"Peter Hendra" wrote in message
...
Hi Karin,
I'm afraid that I can't feel sorry for you. Down here in Trinidad it
is quite the opposite. Undertaking any physical effort at all means
that perspiration literally pours off. Trying to hand sand something
for example means that you have to move your head to one side of the
piece of work so that sweat does not drip and cause the sandpaper to
clog. Shorts offer no protection from the sun and trousers are too hot
so I wear a sarong all day - fine at home in Malaysia where everyone
wears them, but here.. the comments have died down now about my
"dress".

It gets so hot during the early afternoon that sitting down for a
break and a cup of coffee usually results in falling asleep.

I would just love to be able to stand in your wonderful invigorating
cold for just a few minutes now and then during the working day.

If everything is frozen, how long is your boating season?

cheers
Peter

I can empathize, Peter. In mid August, we can have spells of near 100
degrees (on a real thermometer, not those fake European ones with the funny
scale) and humidity around 80%. I tend to "rain" when I get even a little
warm anyway, so when it's like that I'm one miserable puppy. Today it's
beautiful, around 60 degrees and maybe 40% humidity. My idea of Heaven.

Rivers are mostly clearing of ice now where there's any flow, but the bay
still has major ice sheets. Should clear in another week or two, I'm
scheduled for launch the week of April 22nd, so I have just about a month
now to get my "on the hard" work done.

Karin

"Peter Hendra" wrote in message
...
Hi Karin,
In New Zealand, being more temperate, the only time we take our boats
out of the water is to antifoul and we sail all year, even though the
weather in winter can be a little too stormy and colder. In Malaysia,
the only difference in the two seasons is that one rains more often -
apart from the typhoons on the South China Sea side.

Out of curiosity (this damned rain is a good excuse), I looked up
Green Bay on Google Earth and in Cmap. It seems a wonderful place to
sail or just potter about in a boat. There are a lot of good protected
and shallow anchorages, especially about the islands to the north
where one could seek shelter from all weathers. I had not realised
that Lake Michigan had such a protected arm.

Question: With the aforesaid, why do you not leave your boat in the
water all year? Does the bay freeze over? I honestly have no idea. The
only place I have experienced winters cold enough to freeze large
bodies of water is in China. In New Zealand or Australia, if we want
snow we have to travel to the mountains in winter time.

Oh, we once camped in central Turkey in our mountain tent (essential
part of cruising gear) where it got - 20 degrees celcius, but there
were no lakes there, just snow on the ground. I always envied you
North Americans your white Christmas, making snowmen, ice skating and
cutting holes in the ice to go fishing.

cheers
Peter Hendra

Yah, Long Beach California was that way too -- like New Zealand, only not as
pretty. Boats stay in the water year round and you can pretty much go
sailing any time you want. Therefore, since there is no sense of urgency
about it, people have a "Manana" attitude. You can always go sailing
tomorrow -- today, there's beer to be drunk!

As for keeping the boat in the water year round here...

It's not all that uncommon for people, at the coldest period of the year, to
DRIVE across Green Bay. Ice gets to be a couple of feet thick. Yes, these
are stupid people, but they still do it.

"Peter Hendra" wrote in message
...
Enough said. I now understand.

I've seen old movie footage of the Russians laying railway tracks
across some lake in Russia (possibly Lake Baikal) but for me, to even
walk on frozen water in Beijing was initially a rather strange and
novel experience.

We left Turkey for northern Greece at the end of January 2004. We
couldn't understand why we never saw another sailboat until we saw a
Swedish boat when nearing Athens a couple of months later. The weather
was OK if you kept an eye on it but we experienced probably the worst
seas ever in the Northern Aegean - short and steep. Once, we were
anchored in an enclosed bay on the southern coast of Lesbos, had winds
of over 60 knots and raced on deck expecting the mast to have crashed
down only to find great chunks of solid ice from the spreaders on the
cabin top. If I translate that to your cruising area, I suppose I
wouldn't be too far wrong.

Thanks for educating me,
Peter

Summers make up for it. We have such wonderful cruising grounds to visit --
several islands are within half a day's sail, along with several nice little
anchorages and ports. I can sail over to Sturgeon Bay and transit the canal
in about 4-5 hours, then sail overnight to the eastern shore of Lake
Michigan, where there are some fantastic little towns to visit like Leland
and Frankfort. Haven't done the "Crossing the Lake" sail yet, but it's in my
plans for this year, Insh'Allah.

Sailing north in Green Bay takes me to Washington Island -- wonderful
Scandanavian architecture, three harbors but two of them are very thin water
and one is very deep. Detroit Harbor on the southern end of Washington
Island is the best of the three (others are Jackson Harbor -- a tiny little
lagoon -- and Washington Harbor, which is 80 feet deep and rocky) but the
channel into the anchorage is very narrow and is bounded by sand/mud at
about 2-3 feet depth.

Further north takes us into either Little Bay de Noc to the west (Escanaba
and Gladstone, Michigan) or Big Bay de Noc further east. BBdN has a super
place to visit -- Fayette, Michigan -- which is an old abandoned steel mill
town which has been turned into a state park. The harbor, "Snailshell
Harbor," is gorgeous. Not huge, but it doesn't get a whole lot of traffic
except around July 4th week.

