A Beautiful Lake Michigan

Just to finish up some thoughts from yesterday's "adventure".  I guess it was a micro burst or straight line winds that we encountered out on the river. Whatever it was, I hope I never experience it again. There were no waves on the river to speak of, maybe a foot during the storm, nothing that we even noticed. The high freeboard of the 459 and all the canvas made the boat very susceptible to the effects of the wind. The wind came up in the blink of an eye. We were traveling up the river and it was raining. It went from heavy rain to "I can't see anything rain". Within 10 seconds, the wind had us sideways. It was the craziest thing I have ever experienced in a boat. For almost a minute, I really didn't have control of the boat. That is what scared me. Once we got the bow into the wind and I got control back, we were able to handle the rain and wind. It was still unnerving, but manageable.

Today on the other hand was fantastic. We came through our last lock at 7:00am. We completed the final 7 miles on the Illinois River and came out onto a beautiful Lake Michigan. We had to stop at Hammonds Marina for some fuel before crossing the lake. Once topped off with diesel, we had 2 foot sloppy seas for the first 45 minutes. Then the seas began to calm down and about an hour later, the lake was near perfect with seas around 1 foot. It was a great run over to Saugatuck.

Let me tell you how beautiful it is here in Saugatuck. This is my first time into Saugatuck, but I will most certainly be back. The homes, shops and river here are breathtaking. It is like a Norman Rockwell painting. I am looking forward to having Rich and his wife Maggie show us around town later today.

Boat ran just beautifully the entire trip. Rich and Maggie bought themselves a great boat. Some final numbers for the trip.

Total miles: 1,071
Fuel: 1,171 gallons
Average MPG: .91
Run time: 79.2 hours
Average fuel price: $2.69/gallon

Thanks to all who followed along.

Very Scary Storm

Well, today was another one for the record books. Clair and I only covered 129 miles in just over 12 hours, but it was one of the most challenging days I've ever had on the water. I will rephrase; this was the most scared I've ever been on a boat. We had a horrible rain and wind storm come through right a 2:00pm this afternoon. We were between the Dresden Island Lock and the Brandon Road Lock when all hell broke loose. It rained sideways so hard we couldn't see more than about 20 yards ahead of us. We couldn't see any markers on the channel. When the storm hit, we could see 2 sets of red and green markers ahead of us. They disappeared in an instant. Then the wind hit us sideways. I had full right rudder in and only the port engine engaged at over 2500 rpm and I couldn't get the boat to turn to starboard into the wind. The boat was heeled over at least 30 degrees, more heeled over then any wave I've ever taken. I won't lie, it was scary. I would seriously estimate the wind speed at over 75mph for over 5 minutes. I have been on my 411 underway in a tropical storm and never approached wind this bad. I've been on a boat tied up at a dock in Category 1 hurricane, and again, not even close to this much sustained wind. If you think I'm exaggerating, just ask Clair what he thinks. It was nuts.

The storm only lasted about 15 minutes. We kept the boat in the middle of the channel as best as we could and rode it out. We held our position between two markers and fought to keep everything in one piece. Clair and I were both really glad when it passed and we could see down the waterway again. We finally made it to the next lock and tied up to the wall and took a deep breath. There were some seriously frayed nerves for the next hour or so.

We got into the marina and tied up. Clair and I are laughing about it now, but it wasn't funny then. It looks like we will have a near perfect day to cross Lake Michigan and bring Rich his new boat home to Saugatuck. Seas should be 1 to 2 feet with wind NE at 5 to 10kts.

Great Experiences on the Water

Boating is all about experiences. Take tonight for example; I got to meet a new bride that rode into the marina on a Harley Davidson motorcycle in her wedding dress. You don't see that too often. To take it a step further, Clair and I saw another bride and groom on a 50-foot Sea Ray on the river in Peoria getting pictures taken. The experiences you have on the water are second to none.

We had another really great day on the water today. Today was actually more like a typical yacht delivery day. We pulled off the dock at 6:30 this morning and ran until 6:00 pm tonight. We covered 197 miles. We passed a lot of barges and plenty of guys out fishing. We saw pontoon boats, open bow-riders, skiffs, express cruises and several large yachts that were on the Great Loop. We had a really nice conversation this morning on the VHF radio with a couple from Myrtle Beach, SC that were on a 55-foot Fleming doing the Loop. We heard about their trip and their experiences for the past year. We also had an extended conversation with one of the barge captains today on the radio. He asked if I was a delivery captain and when I told him that I was, he had all kinds of questions. He had wanted to get into the business at some point, but wasn't sure how, so I tried to answer some of his questions. Again, the folks you get to meet on the water are like minded and just great folks. We are all fortunate to be in the positions we are in.

