Under the Bridge! (July, 2022)
- kenyon sprague
- Aug 21, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 6, 2022
2022-07-04, Monday: A Catastrophic failure of Mark II aft deck sunshade kicked off this adventure. Since I and much of my family don't do well in the sun (Albinism, Northern Scandinavianism, Vampirism...) I've been working on an aft deck solution that'll let us hide from that big fusion reactor we're orbiting. The Mark I was a blue tarp held up with a bunch of sticks and line that was so ugly we couldn't get it down quick enough... but it gave us some basic dimensions. The Mark II had a better semi-customized tarp, and hardware allowing it to be hung from the twin davits above the salon plus some clever rod holders to hold up the aft corners. It actually worked great for about a day, till a light drizzle loaded up a region I hadn't figured out how to drain properly, and it all collapsed breaking 2 poles and ripping out my custom grommets. Nonetheless, I was encouraged, and expect the Mark III will be perfect. After that failure, Quang, Davi and Lauren all headed home, and we provisioned for the TRIP TO THE BRIDGE.
2022-07-09, Saturday: Ever since I first saw the Mackinac Bridge, I've loved it. I enjoyed crossing it, and have done so scores of times (just ask the pig that niece Ella gave us). But I've really always wanted to cross under it. That was a major reason I encouraged Lori's plan to visit Mackinaw City with the Great Lakes Cruising Club (GLCC). We joined the GLCC last year because they have fabulous harbor reports and a pretty good online school where we took a slew of seminars (ranging from weather to cooking to diesel repair) in hopes that we could improve our odds of surviving a 2nd season of boating on the Great Lakes. The GLCC had their annual meet-up this year at the Straights State Harbor conveniently located at the northernmost point of Michigan's lower peninsula, and just east of the Mighty Mac.
Escanaba to Mackinaw City is 122 miles and 2.5 hours by car. At our cruising speed of 8 knots, it was going to take a little longer. Along our route, we noticed we were near Parent Bay on the eastern side of the Garden Peninsula where our friends the Jaskiewicz's have their rustic cabin. We poked our bow into the bay for a quick reconnoiter, saw it looked pretty good for a potential anchorage, and headed on to Manistique, covering 59 (nautical) miles in about 7 hours, but nearly grounded on an unmarked shoal at the river mouth (2 weeks later, we saw them dredging there). Dinner (Croatian Chicken) at the annual Manistique folk fair and street party. We took a long walk along their boardwalk to admire ducks, loons, herons, etc. Morning saw us powering out at 6:30am, hell bent for the bridge.
Lori kept a wary eye out for freighters, and hid behind a lighthouse when a particularly threatening ore laker didn't turn soon enough to suit her. The Perseverance thumped along happily, even with a building southwesterly wind on our quarter. We spotted the towers of the bridge at about 20 miles distance, and watched them slowly rise higher and higher over the next 3 hours.
The Straights State Harbor is newly refurbished and beautiful, but it's got a wicked zig-zag entrance lined with rip-rap (big sharp boulders piled up as breakwater) that is really hard to see from the open water the first time you're there. The aerial photos and GLCC harbor reports proved quite helpful, and Lori docked the Perseverance into slip 5 with precision, though our docking crew (mostly sailors) didn't immediately appreciate how much momentum our 35-ton vessel had when they told Lori to cut engine, and she had to quickly restart and reverse to avoid leaving a big blue Perseverance shaped notch in the new dock.
The GLCC event was extremely well organized and enjoyable, we met lots of nice folk. Once again, we weren't quite the biggest boat there, but I'm pretty sure we were the heaviest. We visited the famous retired icebreaker, the USCG Mackinaw, and for bonus Coastie involvement, got a special demonstration. The Traverse City CG station agreed to send a helicopter crew out to the fishing pier at our harbor to give a rescue swimmer demonstration [video link here] to the GLCC. The beautiful helicopter cruised in just over the windmills to the south west, and hovered just a couple hundred feet off the pier at an altitude level with our eyeballs. It could not have been a better view. When the pilot hovered closer to us, the wash from the rotors picked up lake water and drenched us all, but it was great. While hovering, the crew dumped their dummy into the water, deployed their rescue swimmer, deployed their basket, loaded the dummy into the basket, winched it up, dropped their hook, and finally winched up their rescue swimmer... elapsed time of 4 minutes, 58 seconds. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
Helo-Geek Data: Built by Connecticut's famed Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, the Jayhawk is powered by twin GE Gas turbines, total 3780 shaft horsepower. 700 nautical mile range at 160 mph, max speed over 200+ mph. 4-blade main rotor with 54' diameter and integrated de-icing system with folding capability for storing aboard USCG Cutters. The winch is fitted to the starboard side of the fuselage and is rated at 600 lbs with 200' of cable. Non-retractable reverse tricycle landing gear. Designed to carry a crew of 4 and 3+ tons of fuel , travel up to 300 miles offshore, and return with 6 survivors plucked from the water during 45 minutes of hovering, and do it at night and in virtually all weather. A Jayhawk can carry over 1000 gallons of gasoline + up to an additional 360 gallons of reserve tanks, for maximum endurance of 7+ hours, that's more than the Perseverance fuel capacity!!! My niece really wants to drive one of these, and maybe she will.
Our friends Jim and Kat came to meet us, and brought Bella with them, who became our first visiting boat dog. She did very well on board, and came with us on our sidetrip to Cheboygan to see the New Mackinaw icebreaker, and to moor in the river for lunch and hike and to visit Cheboygan's downtown Stormy Kromer Cap and Ale House. For those with an inadequate education, in 1903, Ida sewed her husband "Stormy" an improved cap that wouldn't blow off during his job as a locomotive engineer (he was also a semi-pro base ball player). This hat is popular with Yoopers and is made in Ironwood, MI. The store in Cheboygan had a bar with a nice variety of beverages on tap to enjoy while you shop. We culminated that day with an evening tour under the Mighty Mac bridge before easing back into our slip for the night.
We gave some final tours of the Perseverance for some of our new GLCC friends, then said farewell and headed back to Manistique again. Once we made port there, we made a grocery run using our e-bikes and met a man who came over to talk to us because he recognized the boat, and had formerly worked for Roy Ness decades ago. He had nothing but nice things to say about the Ness family, business and the boat.
The next morning, we left early and headed into Parent Bay to see if we could score a free lunch. We had discussed the possibility with the Jaskiewicz's of visiting, but since there is no cell coverage there, we just nosed in and blew the horn. Sure enough, when we got closer, we saw the restless natives on the beach, but they didn't look too threatening. We successfully dropped anchor and deployed the dinghy without taking too long, and by golly, the outboard started and we made it in almost looking like we knew what we were doing! The Jaskiewicz's treated us to a fine "Fika" (Swedish for 2nd breakfast), and we had a fine visit before reversing the process and bidding them farewell. It was a bit nerve-wracking for me to see the Perseverance looking so small and distant once we were ashore, but the anchor held in the sand just fine, and the boat didn't get blown into the shoals. It all worked pretty perfect, though less advantageous weather may well have made it more challenging.
The rest of the trip back to Esky was smooth, and we docked back at our spot, nicely marked with blue paint on the water-side of the pilings from our early attempts last season when we were more clueless. We're gaining more confidence in the boat, and feel real lucky to have her.
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