Carolina Splashed for the Season

Carolina in the slings

 June, 2023

     We’ll we have begun a new cruising season in the Great Lakes.  At the end of last season we made a mad dash for Sturgeon Bay, WI to put Carolina in winter heated storage.  Our daughter was expecting her second child and we were racing to get Carolina put up so I could fly to Boston to help with the new grand child.   Best laid plans….Maggie went into labor the day I was to fly in.   Bob dropped me at Green Bay’s Austin Straubel Airport and continued on in the rental car to retrieve our truck from Brewerton, NY.

    I sat in the airport for 3 hours waiting for the ground stop in Chicago to end (due to tremendous storms).  If I had gone with Bob in the car, I could have caught my original flight to Boston but instead I waited and was late getting into Boston.  Baby Lily had arrived and I went directly to their house to stay with Lily’s older brother, Teddy.   It was a very hectic couple of weeks but exciting too.

      We left Carolina in Matt’s capable hands at CenterPointe Boatyard in Sturgeon Bay, WI.  We were very pleased with the care they took and their accommodating our needs.  Kudos to Matt and CenterPointe Boatyard!   Matt convinced us that June 1st was going to be too cold and suggested we aim for June 15th so that became the new plan.

      We left New Bern on June 12th and drove to Cedarville, OH home of Cedarville University.  We had a lovely hotel and enjoyed a good nights rest.  The following day we drove to Sturgeon Bay to a hotel for the night.  Carolina was still on the jack stands in the shed.  The following day Matt called to let us know that they were ready to splash her.  We had all our fingers crossed that the batteries had survived the winter and would start her up.   We didn’t need to worry.  Both Hercule and Arthur(Carolina’s John Deere’s) turned right over.  Very impressive.   We moved her to the wall outside the yard and settled in to lugging boxes for clothing and parts to the boat.  It took all morning to get everything on board then we had to unpack and stow it all.  It sure felt good to be back on board.

      The following day we set up our starlink dish to see if it would work as well here as it does at home.  We were not disappointed.   We added a Roku  and our oldish t.v.s now get all the channels we could possibly need.  Along with that, Moray downloaded about 400 movies and series for us on our external hard drive.  We would be bored on rainy days.

Capt. Bob 

Sunset in Sister Bay

Sister Bay by day

      Our cruising plan was to head north, up Door County and visit some of the touristy towns.  So after a couple of days waiting for weather and provisioning, we left for Chambers Island to anchor out for a few nights.   We enjoyed the solitude but saw some weather heading toward us to we left for Sister Bay and a slip.   We stayed at the Sister Bay Marina which is right in the downtown area.  We arrived in the afternoon and spent an hour walking to waterfront seeing some of the sights and wandering the gift shops.  The weather never materialized so the following day we left for Washington Island and Penderson Bay for another anchor out.  Unfortunately all these great secluded anchorages were marred by Canadian smoke.  We had hoped to do some star gazing but we’re fouled each time by smoke.

Smoke on the water and weed up to my thigh!

      Our next stop would be Sturgeon Bay again for safe harbor during a blow.  We stayed 4 days provisioning, touring and drinking Smithwicks on tap at Kitty O’Rielly’s!  When it was time to leave we had to ask the dockhands to walk us back out of our weed patch.  The weed was terrible in the marina and many people had left because of it.  We ran into one man who was having both his outboards worked on because the weed fouled them so badly.   We had to do some fancy maneuvering to shake loose what was wrapped on our prop but eventually we’re sure we had shed it all.

      Next stop is Kewaunee, WI, home of the worlds largest grandfather clock.