Hammond, IL to Dolton, IN - A Shorter Day Than Planned

Not that anything was cut short, just that the Captain made an arithmetic error and our leg on Monday was only 12.6 miles instead of the 25 that was planned.

It is just as well because we hung around quite a long time waiting for the Captain's doctor to call back from New York regarding his recent blood pressure spike.  At some point he decided to go and let the call catch up with him when it could.

We moved over to the fuel dock, took on diesel and used the pump out to deposit the contents of Dutchess' ??? holding tanks.  We hung a left past the breakwater into the harbor and were on our way about 3 miles North to the opening of the Calumet River into Lake Michigan 

There's not much that can be said about this phase except that the scenery was darkly industrial mixed with occasional boat yards (notably Crowley's).

It only took about 2 1/2 hours from push off at Hammond to being on the dock in Dolton, IL at a small harbor facility called Marine Services.

Looking in the Waterway Guide, I noticed that they supposedly had a courtesy car.  The guy behind the desk was pleasant but seemed to be confused and overwhelmed by any question I could ask him.  Luckily, after being told that it wasn't available since it was also used by staff for errands, a mechanic came through the door with keys in hand to a nice big GMC club cab and I had my ride into the supermarket.

Chuck came along for the ride and we picked up a few basics including some frozen vegetables.  When we got back I cooked our evening meal of sauteed onions, american fries, green  beans and a can of spam.

The three of us devoured every last scrap!

We met a few other boaters who were partying on three or four boats accompanied by lost of very loud music, barbecue and plenty of booze.  While we declined joining the party, we did find out that most of the boat owners there were either Chicago cops, Cook County Sheriff staff or Chicago firemen.

Very nice group of guys!

Since we have a TV screen and DVD player, we decided to watch the first of the Horatio Hornblower movies.  The Captain and Chuck were delighted with the movie and we plan on watching the others soon.

Musings from Hammond on Sunday

It is hard to pack when you know that temperatures can easily be somewhere between 40F (god forbid lower) and 80F, but that's what I had to try to do.  When I go down to the BVI for a week, Vickie always teases me about bringing along way more that I can use in a week, but I remind her that I can be a sloppy eater (drinker, too?) and need to have more than one of everything.

In this case, it is just the wide temperature range that caused me to bring along so much still facing the challenge that I would have a limited amount of storage aboard.

Vickie and I (and Dougal, of course) had a nice ride over to Hammond Municipal Marina and we met the Captain (John Kwak) and other crewmember (Chuck Stuart).  John (and the boat) is from the Hudson River Valley in New York and Chuck is a fellow West Michigander with a Catalina 36 also in Muskegon Lake.

I got settled in and managed to squeeze all my my miscellaneous small bags (the ONLY way to pack for a boat) into the allotted space between my crew bunk in the main saloon and the outside hull of the boat.

The boat is very, very nice and while we won't be doing any sailing on this trip (mast is being shipped to Mobile), we have very comfortable accommodations.  I'll post pictures of the inside on a later entry.

A few notable things about Sunday night.  We decided that we would do more grocery shopping later in the week and go out Sunday night.  Since we were right alongside the Horseshoe Casino and they reportedly had a very good steakhouse, we elected to walk over there.  On the way, we met fellow boaters heading back to the marina and asked directions.

"Well, you just walk through the casino and when you come to the area where all the Chinese are chain-smoking, you take the nearest escalator upstairs"  I never did see the multitudes of Mandarin-speaking addicts, but we found the steakhouse nevertheless.

We also found that, while we enjoyed the meal, it was very spendy!!  We blew quite a bit of our grocery money on food the first night and have been making a financial recovery in the next few days.

We knew that we were in for a major treat in the night sky and weren't disappointed - or at least too much!

The moon rose and, true to predictions, was 14% larger than normal in a clear Chicago evening.  So (silly me) I assumed that the blood moon/eclipse to happen later in the evening was going to be spectacular.  While we did catch some glimpses during the time it took to cover and uncover, high clouds obscured to best show.

Except when we looked at what was visible with Captain John's new stabilized fancy binoculars.  Using these we could even see the orange tine in the obscured area and moon craters in the bright area!

We turned in fairly early anticipating a fairly long day on Monday.

I'm Getting Ready to Go. Wait! This isn't Amalia! What's up?

S/V Dutchess, CSY 44, Center Cockpit

Whoa!  What happened?

Well, its a long story and I'll give you whole story.

My venerable, 50-year old, Cal 30 Amalia was being prepared all season to make this same trip and the plan was to leave (coincidentally) in about the same timeframe.

But, due to not having accomplished all of the desired upgrades and improvements - although certainly everything that was absolutely necessary - I got to thinking about the schedule and realized there was a big hole in my logic.

The trip from Muskegon would have been to Chicago, into the Chicago River and down the Illinois River to the Mississippi.  From there, downstream to the Ohio, upstream to the Tennessee or Cumberland and then down the Tenessee to the Tenn-Tom waterway to Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico.  The trip is usually made from mid-September to Mid-November to avoid most of the river flood stages and work a compromise between beautiful fall days in the North and the pending colder weather.  It also conveniently keeps on on the interior rivers during hurricane season.

So what was the problem?  it was simply my realization that my tentative plan to come home for the winter and go back after the house was on the market next spring had a major flaw.  What is Vickie doesn't retire July 1?  Even if she did, what about paying for all that storage in Mobile and going back in May or June to sail alone, endure oppressive Florida heat in June-August and then needing to store again during hurricane season?  It didn't make any sense to get the boat to the Gulf and then let is sit until fall.

So, I regretfully decided that I would need to postpone my trip down until early next summer - at the earliest.  Since I have had the mast removed for deck work all season, there would be no sailing this year.  Might as well rig up the boat for another long winter's nap.

But, then came the post on the AGLCA Website classified section requesting a crew to sign on to help the owner bring his boat from Chicago to Mobile in the same timeframe.

So, I contacted him and am packing today to depart tomorrow (Sunday, 9/27/15) for Hammond, Indiana where the skipper and S/V Dutchess has been waiting for the past few weeks awaiting crew.

Dutchess is a CSY 44 (Caribbean Sailing Yacht) with a center cockpit displacing 38,000 pounds.