going to fit under that bridge?

Trump Tower is in front of us

Interesting way to park cars

A Tow playing chicken with us!  He said to pass on the One.

Should I go swimming ... I think not!

St Joseph Harbor MI to Chicago IL - Sep 9, 2016

Sep 8^th – It’s a humid and windy day with a high chance of thunderstorms.  The winds started blowing hard from the west unexpectedly last night which caused us to rock and roll most of the night on the St Joseph river.  Today the waves are higher than we expected and there’s a high risk of thunderstorms thus we’ve decided to delay our 60 mile crossing to Chicago to tomorrow morning.  We moved our boat to the West Basin Marine in St Joseph today to eliminate the rocking and rolling.  Andrew, the manager of West Basin, is a great guy and drove us to a grocery store to replenish our food, beer and water.  The rescue tape worked great on the oil hose with no leaks however we ran into another issue that seems to be related to the Inverter/Charger.  The Inverter wasn’t passing through the shore power to our panel.  I tested all the components ... shore power outlet OK, Cords OK, Transfer switch OK, Inverter has AC going in but not coming out which supplies the AC panel.  As I was testing the Inverter I heard a switch click inside the inverter (I think) and magically everything was working again.  Hopefully this was just a glitch and I don’t need to replace the Inverter/Charger.  We met Wayne and Alyce from Aurora B as well as Wayne and Lynn from LeryLynn today and had docktails with them.  It was Alyce’s birthday today and for a birthday cake she baked one of the best upside down pineapple cakes that I’ve ever tasted!

Sep 9^th – Today was a hot and humid day with low winds and rain towards the end of the day.  We got up early and traveled 60 miles from St Joseph to Chicago and encountered a time change along the way since it’s an hour earlier in Chicago.  We are staying at DeSable Marina which is right downtown.  We walked 16 km today within Chicago and visited Navy Pier, Millennium Park and the Magnificent Mile.  We were going to go out for Deep Dish Pizza, however the rain changed our plans plus we were out of gas from all that walking!  We had a couple cold beers on the boat plus a stir fry.  I expect we’ll do more walking tomorrow and get our deep dish pizza fix.  Maria is extremely happy since there are no more Lake Michigan crossings left on the trip ... Exxxcellent!  However we seem to be having intermittent Inverter problems.  I'm currently just monitoring this issue since I'm hoping not to spend my time in Chicago down in the engine compartment.

Coast Guard Boat performing Man Overboard exercises in St Joseph

St Joseph sunset

Heading into Chicago in the fog

Do we look any skinnier?

Fountain by Navy Pier

Millennium Park

The Bean

A wall of water with a projection with a moving face

South Haven MI to St Joseph Harbor MI - Sep 7, 2016

Sep 5^th – It’s another hot and sunny day with moderate winds, however the next week looks like we will have high winds and chances of thunderstorms.  Last night we played the card game “Golf” for the first time since we left our Lake Simcoe friends.  The boaters we played with knew of a different version using 9 cards per person, however they tried our version of the game and enjoyed it since it went faster and was easy to play.  The winds and waves forecast for travel to Chicago was not good thus we traveled to St Joseph MI and tied up at a free wall with 2 other Loopers.  I noticed that our boat is leaking oil from one of the fittings on a hose on the port engine which can’t be fixed.  The replacement part is $330 US thus for now I’ve decided to wrap rescue tape on the fitting until we can get the replacement part.  We walked up to town and then went to the beach with Dan and Jacque from “Horizon Chaser” then went for a swim in 60 degree F water ... Yes that’s right ... the water temperatures have dropped drastically as a result of all the winds which have churned up the cold water from the bottom.  It was so hot out that the water felt great and after a couple of minutes I didn’t feel the cold.  We walked up the beach which was packed with people enjoying the hot weather.  Once we arrived back at the boat we had docktails including a new Looping couple we met – Jack and Judy from “Regalita”.  We put our chairs in the shade and relaxed and discussed our next move.  Maria and I are planning to stay another night since we’ve been told that we must visit a large Marine store called Wolf Marine which was not open today since it is Labor Day.  As I write this blog entry I’m listening to a live performance which is only a few hundred feet away with an orchestra and opera singers.  It’s not really my type of music, however it’s an interesting change as long as it’s brief ;) 

