Thursday, September 16, 2010

Chicago Here We Come

We left St. Joseph about 9:00 am Winds to be 10 - 15 and waves 1-3. Should be a great day.
A bit of a following sea, which made it a sloppy sail, but we were able to get our sail out and made really good time. Sometimes we were doing 7.4 or 7.8 surfing down the waves.

Midpoint of our crossing Peter noticed that 2 screws on the rudder post were up about 1 inch. He screwed them back down. So glad that he noticed. I have thought of a number of things that could go wrong - transmission failure, or motor problems - but never thought about losing the rudder. That would be awful. So glad to avert that disaster.

The skyline of Chicago as it rises out of the mist is something to behold. Took a lot of pictures but not sure they will do the sight any justice.
We had to go under 2 bridges on the approach to Crowley's Yacht Yard. A new experience. You call the street name of the bridge and very respectfully ask "for a lift at your convenience" Within a few minutes up goes the bridge. Then protocol seems to be to "thank the bridge" on passing.

Crowley's is on the east side of Chicago; a very industrial area - not pretty at all. Very close to a major railway track system. Trains every 15 minutes. The night security man suggested that we not go walking in the evening or some local residents would relieve us of our money. There is 24 hour security here.

The traffic on the Calumet River is most interesting to watch. We saw 2 big tugs escorting a huge 1000' Great Lakes freighter "Canadian Enterprise" under the bridges. Quite impressive.
Peter and Jim had all of the sails off the boat and folded while we prepared dinner. We wanted them off before the rain that was expected this evening.

Today is Jim and Linda's 48th wedding anniversary. Yvette and Claude from Trusty III skyped us and suggested that we all have dinner at a seafood restaurant they heard about. They too are in Chicago at Burnham Marina. We were all a little surprised that we had ended up here at the same time.
Tomorrow we will have the mast removed and ready for shipping by truck.

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