Can't wait to get sailing again! :-)

"Peter Hendra" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:15:16 -0600, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

Karin,
Beautiful country. I can't believe how densely populated it is.
Pleasantly zooming around on Google Earth clearly shows the glaciated
landscape. Are harbours such as Franfort free anchoring or do you have
to pay? I refer to the outer harbour as there seem to be many piles
in the inner one.

I had dreamed, many years ago of sailing up the Hudson/Eire canal and
down the Chicago Sanitary canal to the Bay of Mexico. I doubt now that
I'll do it but it is still tempting and I might still head north after
leaving Trinidad. Florida is only two weeks away.

The trouble with cruising is that you take much longer than you
planned as there are so many interesting places to side track to and
who wants to rush things.

cheers
Peter


The outer harbor at Frankfort is free anchorage, deeper to the north side of
the channel, shallower to the south. There are also "Special Anchorages"
designated in the inner harbor, but I've not seen them yet. Most anchorages
in these parts are free, though good holding ground very near towns can be
difficult to find. Most of these have been co-opted with moorings. My
favorite close anchorage, safe in all but north winds, is on Chambers Island
on the north end. Very popular in the summer. Others are the cove on the
south side of Horseshoe Island, and Nicolet Bay just south of it. These are
both just west of the Village of Ephraim, just a dinghy ride away.

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:49:10 +1000, Peter Hendra
wrote:

I had dreamed, many years ago of sailing up the Hudson/Eire canal and
down the Chicago Sanitary canal to the Bay of Mexico. I doubt now that
I'll do it but it is still tempting and I might still head north after
leaving Trinidad. Florida is only two weeks away.

Do you know John and Penny from the Skookum 53 "Seahorse" in Trinidad?

They winter in Trinidad and go back up the Hudson River to Lake
Champlain in the spring. That's a great trip and they are nice folks.
Say hello for me if you run into them, Wayne and Diane from the Grand
Banks 49 trawler.

Peter Hendra wrote in
:

If everything is frozen, how long is your boating season?

cheers
Peter


Peter, the correct question to ask people from the North and Canadians is:

"What day was Summer last year?"

That always gets a better "rise" out of them....hee hee.

Larry
--

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:42:39 +0000, Larry wrote:

"Dennis Pogson" wrote in
:

It's called "global warming" and I am told we should all be doing
something about it, such as giving up our gas-guzzling cars and buying
tiny electric ones.



Way too much Al Gore. The earth is in one of the coldest eras of its
history (unless you're a Christian that believes the Universe is only 6000
years old).

Correction Larry,
6,010 years
Archbishop Usher set the date as 9am in the morning of the 10th of
October 4004 BC

And......., you've neglected to cite him as a source. We don't want
any more nasty recriminations do we?

cheers
Peter


As to the CO2 causing "global warming", you need to put the graphs together
for the last several thousand years.

Larry

Peter Hendra wrote:
On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:55:16 -0600, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

Intending to start my spring work, I went up to Marinette WI were I
keep Essie, about a 40 minute drive up the western shore of Green
Bay. Had lunch, went to the marina, found that during the past few
weeks in which we actually had winter snow, someone has been
shoveling the snow and piling it up in several places -- most
inconveniently, under the port buttocks of Escapade. Did my best to
clear through the remaining snow and ice so that I could place my
ladder for boarding, but couldn't get through the four inches or so
located just exactly where I needed to put the ladder legs to get
through the door in my winter shrink-wrap cover.

Bugger it all.

On the bright side, it appears that I'm the only one who thinks that
it's time to be getting the boat ready for spring. Not another
living soul at the marina.

Karin

Hi Karin,
I'm afraid that I can't feel sorry for you. Down here in Trinidad it
is quite the opposite. Undertaking any physical effort at all means
that perspiration literally pours off. Trying to hand sand something
for example means that you have to move your head to one side of the
piece of work so that sweat does not drip and cause the sandpaper to
clog. Shorts offer no protection from the sun and trousers are too hot
so I wear a sarong all day - fine at home in Malaysia where everyone
wears them, but here.. the comments have died down now about my
"dress".

It gets so hot during the early afternoon that sitting down for a
break and a cup of coffee usually results in falling asleep.

I would just love to be able to stand in your wonderful invigorating
cold for just a few minutes now and then during the working day.

If everything is frozen, how long is your boating season?

cheers
Peter

It's called "global warming" and I am told we should all be doing something
about it, such as giving up our gas-guzzling cars and buying tiny electric
ones.

Maybe you should frog-march one of these idiots to your boat and force him
to clear the snow.

He will take a sample and tell you it's from the Greenland ice cap.

Poor sods, should we get them all certified?

Dennis.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Peter Hendra wrote in
:

If everything is frozen, how long is your boating season?

cheers
Peter


Peter, the correct question to ask people from the North and Canadians is:

"What day was Summer last year?"

That always gets a better "rise" out of them....hee hee.

Larry
--

I'll have you know we have a lovely six week summer up here... July & 1st
half of August (if it doesn't rain too much)
After that, it's a very pleasant autumn.

I bet. btw-- next time you rewire something, getr some white 1/2 --
3/4" shrinktube from McMaster-Carr or Allied and use it to label each
wire with a Sharpie.

Life is pretty soft now -- I don't have to chop my hauloff lines out
of teh ice any more and I've put away my gumby suit till next winter.

Cheers,

Michael Porter


"Roger Long" wrote:

I've been going up to the boat a lot:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/2007Work.htm

--
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