Sep 6^th – It’s an extremely hot and humid day with moderate winds.  We stayed in St. Joseph today and walked up to Wolf Marine and I was amazed at the size of the store as well as the variety and selection of marine parts that they had on-site.  We bought various parts as well as 2 fender balls which will be arriving tomorrow thus we will most likely stay one more day before leaving for Chicago.  Wolf Marine offers a shuttle service to and from the store, thus they drove us back to the boat after we finished our shopping.  The other 2 Loopers that were with us last night decided to move to Michigan City today and they plan to move to Chicago tomorrow.  We will most likely jump directly to Chicago from here, however the weather may impact our plans, as usual. 

Sep 7^th – It’s another Hot Hot Hot day with moderate winds.  We stayed in St. Joseph again today since it looks like Chicago is being hit by thunderstorms thus our next window to run to Chicago is either tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning based on the forecasts that I have seen.  We walked into town to have breakfast and after we returned to the boat the owner of Wolf Marine picked us up at the boat to get our fender balls that we ordered yesterday.  We decided to get a couple more things while we were at the store and then Richard (a Wolf Marine employee) drove us back to the boat ... what a nice guy!  He reminds me of Santa in both looks and jolliness... see the picture below.  Richard mentioned that there are some unsafe areas in Benton Harbor which is across the bridge from St. Joseph ... we had a strange incident today where a group of young men driving in a car yelled some rude things at us.  This is the first time we’ve encountered this type of bad behavior while boating and hopefully it’s the last.

Entrance in to St Joseph Harbor

Train bridge just behind the free wall in St Joseph Harbor

The town of St Joseph Harbor

A neat looking fountain in St Joseph

The Beach in St Joseph was busy!

Swimming with the crew of Horizon Chaser

A massive ship that docked on the other side of the canal from us

A small section from Wolf Marine

Santa ... I mean Richard - a great guy and boater from Wolf Marine

Holland MI to South Haven MI - Sep 4, 2016

Sep 2^nd – It was a warm and sunny day with moderate winds.  We are still at the Anchorage Marina in Holland MI enjoying the area.  We met a few people from the marina and everyone has been so friendly and helpful.  We rode our bikes into town to do some grocery shopping and plan to take our dingy in tomorrow to the farmers market.  The marina is getting much busier today as the weekend boaters arrive for the long weekend which I expect will get much busier since they are calling for nice weather.  After our bike ride we went to the pool to sit in the sun and have a couple of cold beers.  After dinner we went for a walk into one of the local neighborhoods and we tried to get back to the marina without turning around ... we then had to use Google maps to find our way back.  I’m glad we had technology with us otherwise we might still be walking!

Sep 3^rd – It was a warm and sunny day with mostly light winds.  We are still enjoying our stay at the Anchorage marina, however the number of people at the marina have increased exponentially.  There’s a constant flow of boats coming in and going out of the marina thus we’re getting more rocking and rolling action then we had over the last few days, however I expect it will calm down once everyone returns for the evening.  We used the dingy to get to a dock close to the downtown area and then we walked into town and went to the farmers market to get some fresh veggies and fruit.  On the way back we encountered a lot of confused waves from all the boat traffic which Maria wasn’t very happy about.  West Marine sent me an email to say the life jacket that I ordered was on back order thus I had to call them to figure out how they’re going to get it to us since we plan to be at the Chicago store sometime next week.  They seemed to be helpful and we’ll see if they are able to redirect the delivery to another West Marine farther south once they know when it becomes available.  The Yacht club had a Prime Rib special tonight for $15 ... Wow was it good!  Afterwards we had to go for a walk to burn off the calories!

