Windy City September 27, 2008

As we cast off from the Hammond Marina Dock, we count 8 large Cigarette boats on our dock . Do you suppose Catrina joined a new class of watercraft? I hope not. They are very noisy

Catrina reaches DuSable Marina in downtown Chicago about 9:30 a.m. We see her previous owner Mark sitting on the breakwater waiting for us. We are given slip G 37 which works just perfectly. It is on the very end of a pier, with plenty of beam and length and a great view of the City. This Marina has about 500 boats and is tucked right up to the skyscrappers!

Mark will be joining us for a couple days on the Rivers when his wife Pat and 7 other female family members enjoy Chicago's shows and shops! Tom and Mark decide to take advantage of a car to do some last minute shopping. Tom gets a new generator which is big enough to give us plenty of power if we are at anchor for a few nights. He also purchases two new gas containers adding 10 gallons to our inboat supply. Instead of a new cartridge for our horn, he gets a manual horn for signaling bridges and close encounters. Debbie stocks plenty of canned goods and paper products for our trip. Since markets may not be close to docks, it is easier use the Marina cart to carry supplies to Catrina today then lug them a few miles in a backpack.

Back at Catrina the men work on the VHF radio and transfer an antenna from the mast top (located a few yards in front of our boat and about 10 feet off the water. No, neither Tom nor Mark can walk on water or fly. They turned the boat perpendicular to the dock. It is always nice to have the previous owner available and Tom and Mark are becoming good friends.


Later Pat and her daughter-in-law Brook and friend Bee arrive at Catrina. Kevin and Dawn who also own a PDQ arrive. They live in Chicago overlooking the Marina. After lots of talk and tours of Catrina, we pose for pictures. After Pat, Brook and Bee return to their group, we join Kevin and Dawn on their boat. It is parked at the land end of a pier, not at the far end as we are. It is interesting to compare some of the things they have done with their boat and talk sailing strategies.

While with Kevin and Dawn, who do you think walks up our dock? Ted from Crystal Lake and Texas. It was a surprise to see him and it took a while for Debbie and Tom to put two and two together. He had arrived at the same Marina on his trawler after going down the west side of Lake Michigan and was planning to start the Rivers tomorrow! What a coincidence.

After dinner on the Navy Pier and a walk along the shore, we enjoyed a fireworks show over the water and the lights of the Windy City.

DeMasted September 26, 2008

The sun just barely peaked over the trees into the Marina as we pulled out to head up Trail Creek to the next Marina inland. Laura, the bridge gate keeper, raised the bridge and we slide into the B&E slip. Martin, Beaver and Michael grabbed our mooring lines and for the next hour and a half helped Tom remove Catrina's mast. Debbie took the following pictures!

Catrina in slip-------------------------------------and the hoist with crane moves over boat

Beaver moves hoist with crane over mast.


Martin placed loop around mast.

Beaver raised loop up mast to the spreaders. The bottom of the loop can be seen just under the spreader.

Tom and Martin remove forestay which is also the furling jib.

Michael removes the two Side Stays. Now the mast stands on its own only held up by the cable loop

Tom disconnects the VHF, TV Antenna and the Mast Lights whose wires run up the inside of the mast.

Beaver raises the mast to clear the top of the cockpit and then lowers the lower end onto the stern mast holder.

Next the top of the mast is placed in the foward mast holder. This sounds very easy but it took a long, long time!

Then it is decided that we cannot place the furling jib under the mast in the mast holders. The jib is strapped on top of the mast.

Finally, everything is tied down tightly and we are ready to motor off to the Hammond City Marina. We find this Marina to be very big (750-950 boats) and very old. It is a country mile literally to hike to the Marina Office from our slip in Row "V". Also a large casino is being built on the east side of the Marina. We have reached the big City!!!

