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

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,
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

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:21:50 -0600, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:



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.

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

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


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! :-)

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 22:01:48 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

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.


Hi Wayne,

There are four major yards here with mostly American boats in them
plus a marina attached to the Cruise In Hotel. I'll ask around and
give your regards should I find them. I am learning to speak with a
slow drawl like a mentally challenged person and mispronounce some of
my words, so they should be able to understand me. I've even learned
to curb my humour as I've discovered that Americans do not readily
understand my Antipodean one which is often based on puns - seemingly
foreign to them.

Actually, for an ex-British colony, this country has many hallmarks of
a US territory partly because Chagaramas was at one time, the largest
American base in the world. Given by the British in exchange for the
lend-lease destroyers etc in 1941, at one time there were about
400,000 servicemen based here as well as at the two military
airfields.

Another reason for the American-ness of the place is that, as I said,
there are so many US citizens here. Prices in catalogues (again -
correct spelling as in "colour" and programme") are often in US. I had
the teak on top of my hatches replaced - quoted in US dollars not TT
ones. Gallons are 3.7 litres, not 4.2 as in the rest of the world,
power is 110 volts, weight is in pounds and ounces - not kilos. Bolts
are not metric (they import Japanese cars so must have problems), and
linear measure is in feet and inches, not the far simpler metre,
centimetre and millimetre where, like the kilo, you just move the
decimal point. AWG is fine, but everywhere else uses cross sectional
area in millimetres - so much easier to calculate loss due to
resistance.

Last week I needed a new copper pipe for my compressor - couldn't get
any metric. I went to buy some wire - $TT 10 on the price ticket -
reasonable I thought for a yard or a metre - then I found that it was
priced by the foot.

At least time is still based upon 24 hours in a day and 365.25 days in
a year. I would spit tacks if the American system had more hours in a
day. I work long enough on this boat as it is already.

Still, most people are very friendly and helpful, are relaxed about
life and behave politely to each other as if they are in continual
holiday mode. I hesitate however to address people in the Australian
manner with "Gidday mate" least it been interpreted as being
suggestive.

cheers
Peter

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

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:18:11 +1000, Peter Hendra
wrote:

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

Heh.

It was on Wednesday last year.

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

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

--
Roger Long

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
I've been going up to the boat a lot:

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

--
Roger Long


Thanks for the link. I really like the way this page works.
http://home.maine.rr.com/bmssez/06Cruise.htm
Very good idea! Nice way to put some order into what would otherwise be
chaos for those unfamiliar with that coastline.

Wilbur Hubbard

"Gogarty" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...


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.

Went to the boat on Thursday. Cockpit still full of snow and ice. Got
the
dinghy off the deck and back in the davits. Started raining. Went
agains on
Saturday, the morning being pleasant. Not for long, but the snow and
ice are
gone. But did hook up all the seacocks and started the engine.
Instantly. Good
omen. Then the clouds rushed in, the north wind started howling and
the
temperature plummetted. This week it is supposed to go to
mid-seventies. That
will be nice. Nobody at our marina either.


It's been in the 70s and 80s here in Florida for the past week or so.
Nice steady E and NE breezes at around 20 knots for what seems like
forever. Water temp a brisk 78 degrees. Very little rain. They just
instituted water restrictions because the water table is getting low.
:-(

Wilbur Hubbard