Sep 4^th – It was another hot and sunny day with light winds.  We decided to move from Holland MI to South Haven MI since the winds were light and it appears that high winds and thunderstorms will be coming in the next few days thus we may quicken our pace to Chicago.  Our head (toilet) was having an issue where the sewage would back up into the toilet thus I replaced the Joker valve (others call this a duck bill valve) and believe that will correct the issue.  We shall see.  We met Dan from “Horizon Chaser” as well as Ron and Kat from “Katnap” and the group of us just sat on the dock having a few cold ones in the sun.  After dinner we went for a sunset walk and socialized with the boaters at the dock.  Depending on the weather we may run to Chicago tomorrow morning, however we need to ensure the weather will cooperate since it’s about a 78 mile run, otherwise we may go to St Joseph’s which is about a 25 mile jump south of here.

Sunset in Holland MI

Farmers Market in Holland MI

Downtown Holland MI

Fennville was represented at the Farmers market

Leaving Holland MI

Arriving at South Haven MI

A tall ship on the river in South Haven

Sunset on the pier in South Haven

Lighthouse at South Haven

Grand Haven MI to Holland MI - Sep 1, 2016

Aug 30^th – It was a hot and mostly sunny day with moderate winds.  We’ve decided to move in the morning since the winds are going to pick up and there is a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon plus the spot we were in will be impacted by the winds and waves from the lake.  We’re trying to slow down a bit since we’ve heard from a number of people that it would be best to avoid Chicago on the long weekend for 2 reasons:  1) There will be a high demand for tourist type attractions including restaurants & marinas.  2) Many Loopers will be in Chicago on the Long weekend and will be starting the river system after that which will cause a high demand for a limited number of overnight spots.  Thus it’s better to either beat the rush or wait until things slow down a bit, so we’ve decided to move only 13 miles south to Port Sheldon which is a small lake that we anchored in which is well protected and good for swimming.  There are no services on the lake and the newest and largest coal plant in the US is located close by.  One of the retirees of the coal plant and his wife dropped by to say hi and chatted for a while.  Apparently the workers and retirees of the plant can keep their boats at a slip near the plant for $150 per year.  The water temperature here is 76 degrees F thus I went swimming a few times to cool off.  We’ve been told that the swimming will come to an end once we enter Chicago thus I’m trying to get all the swimming in that I can before we reach that point. 

Aug 31^st – It was another hot sunny day with increasing winds throughout the day.  We decided to move since the coal plant was a little loud in the Port Sheldon anchorage.  We got up early to beat the winds and moved to Holland Michigan to Anchorage Marina on Lake Macatawa.  They have an excellent overnight rate as well as a great set-up including a pool that is both inside & outside with glass in the middle.  The marina is fully booked from now until the end of the long weekend, however they had a “no show” yesterday thus we were lucky to get their last available slip.  Maria decided to do some laundry while I washed the boat.  We had wings and beer on the balcony of the Yacht Club since it was “Wing night” ... Yummm!   Afterwards we went for a walk to burn off some calories.  There are lots of mature trees and green vegetation in the area and everything smells so fresh ... however Maria’s allergies may not like it so much.  During our walk there were many emergency vehicles heading towards the beach ... something must be up.

Sep 1^st – It’s another sunny warm day with moderate winds.  We are really enjoying the Anchorage Marina in Holland thus we may spend the long weekend here since we don’t want to arrive in Chicago until after the long weekend.  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been on the boat for 2 months now.  Time goes quickly when you’re having fun!  We’ve heard about a terrible tragedy this morning regarding the drowning of two teenage boys as a result of them swimming near the break wall in extremely rough conditions yesterday evening.  This explains the many emergency vehicles that passed us during our walk in the area last night.  We rode our bikes to the beach this morning and there were Sheriff boats and various police personnel searching the area for 2 bodies.  So sad.  West Marine is having a Labor Day sale thus I ordered an inflatable life jacket on-line which will be delivered to the West Marine in Chicago.  We found out that US approved life jackets must be worn within the locks in the US and our life jackets aren’t US approved.  We went to the pool to enjoy the sun and had a couple cold ones while I went swimming and afterwards I went to the Spa/Salon to get my haircut.

The entrance to Holland MI

The Pool at Ancorage Marina

The water is sooo warm!

Our view from the balcony of the Anchorage Marina restaurant

Time for a hair cut

The monkey is helping me with the Blog

There's a Fennville close by ... we may have to visit