“Perch From The Sky” and Other Fishy Tales (July, Aug 2023)
- kenyon sprague
- Aug 13, 2023
- 14 min read
Updated: May 16, 2024
After our last adventure [In the Lyme Light], we returned to Dexter to attempt recuperation and pay attention to my day job. I made insufficient progress on both fronts, but we did sneak in some Robotics Team action and I even managed to summon enough energy to wash the Miata with my neighbor between naps. Then back north for more experiences. On the agenda were further boat repairs, my Birthday and visits from our kids plus partners. How’d it go? The score is still being tallied.
Thurs July 27: The trip north went fine, Lori drove the whole way while I napped, popped Doxycycline Hyclate and worked. We got to Esky in time to retrieve our boxes from the marina office before it closed. The big box from Copenhagen had a promising looking 15-meter radar cable coiled neatly around a little package of primo Haribo gummy bears.
Fri July 28: Worked a little, napped a little, did a lot of radar.
First, we plugged in both ends (which actually involved a lot of fussy stuff) while temporarily routing the cable out the door and up on the pilot house roof. When we switched it on, nothing sparked or arced! The display lit up! Yay! Lori flipped the switch to start spinning the antenna, and we got a incomprehensible synchronization error. Booo.
Lori checked online forums, and I checked wires. Forums had complicated guidance and suggestions, wires and connections all looked good. Then I noticed the big red switch on the antenna motor that I had flipped off last week while troubleshooting and forgotten about. Switched that sucker on and everything worked. Success! But that was the easy part. Now we had to snake the good new cable into the serpentine channel currently occupied by the old borked cable. Appropriately, I utilized a pair of constrictor knots (please note the multiple snake references in this paragraph) tied in dental floss to affix the small end of the new cable to the snipped off end of the old cable and after about 2 hours of pushing, pulling and twisting peristaltic action, we got it in place. Reassembly of everything else took considerably longer.
Sat July 29: Our hard-working harbor master annually puts a ton of effort into the Escanaba Marinafest. This one-day party involves a temporary stage cleverly assembled from a trailer bed, a pair of heavy-duty boat jacks and a shell made from two old sails. Shayne struggled a bit to get sufficient acts for the duration, but it ended up being 90% great. The house band from the nearby “House of Ludington” had some real pros playing. We spent most of the day with our local sailor friends Roy and Sue, played free pinball, ate from the food trailers and made new grommets to seal all the holes where we’d changed cables. Also took a nap.
Sun July 30: We worked hard at getting everything on the boat mostly put back together before the influx of visitors, but that plan tanked due to an UPSIE (UnPlanned Stress-Inducing Event, see blog entry). I got a call at about noon from Davi regarding a “real bad” plumbing situation at the Sprague’s Hancock Lodge that was causing a significant amount of stress to all the “up north” residents, and now to Lori and I as well. This house still has a significant amount of plumbing that dates back to the late 1800’s, and Davi had concluded that the puddle in the basement was somehow originating in the 2nd floor bathroom. The fact that the leak was dumping fluids from the main waste pipe directly into the top of the main circuit breaker box contributed to raising the stress level another notch or two. I fear that my own personal hatred of plumbing projects [see Fluids] may have infected my progeny, but Davi and I toughed it out and made a plan. Davi tackled taking up the carpet to try to trace the leak near the upstairs bathroom while Lori and I loaded up our demolition tools from the boat and headed north.
Arriving at 202 Harris Avenue, Hancock about 3 hours later, and grumpy from having missed my nap, Davi, Lori and I surveyed the problem together. Davi’s peeled back carpet upstairs revealed no apparent issues, and no ready access to deeply buried pipes short of prying up the hardwood floors and/or tile. In the basement, the puddle beneath the electrical breaker box was shrinking due to the “OUT OF SERVICE” signs on the upstairs vanity and toilet. On the 1st floor, Davi had detected moisture in the kitchen wall near the floor and torn out a section of plaster and lath revealing sopping wet insulation and a 4” cast iron waste pipe probably dating back to the Grover Cleveland administration (*not joking*). I cut another hole in that same wall 9 feet up (1st floor has real high ceilings) and found it bone dry. A series of additional trial & error inspection holes bracketed the leak to about 6’ up off the floor of the kitchen. At that point, we kind of knew what and where the problem was, and that we now needed professional help. We blocked off the lower holes enough to keep the cats out, rounded up the renters and treated them all to a nice Mexican dinner down the street to make up for the lack of bathroom facilities. Davi sent off a service request to Northern Plumbing, and we drove another 3 hours back to the boat, arriving 9 hours after we’d gotten Davi’s call. We’d have gotten back earlier, but Lori had to stop to take this photo.
