ONWARD!

First new Looper friends of the new season

The highlight of our time in Grand Haven, MI was meeting Denny and Diane, an aspiring Looper Couple for whom Grand Isle Marina is home.  What started as a casual dockside conversation extended to include cocktails, trips to the groceriy store (for what we forgot), West Marine (for window cleaner),  and O'Rielly Auto Parts (for a new bow thruster battery) in their car , and an introduction to a fine Mexican restaurant.  They also introduced us to a Gold Looper couple who did their 6000-mile Loop a few years ago in a 27' Sea Ray.  And still like each other, too!

Stepping further North

Monday, July 25 we departed Grand Haven for Lundington, MI, a run of about 60 miles.  Once again, we left late in the day to try to capitalize on a weather window.  But with mixed results.  Thre first 30 mikes was pretty active, with a SW swell and a west wind. miuch to Admirals Maggie's discomfort.  We were able to smooth things out a bit by speeding up (at the cost of fuel consumption) and the waters calmed as we got further north. 

At 5:00 pm we slid into the fuel dock at the familiar Ludington Municipal Marina.    One-an-a-half Boat Units bought us 300 gallons of fresh diesel.  But when the time came to move to our slip, the port starter failed to engage.  (Ts place is familiar because when we visited this fuel dock last year, the same thing happened on the starboard side.)   With the expert help of Commadore Kathleen and the marina crew, we managed to maneuver to our assigned slip on one engine and settled in for the night.

(Warnng:  Gearheda talk ahead......)

Readers with any grease under their fingernaills or Valvoline in their veins should be familiar with a concept of "hot soak", whereby the inherent electrical resistance in a starter mechanism  increases as it expands residing next to a hot engine block all day.   When called upon to perform a hot restart, the mechanism gets all reluctant, demanding more amperage than the battery can provide.   And once things cool off, everything functions normally.    

Once in the slip, Wade descended to the engine room with his tools and multi-meter.  With plenty of voltage and nothing visually amiss, he was able to determine that the starter was spinning just fine.  What wasn't happening was the process of engaging the flywheel to turn the engine, an event facilitiated by a selenoid and Bendix drive integrated with the statter motor.   After consulting with new Looper friend Denny by phone, we called it;  a classic "hot soak" problem.   Two hours later, the starter worked and the engine restarted just fine and dandy.

Ths starter was supposedly rebuilt last winter while Irish Lass was in the custody of Eldean Shipyards., as was another spare starter we had on board.  We accept this on faith because the out-sourced the work and all we saw was their invoice and a nice new coat of paint on both starters.   It would be nice to raise a stink, but we are now on the other side of the lake, some 200 miles away and we have learned that they have again  parted ways with their service manager.  History tells us that there is truth in the old adage that if you want something done right, you do it yourself.   So you can look forward to a future blog post as we self-install the second "rebuilt" starter and pray for a better outcome. 

(End of Gearhead talk...)

Brarwurst Ahoy!

We departed Ludington at 8:00 am and steered a westerly course toward Wisconsin under fair skys and a minor SW swell.  Desitnation Manitowoc.  We were tracing the 63 mile course used by the SS Badger, the last coal-fired, steam-driven ferry operating in the US.  Along the way we saw almost no boat traffic (Except the SS Badger, which overtook us about 15 miles our of Manitowoc.) water depths exceeding 500 feet, and about a 2 hour gap in cellular coverage.  🤯

Middle of the Lake on NEBO

Commadore and Admiral mid-lake with no internet. OMG!

Our Manitowoc marina was well protected and staffed with helpful knowledgeable folks, but the town really had little to offer on the waterfront.  The downtown area was largely boarded up and filled with noisy traffic.  Still we found excellent dog walking for fur-Admiral Maggie (but no swimming. Algae!), a nice marina store, and friendly folks.

Manitowoc Harbor Lighthouse

After two nights at Manitowoc, we again stretched ourselves to voyage 57 miles north to Sturgeon Bay, WI at the foot of the Door Pennisula.   A short voyage thru the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal brought us to our marina just a short walk from downtown Sturgeon Bay.

The Door Penisula and Door County, WI are well-loved recreation areas and are called by some the Cape Cod of the mid-West.   We intend to spend the next week or two exploring it.  More on that to follow.....

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Wade and Kathleen Griffith (and fur-Admiral Maggie)