Newlyweds, new tones and a storm
by Skipper Mary
6.22.10
Sail from Marinette to Sturgeon Bay
65º starboard 10 kt air
5 to 6 kts boat speed
This is the kind of sailing one dreams about—sunny skies, steady winds and streaming telltales. We were cruising and, with the sails set and Jeff at the tiller, I went below and worked on #5 in my Simon & Schuster Crossword Puzzle Book. (Finally got 6 across Funny: JOCOSE by getting 6 down Hospital menu item: JELLO.)
The sail over was sweetened in the ship channel when Jeff pointed at another sailboat, a Cal 24 that had just met us and was now heading away. I looked and saw the JUST MARRIED sign hung on its stern and how cool is that?
Really cool, so Jeff and I whistled and clapped and hollered our congrats to the couple who smiled while waving a happy acknowledgement of our across-the-water enthusiasm.
Once docked at the Harbor Club Marina we spent a couple days strolling around the city which is one of the understated things about sailing into some place: you walk, unless of course you brought your bicycle, which some people do. Harbor Club Marina offers bicycles as a courtesy but we didn't think riding bicycles would be more advantageous than walking.
BRIDGE MIX
On one stroll over the bridge it went up so we stood at the barrier near the top with a couple other pedestrians and a woman on a bicycle. Next to her were some people in a Wrangler and behind them, a well-worn pickup of people who had energy to burn. At one point the young pickup driver with longish hair yelled, with an air of feigned discovery, "Its a Jeep Thing!" while his truck's sound system lengthened the cracks in the concrete.
The music itself wasn't loud, it was the amazing denseness of the bass—sort of the fruitcake of tones—that shook our world.
As for the "Jeep Thing" comment, I think it was related to the marketing of Jeeps rather than the actual vehicle. Given the circumstances, I found it to be slightly, given the driver's youthful insouciance, hilarious as I've sometimes imagined my car with its own sticker: It's a Focus Thing. You Wouldn't Understand.
Then the barriers went up and we dispersed into the other side.
BIG CLOUD
The next evening people (seen here as white specks standing on the spit of land) were watching a giant layered cloud moving east toward the Door where it looked wicked around Chambers Island.
When it arrived in Sturgeon Bay the rain pounded the view into a white froth and we guessed the wind speed was 50 mph. The boats in the Harbor Club Marina strained at their docklines and bets were taken on the likelihood of the screen tent, pitched near bar-b-cue grills a couple docks down from "D", holding.
The storm didn't last long and when it was over the tent was still standing and, hey, Revision wasn't leaking anywhere—a payoff of keeping the boat ship shape (fingers crossed).
The weather for the sail home was sunny with wind forecasted to shift from northerly to the southerly but that didn't happen. It was 0º -10ª most of the time so we put it in forward and gave it some throttle, a little richer from our days in Sturgeon Bay. 