We left Frankfort on Friday the 26th. Motored away from shore and had enough wind to have the sails and the motor on. We had to keep a 5 knot average to cross in less than 10 hours. The wind dwindled down to only a couple of knots so we rolled up the sails and motored on.
You cross a number of shipping lanes crossing the lake, and we had a chance to meet a thousand foot laker.
He shifted a little bit to the right, and we slowed to cross his wake about one mile astern. That was arranged over the marine radio as a sailboat has the right of way, we were also motoring. So I thought it best that he carry on. Even a mile away, these boats are huge.
Shortly after meeting the freighter, the fog set in. At worst, it was maybe one mile of visibility. We had our AIS alarms set, so that a boat that was transmitting their position was determined to approach too close, a chime would ring. Not all boats have AIS (fishing boats are notorious to have their’s switched off) so the radar was scanning as well. It wasn’t until we were about five miles from Sturgeon Bay that we could see boats on radar, and then visually.
There are three bridges that have to open for us to reach the marina where we had reservations. I misread the harbor report as to the order of the bridges, so rather than requesting an opening for the bridge that we were closest to, I had requested the third bridge in the string to open. I realized my mistake after about twenty minutes. I was tired, hungry, and now flustered. But the bridge opened and we motored through. The next bridge was the new bridge opening on the quarter hour and three quarter hour. We reached it about 5:20 and had to wait for almost a half hour. The next bridge, the Michigan Street bridge opens at the top and bottom of the hour. That meant that the next opening was at 6:00. We finally got to our slip about 6:20, and we had started around 8:15 in the morning and lost an hour to central time, so the journey was just over eleven hours.
We ate dinner at the restaurant attached to the marina, grabbed a quick shower on board and went to bed.
On Saturday, there was the farmers market and we got fresh greens and tasty treats for the mornings. It was also Pride in Sturgeon Bay, rainbows and more everywhere. We stopped by a booth from Hope UCC and we were invited to church on Sunday at 10:30a. Now our plan at that point was to leave Sunday morning, so that wasn’t going to work out. We had lunch at the boat, and went for a walk ending up in a thrift store. Lots of stuff, but nothing was nice and small enough to fit into the boat.
We went to the Door County Maritime Museum that is just across Michigan Street from the marina. It was nicely done, and after an introductory video, we took an elevator to the top of a ten story tower.
Hey, that’s our boat down there.
Later that day, we made the decision to stay another night, and go to the Pride Service at Hope UCC. In the morning, we walked a mile or so to church, met the pastor and a bunch of people including an old sailor that had had some adventures brought on by too small a boat and too bigs seas.
Monday, we were going into Green Bay to find a place to anchor for a couple of days.