Mon July 31: I paid some attention to my day job in the morning, and was able to tag-team with Lori enough to piece most of the pilot house back together just before Davi and Lauren showed up. We got them moved on-board, and put together a simple but nice picnic dinner from the grill. We were about half-way through dinner when the fish fell from the sky. No, this was not a fish I had grilled. A gull had plucked a 7” perch from the harbor, tried to fly off with it, but had promptly gotten mobbed by its jealous brethren. I’m not sure if the perch started off high enough to hit terminal velocity, but it made an impressive “SMACK” on the sidewalk and flopped into the grass, missing Lori’s chair by a yard or so. When it came to its senses (?), it flopped a few more times, its upward fisheye frozen in a terrified expression looking at the squabbling gulls circling above. Worried about our food and us becoming collateral damage if the gulls dove after the perch again, I chucked it back into the harbor, but we’re dubious that it survived its ordeal. If it did, the little perchlets will probably roll their eyes in disbelief at the fishtale. After dinner, we strolled down the park to the city band shell where the Grand Design band entertained us with their version of Yooper Rock ‘n Roll. The only objects we saw in the sky on that walk were birds and model airplanes (gas AND electric).
Tues Aug 1: I put renewed effort into the Mark III version of the Perseverance Aft Deck Solar Radiation Shield. The Mark I had been a blue tarp lashed to the davits and a couple boathooks that Lori made me take down right away because it made us look like a refugee boat. The Mark II was white, and better restrained, but catastrophically failed in a light rain because of a drainage design flaw. This time I had beefier corner poles and an arch to the aft end to prevent pooling. It was better, but a 16’ x 16’ tarp catches a LOT of wind. I was hoping to get it functional before by melanin-challenged daughter in law arrived, not realizing that I was the one that actually needed it worse.
At this point, I was about half-way through my bottle of Lyme antibiotics and was feeling generally better, though still with significant fatigue (my physician-cousin has a MUCH better term for it… Post Exertional Malaise. Sounds WAY better than “lazy”). Suddenly, I was convinced I had a fever because my breath felt so hot on my hands. The thermometer disagreed though, and I realized that all of my exposed skin felt super hot, even though I had carefully stuck to the shade and worn a hat during virtually all of my outdoor time. Then I remembered the warning on the pill bottle about Doxycycline increasing risk of sunburn. Boy did it. For the next two weeks, I covered up almost completely, but every solar photon that found my face or hands felt like a hot needle right into a nerve. So, I WAS getting better, but the cure was not pleasant.
We got boarded that night by pirates, but Davi felt them step onto the side deck and spooked them pretty badly as they sprinted off the boat and tripped their way off the dock. The marina security footage showed a couple teens stepping through our gate at 2am (accidentally left open) and looking around off the bow before rapidly exiting. We’ll chalk that one up to “dang kids.”
Wed Aug 2: I had a nice birthday. Lori found cheesy Mexican party decorations at the thrift store, and Lauren talked the cake decorator into drawing a nice reef knot around the circumference of my cake. Davi efficiently tallied my age in binary, but had to swap the 1st and the 7th digit mid-flame due to an initial lighting error.
Thurs Aug 3: Logistics master class. Davi and Lauren took both cars, dropping off Agatha the reliable and efficient, though homely, Chevy Cobalt at the Delta County Airport just south of Escanaba. After returning with our Ford with supplies, we shoved off at about noon, just as Kent and Hannah texted that their flight had arrived in Detroit. The race was on.
With radar happily spinning (we celebrated by munching down the gummy bears), we cruised south, then east, then north towards Fayette (~ 3 hrs) while Kent and Hannah caught their little regional jet, landed in Escanaba, found Agatha and tried to follow the instructions on how to break in.
Agatha was used hard as a test car for a work project at my company about 8 years ago, and sold to Davi for $1. Due to age, parts stripped off the car during testing and an icy crash, Agatha’s doors do not lock. The instructions to Kent from Davi read:
Super simple instructions to get the key.
1. Open the driver side door.
2. Find the hanging wires under the dash. Locate the small cylindrical component with round contacts on its face.
3. Bridge the contacts with the seat buckle or other conductive material. Upon success, you should hear a pop from the rear of the vehicle indicating the trunk is now unlocked.