Motor Cables September 25, 2008

Looking out on the grey fog that descented over the Michigan City Coastline during the night, we wonder if the four motor cables would actually arrive today. We waited and waited to hear from Cindy, Tom's new telephone friend at B & E Marine. While we waited we made good use of the time by sorting our storage areas and rearranging many items. Since remembering the two areas under the beds, we were able to move inside items that would not be used frequently from our outside back storage.

Finally about noon the phone rang! Tom departed for B&E Marine up the river and Debbie took off in the other direction to the Lighthouse Outlet Malls. She wanted to get some flax oil at the Vitamin World but on the way she found a Liz Claiborne shirt and some corelle bowls for salads. Don't forget the Iris pattern of our Florida dishes--we now have six more plates and bowls! Debbie remarked it was so hard to shop at all those wonderful stores and realize she had to lug anything she bought all the way back to the boat! And the second sad thought was that she hadn't found the Lighthouse stores a few days earlier!

When Debbie returned, she found Tom on the cockpit floor between the two motors with many tools around him. He had already replaced the throttle and gear cables in the starboard motor (the one that broke).

First she saw him remove the old cables and mark each area. He then threaded the two bright red 14 foot new cables through the narrow channel on the starboard side from the shiftbox down to the starboard motor, then under the door to the mid section, over to the port side and around the battery to the port motor. It was imperative that he connect the gear cable at the shiftbox to the gear area in the motor. Mixing the two cables would leave us with a non-functioning motor!

All this may sound like a piece of cake but with all the many parts and the tight areas, it would be very easy to lose a small nut or screw or do something in the wrong order. Debbie was there to hold, find and not say a word (the hardest task).

When the cables were properly hooked up, the shift box was then put back together and slid back into its hole.

Lastly, we tested the motors and found the port motor worked but the starboard one needed some adjustments on the gear cable. Tom did something and after a while he had it working.

He cleaned the battery terminals with baking soda paste and put the covers back on. Finally he put the motor covers back on. All these things may have bored you but that is what we spent many hours doing today. Finally we hit the showers and treated ourselves to wine and beer!

Sails September 24, 2008

Michigan City's Washington Park Marina is going to see us for two more nights. It is a large, well run Marina and a great place for us to get ready for the Rivers. We are on dock 300 and the one directly across from us is 600. We wonder how many boats are really moored here. One thing we do know is that there is a lot of money floating near us.

Debbie went to the Marina Office to find out where the nearest market was located and the ladies found another boater who took her at least three miles to a market, waited while she shopped and brought her back! Now we are fulled stocked and have lots of "fresh" food!

While Debbie was shopping Tom removed the old GPS on the Nav Station and mounted the charger for the wench motor. When he opened the circuit breaker box, he was very complimentary of the engineering that went into this area. Take a look!

The laundry which was done last night was not fully dry so we hung it on mooring lines in the cockpit. We really do have a big cockpit!

We did not have to lock the door. Who would have tried to break in when they had to face a maze like this?

Now we have a question for you. What's missing?

Do you need a second hint?

If you guessed the sails and boom, you are correct. We spent the hot sun hours removing and folding sails and then storing them under our bed. We strapped the boom along the port side but may move it to along the mast when that is parallel to the water. We removed the battens and strapped them along the boom. We have four full sail battens. The lower ones would be too long to lay under our bed!

The four halyards and boom topping lift were attached to the mast. All sheets (main, spinnaker) except the jib lines were also placed under the bed. Our big hope is that we can put everything back together in about two months!

Surprises at MI City September 23, 2008

St. Joseph Municipal Marina has a very unique way of waking up boaters. We finally guessed that boats were being put in winter storage. Take a look!

Debbie and Tom said goodbye to their new friends Linda and Jack aboard a lovely older troller with beautiful wood work- Cynthia Faye.

Catrina headed out and up went the sails. Where is all the wind? We added the Port Motor and moved along under sail a 7 knots.

