Muskegon to St Joseph to Chicago (Hammond, Indiana)

Leaving Muskegon we knew we had a short weather window to make our way down the last of the Michigan Peninsula to Chicago at the bottom. We left the marina just after 8am, having left our bathroom key with John and Lin to return for the $10 deposit. They can have a beer on us! We enjoyed their company and the time they took with us.

 

Leaving the Muskegon Marina.

 I guess this is goodbye! So many marina are in industrial areas, We didn't have to go far to find civilization.

 After we traversed Lake Muskegon and as we approached the Channel to get out into Lake Michigan there were so many fishermen at the mouth of the channel.

 What a great view in the early morning light as we exited the channel.

 Just after we exited the channel, the Lake Express entered it, coming from across the Lake and Wisconsin.

 The clouds were gorgeous today.

Lake Muskegon was relatively calm, and into the channel out to Lake Michigan. Once out of the channel, however, the rock and roll was slightly uncomfortable, so I was at the helm again. It gives me something to do, and Waz is gracious in giving me the job of staying on course...which means literally 'driving' the boat through  the swells. They don't seem to be able to make up their minds as to which direction they want to go....three different directions at once seems to be the norm.

We are still battling the spiders and their black goopy poop...it is driving us crazy! Cant keep up with the spider killing, but it sure gives us something to do while underway.

Not a lot to see on the way down the coast....we are a bit too far out to see details, and we have to pay attention for the whole of the trip. Today was a 9 hour day, all up. We pulled into St Joseph's town wall at just on 5pm. The swells did lay down somewhat the closer we got to St Joseph, thankfully.

As we pulled out of Muskegon, the Lake Express radioed to say she was 15 mins. out of the harbor entrance, and we could see her on the horizon. There was also a coal ship about the enter the harbor after the Ferry. We looked back to see her going through the breakwater.

Waz disappeared downstairs, coming back moments later with these headphones. He stood at the window for a while, listening. THEN, I got them:) Some lovely classical music, which I enjoyed for half an hour or so. I thought to take this 'selfie', while at the helm:) Sorry, not going to make it larger, lol.

High sandy cliffs with some very large homes on top.

 We approach the breakwater and light houses taking us into St Joseph.

 Large Homes along the coast and beach

 

 Lining up to enter the channel. We have a Bascule Rail bridge to go through before we can tie up on the town wall. There are other boats already docked at the wall.

 We were preceded by this couple. We had to slow down for them.We had to go to the right of the open bridge.

The bridge closed behind us, but we didn't hear a train! We are now captive between two bridges. The one ahead of us has had hydraulic troubles, we are told, and has not opened today! No  matter to us, we are safely on the wall in front of this little Looper's boat.

 The boat to our left was frustrated at having the Bascule Bridge close just before he could go through. He had to wait about 20 mins. for it to open.

 The town wall is free for us as we are using no water or electricity. We just needed somewhere to safely tie up. This is another Harbor of Refuge.

 We walked into the town from the river.

 This doggy store was called Doggy Butts.

 Such a pretty little town.

 

Lucky for us, there were already a couple of boats on the wall at St Joseph, and two of the occupants helped us tie up. There were not enough poles for us to tie the full length, so we were grateful for the help to tie to the pipe fence. No electricity or Water, but that wasn't a problem for us. Grateful to have the tie up!

We shut everything down and after chatting with the people just behind us, went into town to find some Chinese Food...we rather looked forward to it, but some of the restaurants et al had closed after Labor Weekend, being the official end of the tourist season.

We did find a Mongolian style Teppan kind of restaurant, which left a lot to be desired, but the ice-cream to follow made up for that, lol.

THIS is a SINGLE...she put three balls of ice-cream. Not sure how that makes it single??

In fact, the ice-cream was OVER generous, and I couldn't finish mine.

We walked back to the boat through a lovely park, where I took some sunset photos and enjoyed the location generally, and we settled down for the night. We had an early start to prepare for the following day.

 I don't know what this building was before the conversion, but it is now advertised as a 4 star senior living facility.:)

 This riverside concert shell is fantastic. Lots of open air concerts in summer, apparently.

 And so the day comes to a close.

St Joseph to Hammond Marina.

We were up at Sparrow's Fart this morning...being 6am. It is still very dark at that hour, and we somewhat reluctantly got out of bed 15 mins later. A shower woke us right up, and we ate our omelet and drank our coffee while waiting for the sky to lighten. At just on 7am we went outside to scare the spiders off the ropes and started the engines. We left the Wall 5 mins later. The other boats had intended to leave early also, but they were a good hour behind us.


First light isn't 6 am anymore! This was at 7am.

 We have just pulled away from the wall into the river to turn and go back to Lake Michigan

 Out the way we came in!

 ...and we are out into Lake Michigan!

 We watched the sun climb over the trees

 A gorgeous sunrise!

 The lake was barely moving, but a small swell, for the beginning of the trip.

 You can see the swell.

Leaving with a glorious sunrise was a plus, along with a light swell and the day dawned beautiful. We were fortunate to have the blue sky for another long day on the water as we cut across the bottom of Michigan towards the city of Chicago. We could see the smog layer almost from the get-go, as we got closer it was more evident. 37 miles out from the city, we could see the tallest buildings.

30 miles out we had a visit from some small insect eating birds, one of which got up close and personal on the window rim. It came back and Waz had to carefully take it in hand and release it out the back door.