4. Carefully lift the trunk and avoid pinch points.
5. Locate the pink swine in the trunk. There is a key in its mouth.
6. The key can be used to unlock the lockbox under the dash, please disregard the cash and IDs and other items inside. There should be a 7/8ths crescent wrench near the front.
7. Pop the hood using the release under the steering wheel.
8. Use the crescent wrench to briefly bridge the contacts on the battery.
9. The car should start right up.
Taking pity on Kent, I supplemented Davi’s instructions with:
Kent’s response expressed a succinct combination of incredulity and profanity that I shall not reproduce here, but he showed up nonetheless at Fayette shortly after we docked, so the instructions seem to have been sufficient.
Fri Aug 4: In the morning, we again got boarded by pirates, but this time they were younger. After Lori explained to them that the boat was our house that moves, they nodded their heads and happily scampered off to the next stimulus. Fayette State Park has dozens of restored buildings that are all open for wandering through, and our open gate again invited some more visitors onboard. Our long-time friends, the Jaskiewicz family from Ann Arbor, drove over from their nearby cabin to visit with us. We had a nice time catching up with them and enjoyed the free (and broad daylight) entertainment along with the cheese and wine they brought over. It is apparently mating season for the local mink population. Vocalizing loudly, the brazen pair living near our dock started out with an energetic chase through the reeds at the shore, progressed to an on-land wrestling match which spilled into the water where they splashed and thrashed violently for another several minutes, ending with another bounding race across the hiking path, plunging into the woods where I’m sure they scattered the deer herd like they had just done to the wandering tourists. Ah love.
After our visitors departed, the six of us hiked the mile or so north to the Port Bar, run by Sherry for the last couple decades, for some nice drinks and dinner. Lori and I took a short additional hike to admire the site of the former Fayette base ball field and horse track. The exhibit indicated that the Escanaba team regularly thrashed the locals.
Sat Aug 5: Davi and Lauren loaded up Agatha and headed back up north for Davi’s Sunday gig and further kitchen wall demolition in preparation for the Monday visit from the plumber. I’m hoping I don’t need my Sawzall before I can get it back from this project. Now down to Kent and Hannah as crew, we departed to do some exploration of a few of the nice bays in Big Bay De Noc.
We poked into South River Bay and waved to the handful of folks on the beach by the lone cabin there. A little further north, we decided to attempt lunch at The Dock, a restaurant in Garden Bay that has its own dredged channel and docks. Having reconnoitered it on an earlier trip, Lori knew that the channel was far too small for the Perseverance, so we anchored out and deployed our dinghy. Two trips got us all into the eatery in short order, and we ordered some drinks and lunch. It was going pretty great until Lori, who had been nervously checking the boat bobbing off in the distance flatly stated, “it’s drifting.” I checked the markers we had noted earlier, and she was right.
I left my margarita on the table as Lori and I hustled back to our dinghy and left a good wake out to the boat. I tried to haul up the anchor, but couldn’t get it above the water. I looked down off the bow and saw nothing but a ball of weeds. I couldn’t even see the flukes poking out of the round mass of green. With the fairly stiff breeze, we’d had some trouble setting the anchor because the Perseverance doesn’t point nicely into the wind like a proper sailboat. Her freeboard somehow makes her want to point sideways to the wind when at anchor and she tends to swing hard through almost a half-circle. One of those swings had tugged the anchor free, where it dragged bottom collecting weeds until the flukes were covered. Then the boat was just dragging a slippery ball of weeds across a lake bottom also well lubricated with slippery weeds.
Eventually, we managed to slough off most of the weeds and re-anchored in a different spot. Leaving Lori onboard, I dinghied back in to retrieve Kent, Hanna and our now “to-go” dinners. Kent had thoughtfully retained the balance of my margarita, which I downed before returning to the boat. Kent and I combined forces to hoist the anchor, which this time was a mass of weeds augmented with a pair of long wooden boards. We fought off that mess, and set off in search of a nicer sandy bottom.
We found it back in South River Bay where we anchored with much greater success. Kent and I jumped off for a swim and we decided to spend the night there, both to prove that we could do it, and to test out our battery reserves. We were really curious whether our new fangled LiFePo4 battery bank could keep the fridge and other “mandatory” electrical devices running without having to fire up the diesel to recharge. We did a bunch of amperage draw investigations and determined that the satellite internet + routers was the second highest load after the fridge. We decided to switch off the internet once everybody had gotten their mandatory communications (most of us were still on call for various work stuff) handled for the night. The breeze dropped down nicely and we had a fine time out on deck watching all the prehistoric looking (and sounding) sand hill cranes returning to base at dusk. Their deafening squawks reaching a crescendo each time newcomers arrived and were greeted.