Clair is feeling more comfortable every day on the water now and is doing a great job helping to drive the boat. We were both a little nervous today when we arrived at the Beardstown Railroad Bridge. There was no height marker on the bridge and the bridge tender did not know the clearance. When we asked for him to raise the bridge, he informed us it would be at least 45 minutes since there were two trains approaching.

Clair and I decided to see if we could fit under the bridge. It was really close. I had Clair drop the antenna and sit up on the hardtop to see if we could make it. We approached very slowly so if Clair felt we couldn't fit, we would back the boat up and wait the 45 minutes for the opening. As we got closer, Clair yelled down I think you got it. I asked are you sure. Yep, he replied you got it by 4 inches. We VERY SLOWLY proceeded under the bridge and by gosh we made it without a hitch.

We are sitting in Henry, Illinois tonight. The marina doesn't have any 50-amp service and we don't have a splitter for 2 30 amp cords. We will be running the generator tonight, but all is well. We walked up to the bar and had a burger and met some great folks; many of which we passed on the river during our final hour. We got a lot of nice compliments on the boat. Tomorrow we hope to run through 5 locks and get to the rim of Lake Michigan where we will have our final 100 miles to go.

Grafton or Bust

Day 4 is in the books and it sure was a long one. We met the fuel truck driver at 8:15 this morning and he was able to top off our tanks. We put 225 gallons in and we were on our way by 8:30. That was the fastest fueling I have ever seen. I was even more impressed that the boat could take the fuel that quickly. After our fuel, it was for the most part, an uneventful day. We covered another 156 miles in 10+ hours. There were some pretty heavy thunderstorms in the area and we went through some downpours, but we managed and kept the boat moving toward Lake Michigan. We also had a few more set backs at the locks, but by now it has almost become expected.

We got really lucky at the last lock today and didn't have too much of a wait. We only waited about an hour. We came out of the last lock at 6:40 pm and ran hard for the final 23 miles to make it to Grafton Harbor by sunset. We were able to fuel the boat and get tied up before the rain came in again. We just finished dinner at the Oyster Bar here in the marina and are ready to call it a day. No pictures due to bad weather. More tomorrow.

Welcome to Keokuk, Iowa

The good luck has finally come our way.  We ran another 155 miles today and the boat is running great.  We had a very uneventful day on the water.  Everything went as planned and life is good.  We arrived in Keokuk, Iowa at 6:45 pm tonight at the Keokuk Yacht Club.  We walked into the club house at 7 pm and sat down looking for cold beer after another long day.  We were informed it was "Taco Night" at the club.  For $20 buck, Clair and I had enough Mexican food to fend off the biggest of appetites.  A member of the club asked us if we wanted to participate in the Thursday night "Texas Hold'em" tournament for a $10 buy in.   Clair declined, but I thought what the heck, for $10 bucks, that is cheap entertainment.  We had about 50 people playing in the tournament all members of the Yacht Club.  I was enjoying speaking to the locals and hearing about life on the Mississippi River in this part of Iowa.  The folks were great and both Clair and I had a good time speaking with the locals.

To make a long story short, I ended up coming in 3^rd place in the tournament and winning $50 bucks.  Nothing to write home about, but better than a sharp stick in the eye.  Lucky for us, the winner of the tournament decided to buy a round for everyone that was in the club house.  So Clair and I got a free beer out of the deal.  Really just great folks.  Exactly what you would expect from the Midwest.

Back to our trip... we called the local fuel service and they will be here at 8:00 am to pump over 200 gallons of diesel fuel into the boat.  Unfortunately, we will get a late start tomorrow, but we are hopeful that we can somehow make up the time in route.  We hope to finish the Mississippi tomorrow and end up in Grafton, IL and so that we are able to begin our trip up the Illinois River on Saturday.

After two of the most difficult days I have had on the water, they have now been followed by two of the best days.  The folks in Iowa ROCK!  They are Southerners at heart. 

We are looking forward to finishing the Mississippi and heading north on the Illinois River tomorrow on our way to Lake Michigan tomorrow.

The Hunt for Diesel Fuel

At the time things are going South, you feel like the world is about to end. Inevitability, you wake up the next day and realize it really wasn't that bad after all. As I always say, you only learn from your mistakes. Lots of good lessons learned yesterday and several old ones relearned.

So another day is in the books. The day didn’t start off too promising, but it ended on a high note.