As the day progressed, the sails no longer helped our forward movement and came down. Thank goodness for motors! In the distance we could see the coal power plant and the nuclear one at Michigan City. To our surprise as we headed for the channel this sailboat passed us. We took a second look and discovered it was a MacGregor!

It took quite a while for the clerks at Washington Park Marina to find us a wide enough slip. They picked #350. Off we went. Tom decided to back in so that his mounted Satellite Disc would point the correct direction. As we were backing up, the boat stopped functioning as expected. Tom checked first the Port motor we had been using all day. Fine. Then the Starboard one. It would only go forward even when shifted to reverse. Somehow with great skill, Tom maneuvered Catrina into the slot. It was supposed to be an 18 foot slip for a 16 foot boat but just look at the free board along our boat.

Mechanic Detective Tom discovered that one gear shifting cable broke so whenever he shifted, the port motor stayed in forward. He was able to order four new ones to replace the ones that had worked for fourteen years. I'll bet they don't last that long in salt water! So remember that schedule we made up just yesterday - we are revising it but we are not sure how yet!

After a dinner from canned food (we will find a grocery store tomorrow), a walk around the waterfront and a trip to the laundry at last, we called it a day. Just so you will know we live in the high rent district - our neighbor!

St. Joseph Not Benton Harbor September 22, 2008

A second day in the same West Basin Marina but now after hiking all over town trying to find a food market, Debbie discovered we were in fact in St. Joseph MI. Unfortunately the nearest market was beyond her walking distance. However, Debbie found a delightful town on a hill overlooking the St. Joseph River.

Today was Wolf Marine day. We were picked up by the manager of the biggest marine store in the midwest and driven home by the owner. In between we filled a grocery cart with all sorts of goodies. They definitely have better prices than West Marine but unfortunately are not located in Florida.

The St. Joseph Yacht Club adjacent to our Marina.

Also we had a generator repair shop pick up our honda generator and then inform us that it would cost about the price of a generator for the parts to fix it. It was so sick we left it with them for the price of "fixing" it! I know what we will be on our Santa list.

While Debbie was hiking, Tom got busy on the computer and downloaded all the maps for the rest of our trip. He also worked out our schedule for the next few days. Tuesday we sail 38 miles to Michigan City IN. At 7:30 a.m. the next morning, wednesday, we move up the River to B&E Marine who will lower our mast. Then on Wednesday or Thursday we motor to Hammond (Indian Harbor) just two miles west of the Calumet River. Friday we may have a mechanic check out our motors if he can fit it in his schedule a day later than planned at a different location. This may not sound like a lot but Tom was very busy revising our schedule.

After mexican dinner and a hike to the lighthouse, we invited Linda and Jack, our troller neighbors from Holland, to visit our boat. Their motor needs work before heading to Mobile.

Smooth Waters September 21, 2008

South Haven is a old commercial fishing town with an old harbor village along the south waterfront. Yesterday evening we walked this area before going to sleep. In the morning we awoke to a wet environment. Not from rain but from dew! Tom wipes the windows.

We would have loved to stay here a few more days as everyone was so friendly and full of life. When we passed outside of the breakwater, we found a flat lake. Not a breath of breeze. We motored the 23 miles to Benton Harbor on the St. Joseph River.

When we entered the channel into Benton Harbor, we again saw a black metal structure running along the dock to the lighthouse. The first time we saw this structure, we had no idea what it was. This time we decided that it was a raised walkway.

The municipal marina was the first one on the port side reached through a narrow rock walled entrance. We almost missed it except that we could not get under the adjacent railroad bridge. We decided to stop here to visit Wolf's Marine, Inc., the largest marine store in the midwest. Tomorrow we will use their free shuttle but today we worked on the generator which has be sporatically working. Then Tom found some water in the bilges and Debbie got out a sponge. We walked a little in the neighbor. Tom mounted the TV satellite disk on the rear mast holder. We watched the last day of the Ryder Cup in the luxury of our "living room."