John...you cannot get lost on Lake Michigan. For Pete's sake, the ports are
marked on road maps. From what Max posted, I'm assuming he was coming home
from Pen****er to his home port...all the channels are clearly marked and
easily seen. The only difficult channels to find are farther north at
Arcadia and Portage Lake, and even then, you always know Portage lake by the
cloud that hangs over it (it's a weird anomaly).
"John Cairns" wrote in message
. ..
I think they were lost and didn't have the nerve to admit it. I never
realized it until recently, but there are powerboaters out there that hold
sailors in some high regard. Several weeks ago I was distributing
literature
for our sail club at a marina about 25 miles south of here, pretty small
place with maybe about 40 slips, but there were 28 sailboats there. I was
walking to the sailboats and dropping the envelopes in the cockpits, a
fisherman asked me what I was doing and I told him about the club, he
asked
me about the weather out on the lake! I was on foot, no indication that I
had been out on the lake(Erie) or that I could possibly have any more
information than he did on the subject. He asked me about the waves that
day, it was blowing maybe about 15kts. out of the west, he wanted to know
what I thought the waves might be like, he was on a smaller runabout,
maybe
16'. I told him that the waves shouldn't be very big on this end of the
lake, the western end, without explaining that this is something he should
have been able to figure out. I really wouldn't be surprised if they were
lost and thought that you, as a sailor, would be able to help them with
directions, but in the end were to embarrassed to admit it.

John Cairns


Last Saturday, while returning home from a nearby port (35nm to the
north)
on Lake Michigan this happened to us when we were about 8nm from our
port.
I'll report the incident and let you all make your own judgments.

It was a sunny day, 10kts. from the west, and we were making roughly
6kts.
southbound, my wife at the helm. I'd just lain down on one of the
cockpit
seats when I heard the rumble of a couple of large gas engines
throttling
down. I peeked over the coaming to discover a go fast boat, approaching
from the rear, had slowed and nearly stopped about 30 yards off our
starboard beam. I grabbed the binocs and took a look. The skipper was
a
shaggy-looking middle-aged man dressed in a muscle shirt and his three
passengers were all younger men dressed in heavy, dark
clothing--sweaters,
dark pants, etc. Not exactly what one would expect for an afternoon
outing
on the old go-fast. All were standing in their boat, the Panama Jeanne,
about 38' long. They turned toward us and approached at slow speed,
came
up
behind us, and stalked us for about 5 minutes. Then they pulled up
along
the port side. During this time I went below and obtained our 25mm
flare
gun, loaded it, and stuck two additional flares in my pocket. A lot of
good
it would have done, but it made me feel that I was at least doing
something.
The skipper then yelled something to us. We asked him to repeat and he
inquired as to the distance and direction to our home port. We told him
6
miles (a lie, but we could see the breakwalls of the channel in the
distance). He then conferred with the other young men, and finally
said,
"You have a beautiful boat." I said, "Thanks." After stalking us for a
while longer they finally drifted off to port (toward shore), idled
along
for another five minutes, then sped off to the south.

The experience was unnerving, to say the least. It certainly makes one
feel
vulnerable when traveling at 6kts. My take on this is that they thought
a
single woman was traveling alone, and when they saw me they decided to
check
things out further before reacting. It is possible they might have
thought
me armed, as my arm and hand were extended into the cabin, holding the
flare
gun, while I was standing in the cockpit.

OTOH it could have been innocent, but such behavior is certainly
suspicious.

What's your take?

Max