First, I need to backtrack a bit. Yesterday did have many highlights. Clearly we had some issues yesterday at the end, but had we made the lock and gotten to the marina, it was all-in-all a good day. The boat ran perfectly! We had a strong current behind us and we were running around 24 mph. We didn’t have any really long waits at any of the previous locks and the weather was pretty good although a bit windy.

Now on to today’s activities… or really a continuation of yesterday’s fiasco. We finally got to bed around 11:30pm. We were dead dog tired and looking forward to a good night’s sleep. I was brutally awakened by a barge at 3:00 am that decided to roll past us. His wake slammed our doors and practically threw me out of my bunk. Obviously a bit stunned and disoriented, I got my whit’s about me and realized what had happened. No big deal.

Then it hit me. My cabin was really hot and I didn’t notice the light from the A/C unit. Then I realized that the generator was not running and therefore, no A/C. I got up to check it all out. The generator was throwing a code of low water flow. Not thinking much of it since the generator ran perfectly for about 3 hours before we went to bed, I restarted it. It ran fine for about 10 minutes and started to cool the boat back down, so I head back to bed around 3:30 am. I drift off to La-La land and all is well.

I wake up again about 5:00 am no A/C again. I’m too tired to get up and deal with it and the cabin is really not that stuffy, so I go back to sleep. My alarm goes off at 6:00 am and we are up and ready to start a new day. First things first, I go and check the strainer on the generator and it is chock full of sea grass and crap. It was sucking up all kinds of stuff from the river from all the rain we had received the night before. I start the generator and it ran fine. We make coffee and all is well.

At 7:00 we are ready to get going, I start the engines and Clair walks to the bow of the boat to take in the anchor and rode. He looks back at me says there is a bunch of grass on the anchor line. I am now thinking to myself, “Well, just pull the anchor in and it will fall off as you retrieve the line.” He says you need to come look at this. So reluctantly, I walk from the helm to the bow and take a look. HOLLY CRAP! Without exaggerating, we have at least 50 pounds of sea weed on the anchor line. Clair and I look at each other and we both are thinking, how are we going to deal with this. Finally, we grab some boat hooks and start to knock the grass from the line. About 15 minutes later after a good work out, we finally get the anchor up and get underway. So I’m thinking, this day is simply a continuation of the bad “mojo” we had yesterday. The river is running like a ban chi after the rain yesterday and there are all kinds of logs and debris floating on the river. I look at Clair after 15 minutes of running the river and say, “This is going to be a long day.”

So we dodge logs, sticks and floating garbage on the river as we head south praying we don’t hit anything and damage a prop. We get stuck at the first lock for about an hour and half. Typical. We are running through all kinds of weeds all morning long. Around 10:30, I notice the engine temps are creeping up. I ask Clair to run the boat on one engine while I go down and check the sea strainers. Sure enough, the strainers are packed with weeds. We turn off the engines one at a time and clean the strainers. That fixes the problem and the engines are back to running perfectly. Crisis adverted.

I am now focusing on getting our diesel fuel. At 11:30, we finally pull into Landing 615 for our fuel. We start pumping and put 44 gallons in the boat when the pump stops. I ask the dock hand what is going on. He says he thinks the tank is empty. I say it can’t be. I talked to Jamie this morning and told him we needed 220 gallons of fuel and he assured me he had plenty. There must be a mistake.
He said the mistake was mine. The tank was empty. Great! So I have pumped the last 44 gallons of your fuel into my tank. I am now beyond pissed off. I am ready to tear somebody a new one. Again, realizing I am talking to a kid that can’t help, I get on the boat and continue south.

Clair drives while I am calling every marina in the book. I finally reach a very helpful woman in Dubuque, Iowa. She says yep, come on in, we definitely have 250 gallons of diesel for you. I tell her that if I get there and she doesn’t have diesel fuel, they will be reading about me in the newspaper in the morning. She laughed. Then I laughed because she didn’t realize that I was being serious!

We finally got our fuel and that is when our luck finally changed. Every lock after that was empty and we ran right through. We cover another 155 miles today after making 3 stops for fuel and arrive in Clinton, Iowa. Finally, a helpful and knowledge marina with people who are willing to help a fellow boater. We have a great conversation with the dock hands who are very knowledgeable and helpful. We walk up to a nice restaurant with a great bartender and talk to some locals in the marina who are all willing to tell us about the next 200 miles as we travel south. I love the people of Clinton!

Clair and I feel human again. Nice hot showers, a good meal and now ready for a new day. The boat is running great and we think we have now exercised all the demons off the boat and we have nothing but fun and good times ahead. All the same, we will keep our fingers crossed and say a little prayer tonight. Cheers!

