Summer 04 sailing stories
The summer started with lots of cold weather and lots of rain and thunder storms. The farmers had trouble getting all the grain drilled and then they had trouble getting dry hay. Why we even had frost warnings in late May and in late July some of the Wisconsinites even saw temperatures in the 30's on a few nights. At the end of July the water temperature was barely into the low 60's on our side of Lake Michigan.
Sankaty suffered a punctured starboard side water tank caused by some woodscrews that were dropped between the freeboard side of the hull and the tank. These screws worked their way down under the tank between the bottom of the hull and the bottom of the water tank. Over the years the counter sunk heads that are really very sharp finally pierced a slit into the bottom of the water tank. About eight of the screws were all lined up so that the heads were in one straight row.
On one occasion we took the Tigerton crew out for lunch at Little Harbor were we anchored on the way home the wind picked up into the low thirties and we had to motor home. Several times we anchored at Cabot point and once in Little Sturgeon for an overnight excursion.
So far we took one long trip with the first stop an anchorage overnight on the south side of Chambers island. The next day we sailed to Escanaba Michigan. We stayed in Escanaba for two days then went to Gladstone for one night and back to Escanaba to wait out a day of thunderstorms and another day of excessive wind. Then we sailed to Fayette Michigan were there is an reconstructed factory town that made pig iron in the late 1800. We stayed two nights.
On our way back home we left Fayette at 6:30 AM and sailed for the next ten hours with moderate and strong winds that started in the west and then backed to the south and then to the south east. We motored the last two hours to Ephraim Bay where we met the previous owner of Sankaty for dinner at on of our favorite restaurants (The Second Story at the Epharim Shores Motel.
We anchored there and used the dingy to get in to the shore. The dingy was patched a few times and now seems to hold air for more than a week. Good news. The next day we motored to Sister Bay for breakfast at famous Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant. We also went to the yarn store in Sister Bay. That afternoon we sailed into a Southwest wind as we beat into the Strawberry Channel. At night we stopped at the Fish Creek Municipal Pier and had a very nice supper at the White Gull Inn. That night we anchored in the tricky Fish Creek Bay. The next morning the wind was dead so we motored home in time for the 11:00 AM bridge opening.
This page was last updated: January 4, 2017
First version was published to the web on July 31, 2004
