Good company, a Bad Day

Saturday, June 13

Rick, Satoko and Enoch arrived last night about 7:30; none of them had seen the new boat so a tour was in order. Then since they had not eaten some BBQed hot dogs were in order. We then had lots of conversation with everybody catching up with what was going on. Then since we wanted to get started early we all headed for bed by 10:00.

This morning we were all up early, had a quick breakfast and got ready to get underway for the last 13 miles of the Calumet Canal to Calumet harbor and the planned run of another 54 miles up to Winthrop Harbor. The weather forecast was not great, high probability of rain and some (there are many forecasts; Chicago, marine for open Lake Michigan and near shore for every 15 or 20 miles of coast) saying winds 5 to 10 with waves 1 foot while others said 10 to 15 waves 1 to 3 feet. Remember that government forecasts measure wave heights as height above the lake surface, so add a trough of equal size.

As we were getting ready, I bent over to work on a line; the remote radio microphone for the flybridge fell out of my jacket pocket into the river, not a great way to start the day. It didn’t sound great but we decided we would take a look. An hour up the canal is the Thomas O’Brien Lock. It marks the end of the Illinois Waterway which flows to the Mississippi and the Gulf, above the locks the waters are part of the great lakes. The lock lifts you only about two feet so we were told we could just float in the middle of the lock.

Satoko had never locked thru before, she was very excited. Both she and Diana were on the front deck with cameras ready, the lock attendant yelled at them that this was a secure D.O.D. facility and security prohibited photos (photo and working details of the lock are available online from the government), the girls got there photos anyway. We floated thru the quick lockage without a problem which made Diana happy since we had such a bad experience last year in our first lock of the year floating.

Another hour and we were out of the canal into Calumet Harbor, by now it was raining; at least I have a windshield wiper that works well. We headed north thru a break in the sea wall and set a course for where we thought Chicago should be. We were about 14 miles from downtown Chicago but in the rain and low overcast we could not see anything. The wind was probably 12 to 15 knots and my estimated was the wavers were mostly 2 feet with the occasional 3 footer; we were headed directly into them. This is not what the Gibson was designed for; the bow does not lift with the wave it just plows into them with a heavy impact and troughs spray high. It was not a comfortable ride and it put a lot of water onto the front deck, after about five miles (of the planned 54) I decided it was not a good idea to continue and turned to go back the way we came. Running with the waves was much more comfortable.

We retraced our route thru the canal and the lock (again we floated thru without a problem) and returned to the slip that we had left almost seven hours earlier. The one bright spot, on the way back we came upon a pair of swans and their young. As you know Diana loves birds, this made her day. Our guests, especially Satoko, where enjoying the ride regardless of the conditions.

We got the boat put away and decided that maybe an ice cream cone would help, Enoch wanted to stop at a drug store, so we all climbed in the car went to McD’s where we had ice cream and I got an hour of internet time to get caught up. Rick had brought our mail and there were a couple bills I need to set up to have paid and I did the previous two blog posts. The others played cards while they waited for me.

We went back to the boat and enjoyed more family time and a delicious vegetable and shrimp dinner done on the BBQ. Despite the good company I was feeling pretty low after a long hard day on the water which showed the upper limit the boat would handle was less then I had hoped and the loss of the radio. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.