Diesel Fuel and Locks Don't Mix

What a tough start to our trip. I’m not sure Clair will speak to me again… and I don’t blame him.

We called a couple of marinas this morning as we were underway in the La Crosse, WI area looking for diesel fuel. We first spoke to North Bay Marina next to the French Island Yacht Club. They said they had plenty of diesel, but did not have a transient slip for us tonight. So we called Petitbone Boat Club which is about 4 miles further down river and they told us they had diesel and had plenty of room for us for the night. Great.

I start thinking that we might arrive in La Crosse early and figure we need to check other options. So we decided to call further down the river to Lansing, Iowa in case we were making good time and wanted to continue. The marina in Lansing told us he only had 100 gallons of diesel remaining in there tank, but we were welcome to it. No thanks. So we decided the best thing was to fuel up in La Crosse and then run down to Lansing for the night.

Got to Petitbone around 4:30pm to top off the tanks. We called them for docking instructions and they tell me they don’t sell diesel. After 5 minutes of talking to a dumb a$$, I realize I am wasting my time. So we have to turn around and run about 4 miles back up the Mississippi to North Bay Marina. We call them on the phone and try hailing them on the radio and no luck. We arrive at about 3 minutes before 5pm and they are closed. Won’t be open until 8:00am tomorrow morning.

At this point, we can sneak into an empty slip and wait until 8am to get diesel fuel or continue on our trip south to Lansing, Iowa which is only 44 miles away. It’s only 5 o’clock, the sun is out and it stays light until 8:00pm. Clair and I think about it for a few minutes and decide to run down to Lansing, take on about 50 gallons of fuel and call it a day.

Only one problem; we have one more lock (Lock #8) to get through before we can get to Lansing. We run down the river and arrive at Lock #8 at 6:00pm. Lock master is ready to put us right through, but one of the barges wants to go first. It must have been that captain’s first day on the job, because it took him 2 hours to get that frick’n barge into the lock. He had that thing practically sideways trying to get in the lock. It was comical. So finally at 8:15pm, we get to go through the lock. By now it is dark and we still have 15 miles to go to make Lansing. Just as we are leaving the lock, the lock master informs us that a big storm is on its way and will arrive in about an hour. So we start heading down the river hoping to make Lansing before the storm.

We don’t make it. We are about 6 miles short. The storm comes in and now it is raining sideways and the wind is howling and it’s dark and we can’t see. It is now 9:00pm and we have been at it for over 14 hours. Time to bail. Pull off to the side of a channel and drop the hook. Get the anchor set and ride out a monsoon complete with a lightening show. Clair must think I’m nuts, incompetent, or both. Right now I think I am both. What a total fiasco.

So now we are sitting at anchor with a frozen pizza for dinner. Such is the glamorous life of a delivery captain. At least the boat and the occupants are safe. We will run down to Guttenberg, Iowa in the morning where they have plenty of good diesel fuel for us and we will continue making our way towards Saugatuck.

I do have some pictures, but I will try and post them tomorrow.

Prime Meridian: Minnesota to Michigan

After a fairly slow spring and summer, I am back on the water. Today I flew to Minneapolis, MN where I have gotten aboard a 2007 Meridian 459 named Prime Meridian. The boat is in great shape with only 408 hours on her Cummins 380 QSB engines. We are moving the boat from Bayport Marina in Bayport, MN on the St Croix River to Saugatuck, MI on Lake Michigan. The trip will cover approximately 1,060 miles and take the better part of a week or more.

Many people have asked me; “How and heck do you take a boat from Minnesota to Michigan”. Well that is a good question. We begin our trip with a short 18 mile run down the St Croix River where we meet up with mighty Mississippi River. We spend the next 600 miles running down the Mississippi to Grafton, IL where we make a left turn and begin our journey north on the Illinois River to Lake Michigan. We will cover approximately 325 miles on the Illinois River before the final 100 miles we will travel across Lake Michigan to Saugatuck. We expect to travel through 31 locks in route.

I am fortunate to have our very own Clair Neamand from MYO on board with me as my first mate for this trip. We were also very fortunate to meet another MYO member today. A very special shout out to Ron Reimann who is the proud owner of a 2011 441 Meridian just down the river from Bayport. Ron was kind enough to drive up and say hello before we head out in the morning. I continue to meet some of the greatest people and boaters from the MYO site. We are all fortunate to have such a great resource available.

Clair and I have our fingers crossed for fair winds and following seas. More to come.