Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Lumpy water

Well, we're here in Leland Michigan. We started out for Frankfort this morning but ran into some sloppy water. The waves were running at only about 2 feet, but they were hitting us from the side and the forecast was for them to build. A beam sea like that makes for a very uncomfortable ride, and to put up with that for a 7 hour trip - yuck! With descretion being the better part of valor, we pulled back into port to wait for a better weather window. The trip to Frankfort is about 40 miles with no refuge along the way. After our experience at Beaver Island last week, we are not ready to go through that again. The forecast for that day was exactly the same as the forecast for today.
So we wait.
At least there's a grocery store here, and a few other things to occupy us. There are worse places to wait.
The problem is the weather really doesn't look any better until the weekend. I hate to loose that much time, but better safe than sorry.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You will probably have to push through wavy conditions on Lake Michigan in September. If you wait for perfect conditions, you may not get to where you are going!

Six foot waves are the norm here, push on through to get out quickly if you don't like wavy conditions.

Mike Wagner said...

It's not so much the 6 footers as it was the fact that they were hitting us right on the stern. With this boat, it can make steering VERY tiresome. The rudder is large and the following sea grabs the rudder and just about pulls it out of my hands.
That does seem to be the norm here and I plan on getting out of Lake Michigan ASAP. You can have it. Yuck.

Anonymous said...

By the time you are on your way out of the Lake, you will love it! Lake Michigan is one of the most beautiful, fascinating sailing grounds in the world.