Sun Aug 6: We weighed anchor in the morning and had a pleasant return to Esky, though I think Lori was the only one who didn’t get a nap on the trip. Once docked, she took her turn. None of us slept great our first night at anchor. Between having seen our boat drag anchor earlier, and our niggling concern over having a flat battery by morning (baseless since the starting battery is separate), we were all up now and then to check the ammeter and sighting markers. Turns out that the battery bank handled 16 hours of fridge, anchor light + partial miscellaneous loads with no problem, we still had 50% usable charge. The alternator took about 2 hours to fill the bank back up to full charge. We’re fairly satisfied with that.
We visited Esky’s Upper Hand brewpub and after dinner, Kent finished the programming of the boat’s festoon lighting programs.
Mon Aug 7: Much of this day was a work day for everybody… I just walked to the Escanaba City Library and studied for my upcoming deposition. We all knocked it off before dinner and had a nice dinner onboard followed by a hike back to the band shell. This night was Sit Down Francis, another local Yooper band that did respectable covers. The chief entertainment was watching a gaggle of kids enthusiastically throwing themselves down a steep hill over and over.
Tues Aug 8: We dropped Kent and Hannah off for their flight, waved goodbye and pointed the Ford south again. Kent called us after a half-hour to inform us that their regional jet showed up and promptly broke. We considered turning around to fetch them, but I needed to get back to prep for my deposition, so we had to just wish them well. And we kept driving.
Back when Kent was 12 years old, we arranged for him to spend a summer with our good friends the Nishizawas in Kyoto. We went through all the rigamarole of getting gate passes such that we could stay with him until he boarded the plane. For good measure, we hung around until the 747 had left the gate and trundled out of sight off towards the runway. We then considered him beyond our reach and started driving off on our own trip. About 90 minutes later, we were contacted by Northwest Airlines who demanded that we return to the airport to reclaim our child because the airplane had broken and returned to the gate. Lori considered it for about 8 seconds and replied “No. We’ve already left, we paid your mandatory and hefty ‘Unaccompanied Minor Fee’ and he’s your responsibility now.” And we kept driving. Sure enough, Detroit’s Wayne County Airport has a secret room just under the right escalator for upper floor security where they lock up all the abandoned children until their flights can be sorted out. Kent later reported that they let him stay up all night watching movies and playing video games, and that there was an unlimited supply of pizza and pop. He got to Narita airport in Tokyo the next morning in an upgraded business class seat.
Lori and I had flashbacks to this event, but our guilt quickly dissipated when another text message informed us that Escanaba’s Delta County Airport had an improved version of DTW’s “kiddie jail.” The Upper Hand brew pub was a 4-minute walk from their gate, so they had a safe and supervised place to hang out while the airline decided whether to send them a mechanic or a bus. After several rounds at the brew pub, another regional jet arrived in time for them to still return to NYC just before midnight.
Our return drive had one coincidence. We found a shaded picnic table at a randomly chosen I-75 rest stop and had just gotten to the crackers and cheese course when a Subaru towing a utility trailer stopped behind our car. It was the Jaskiewicz family, also returning back home. We visited some more and learned that daughter Larisa’s tent, pitched behind their cabin [see Under the Bridge], had been trampled and destroyed the previous day just before lunch (while Larisa was fortunately absent). There had been a possible black bear sighting on the beach that same day, but the description of the damage was much more consistent with an attack by Dogman, northern Michigan’s foremost cryptid.
Now I really want to know how Wisconsin’s premiere cryptid, the Hodag [https://explorerhinelander.com/whats-the-hodag/] from neighboring Rhinelander would fare in a cage match with Dogman. The ICA (International Cryptozoological Association) ought to host that as a fund raiser, it’d probably be a better matchup to watch than a couple of billionaires brawling for bragging rights. Especially if the cryptids demonstrated civility and kicked back to debate the superiority of Wisconsin vs. Michigan breweries.
UPSIE Description Resolution
1 Plumbing Partially resolved, bathrooms functional, additional repairs req’d
2 Pirates Boarding #1 Boarding party repelled, some loss of sleep
3 Fish From The Sky Did not go well for the Perch
4 Sunburn Sensitivity Recovering now that pills all gone, but OUCH!
5 Pirates Boarding #2 Boarding party repelled, no injuries reported
6 Dragging Anchor Probable future nightmare material, no damage
7 Missed Flight Inconvenience tempered with extra brew pub visit
8 Dogman Larisa’s gonna need a bigger tent