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Sailing again:
Greetings from Kewaunee, Wisconsin, on the Dorr Peninsula.
This is the second blog about sailing the Great Lakes with Capt. Bryan Kapteyn aboard his cutter-rig Torenvalk
Day 3: Tuesday, June 8, morning – Port Washington to Sheboygan, Wisconsin
We’re motoring north in a fog. Bryan’s at the helm with the radar.
I’m on the bow with a hand-held fog horn. Cyndy facilitates communication between us. Nick is crewing aboard Sisu, a vessel owned by Bryan’s friend, Jay Fisher, who sailed from Milwaukee to join us yesterday.
Our destination is Sheboygan, Wisconsin. But we’re not sailing. One thing about sailing is flexibility … even to the point of turning on the motor aka “diesel wind.”
Being on the bow brings a unique perspective. I’m as far forward as anyone can go, sitting on the seat in the pulpit at the tip of the bowsprit, my legs and feet dangling ten feet over the water where the liquid mosaic patterns continuously metamorphose.
Behind me, the prow is cutting through Lake Michigan’s calm water, creating a small bow wake that gurgles gently and could lull my senses … if I let it.
But I can’t. My job is to keep my eyes open and scan the horizon for any shapes that might be a boat.
In the harbor, the visibility is less than 100 feet, making the unseen nearness of the breakwater spooky. Offshore, it grows to maybe 300 yards and then contracts again.
A motoring fishing boat crosses our bow. Another one, then two, then three become faintly visible ghost blips in the clay-gray mist.
Every 30 seconds, I offer two short blasts on an air horn. Bryan jokes that I am Torenvalk’s “horny figurehead.”
The experience becomes sedative, contemplative, meditative. The scene becomes figurative, metaphorical.
Our visibility of the future is limited, so we move slowly. Our focus is on studying the nuances of gray’s many shades, seeking to discern anything out of place or dangerous.
Yet, above, the sun is present, a heavenly orb that filters illumination through wisps of cloud. This sunshine brings hope that our way will become clear. God bless you, Sunshine.
June 8, afternoon
We get a little bit of wind for a little while and so we fly the reacher, a lightweight asymmetrical spinnaker with a colorful mercedes pattern in red, yellow, blue, and white. We set “Otto” the autopilot for due north, and Bryan, a barbershop second tenor, goes forward to the pulpit seat and sings sea chanties.
Jay and Nick motor close on
Sisu. Nick launches his drone and takes a video of both
Sisu and
Torenvalk. You can watch a very nice
36-second clip here.
With calm winds and flat water, flies and midges come to roost and rest on any surface: sails, deck, skin.
Later, after we’ve docked in Sheboygan, Bryan uses his shop vac to blow away clinging flies, then I scrub the deck and wash the carcasses down the scuppers.
Nick, who is employed as a waiter and bartender, prepares a great meal of caramelized salmon, broccoli, diced potatoes, and salad.
The evening conversation revolves around how to deploy the dinghy, including discovery of a problem that currently makes the dinghy inaccessible. More on that in a later blog.
Day 4: Wednesday, June 9, morning – Sheboygan to Manitowoc
An interpretive sign in Sheboygan reports that, with a river wider than those in Chicago and Milwaukee, this city was destined to be a major port. But with a population of 48,000, Sheboygan is much smaller than Milwaukee’s 595,000 and Chicago’s 2.7 million.
Earlier, I started my day with some tai chi, yoga, and meditation on the dock while Cyndy and Bryan enjoyed coffee and conversation.
Cyndy records 5,000 steps on her FitBit before we leave the dock at 10:30. Nick is, again, with Jay on Sisu.
Fog shrouds the harbor and many miles out into Lake Michigan. With little wind, we are motoring … all the way to Manitowoc, 24 miles in 4.5 hours.
Another ton of flies find us. Bryan is at the helm, busy with his flyswatter and the radar. With one swat, he smashes four or five flies at a time; Torenvalk’s white deck is polka-dotted with black spots. A million flies are missing their opportunity to be fish food.
I go below to the salon to write and am extremely grateful that Bryan has wired Torenvalk with an electrical inverter and several 110-volt outlets, which means I have juice to run my laptop.
Arriving in Manitowoc, we again swab the deck. Fortunately, the flies come off easily. Nick cooks burgers on a grill at the marina, and we enjoy conversation and s’mores around a fire in the marina’s fire pit.
Day 5: Thursday, June 10 – ashore in Manitowoc
No wind out on the big lake again today, so Capt. Bryan decides to remain in Manitowoc.
We visit the
Wisconsin Maritime Museum and tour the
submarine USS Cobia. Then we rent bikes and ride 15 miles, mostly on a bike path along the Lake Michigan shore but also to a grocery store. Cyndy and I paddle rented kayaks for an hour. Our muscles are honing.
During World War II, 28 submarines were built in Manitowoc, the only freshwater port to make that contribution to the war effort. After being launched sideways in the Manitowoc River, the subs were tested on Lake Michigan and delivered to the world’s oceans via Chicago and then the Mississippi River to New Orleans.
Day 6: Friday, June 11 – Manitowoc to Kewaunee
Jay departs our company and begins his single-handed sail back to his home in Milwaukee. Nick is back on board Torenvalk. We leave the dock at 9:00 under bright morning skies.
Earlier this morning, Jay hired a diver to rescue his drone that fell off the marina dock in an attempted landing. The diver said he had four other gigs in the same marina this morning to retrieve objects of value.
Out on the big lake, the winds are again light. “Otto” the auto-helm is steering and the Yanmar 54 engine is providing “diesel wind.” Bryan has taken his shop vac into the cockpit to round up the flies that inevitably visit.
At 11:00, there’s enough wind to raise the mainsail and unfurl the Yankee foresail. Boat speed three-plus knots with a gentle hobby-horse rock. With the engine off, we hear the meditative gurgle of the hull slicing through nearly flat water.
Cyndy appreciates that flatness as she uses a su chef knife to dice onions while Nick prepares chicken quesadillas in the one-person galley.
But, alas, the wind proves to be fickle, as does the sun. Under cloudy skies and with temps dropping to sweatshirt levels, we restart the engine and motor the rest of the way to Kewaunee.
After having crossed Lake Michigan, nearly 80 miles, under sail on Sunday night, we’ve now motored about the same distance along the Wisconsin shore.
Torenvalk photos
You can find Cyndy's photos of this sailing adventure as well as other places that she and I have visited in the past two years
here.
In the photo below, Nick, Cyndy, I, and Bryan sit around the dining table in Torenvalk's salon.
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