We also saw monarch butterflies! What they are doing so far out from land, we don't know!

about 30 miles out our nostrils were assaulted by a distinctly 'industrial' smell, which grew and remained the closer we got to land and the city. There is a lot of heavy industry around us now.

We had some problems raising the Hammond Marina on the radio, 15 mins out. We had called yesterday to ascertain there would be a dock for us, and were told to radio on channel 9 when we got close. We did, but they were tardy in their response, and when they finally came through, we were instructed to go to the Courtesy Dock. No further information was forthcoming and they did not respond to our radio query for further information...where the heck is the dock, and why cant we just be assigned a dock first?

Safely inside the Breakwater, and looking west to Chicago City. The wind picked up from the west, as you can see by the windsock...

 We are in a very industrial part of Indiana just on the other side of the road to Chicago city, Illinois.

 The large building to the right is a floating Casino. Horseshoe. This is the boat ramp, which is so far from the entry to the marina as to be stupid. It means that all the boaters are impatient to get out onto the lake and zoom past us on their way out...causing us grief with their wakes.

 The Marina is huge and it is a loooong walk to our boat which is waaayyyyy at the very end of the marina near the entry.

As we made our way into the marina, Waz finally got them on the radio again to ask where the courtesy dock was, and whether the fuel dock was the courtesy dock? I was out on the deck waiting to get instructions for docking, and we were now in a holding pattern beside the fuel dock with a few smaller boats wanting to know what we were up to. Finally they told us to go to ANY slip on W dock, but didn't tell us where W was! duh!~ Waz vented to them about the lack of instructions and that they didn't answer our repeated calls for more information. They really had no excuse.

It was actually behind us, and it took us a little time sussing out the various spaces before we decided on one that we could manage without any help from the Marina. There are no staff available to help docking!

Fortunately for us, a kiwi fellow two boats along came by and gave us a much needed hand. Of course the forecast wind came up just as we entered the marina...Murphy's Law?

It was almost 2pm by the time we finished tying up and electricity and water hook-up and were hungry and tired. It was hot! We made our way all the way over to the Marina Office to sign in...it was half a mile away (may be slight exaggeration)  and complained again about the lack of information and that there was nobody to help with docking etc. She got a bit snotty about it all but there really is no excuse for the poor public relations. With the key to the gate around our necks, we
 trotted up to the Horseshoe Casino, which is adjacent to the Marina, and bought a Starbucks Coffee and Sandwich for Waz, and a Chef's Salad for me. $31 thanks! ack!

We walked through the Casino and tried to find out how to catch a bus into the city (Chicago) from there. The marina office couldn't tell us...how do these people do business????...and kind of found out what we had to do. It appears that $20 will buy us return tickets on the Casino bus tomorrow.

The Casino is a smoking facility and the whole place wreaked. We got out of there in a hurry and went back to the gate to the marina. The key they gave us for the gate didn't work, and we had to walk all the way back to the office for another one. This was a bit over the top, after all the other insults we had to survive with these folks.
They did get security to give us a golf cart ride back to the gate (yes, it is that far!) to make sure it worked this time. I don't think I would have been very nice if it hadn't. We got through the gate and then of course we had to walk another half mile to the boat. This marina is huge, and we are at the very end of it, near the breakwater.

We stopped by Ocean Breeze, where we visited with Paula Sue and Todd. We spent some time with them and exchanged notes on where we had been. They are second time loopers, so we are grateful for their help, always.
While on their boat we watched 12 Stones come into the marina preceded by John in his Catamaran and followed by Steve in the Camano Troll. Good to see them all again. We thought they might have already been down the rivers by now, but they have had a good visit on the Michigan Peninsula. Russ and Elaine are exhausted too, so they will enjoy their time out here. We are all waiting for the weekend to go down the Cal/Sag Canal.

It was going on 4.30pm by now and I had some left over fresh pineapple pieces in the fridge that needed to either be eaten as they were or cooked. I opted for a pineapple cake:) Baking helped me calm down!
Once that was out of the oven, I put together a Lamb curry with the leftover lamb from our nice dinner with John and Lin, the other night in Muskegon.

We ate the curry with mashed sweet potato and finished the dinner with pineapple cake and whipped cream, of course.

We were dealing with the dishes when we were suddenly tossed (is the only word for it) against the kitchen sink and then back, with violent rocking. A fast boat had come into the marina and his wake was ridiculous. I went out back and yelled at them to slow down....NO WAKE!! but they didn't seem to hear me (cant understand why...I was yelling fit to kill!). He was followed not long after by  yet another fast boat. The folks heard me and slowed right down, fortunately.
Boaters have to realize that they are responsible for their wake and any damage that may result from inappropriate actions. We could have been hurt as a result of their violent wake!

Per normal, we decided to go for our evening constitutional, but I was so incensed by this jerks behavior, I wanted to go by his boat (they were packing up to leave the boat) and let him know how his lack of consideration affected us. He was rude and abusive in his behavior to us, so  we filed a complaint with Security. This fellow is a seasonal slip holder, and they tell us he will be notified and told to comply with the signs all over the marina which say (no points for guessing!) NO WAKE ZONE.

We walked off the anger and enjoyed the warm night air.

Not a good beginning to our Chicago experience, but we heard from others that they also had trouble with the marina office and lack of help.