Great Loop Day 033 Sept 30, 2016, St. Joseph, Benton Harbor Michigan Layover Day 2

St Joseph, Michigan Layover Day 2

“The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen.” – Ralph Marston

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Day 33 Friday, Sept 30, 2016. Layover Day 2. Still at West Basin Marina, Benton Harbor, St. Joseph. Michigan. Anticipated throwing off the dock lines this morning and pointing the bow toward Hammond Marina in Illinois and saying goodbye to Michigan. However, the heavy rain on the cell phone radar app and the forecast calls for more all day, so I slept in most of the morning.

The Canadian boater I met earlier at South Haven, Grant, who hails from Ontario Canada, arrived here after he said he couldn't locate Bernie's Marina further down the bay yesterday. He started out from Spanish, Ontario on Sept 4 with a partner that bailed out a week into their trip. Prior to his partner’s departure, he left him a note and sent Grant’s son who's a pilot an email and upped and left. From the sound of things, Grant's glad he's gone.

How does one describe this unpretentious Canadian? An elderly man well in his 80s with facial characteristics of a long hard life. He works diligently to hide any forms of incapacitation yet it's easy to see signs of ineptness in his seamanship to cause one to worry. Back at South Haven when Forest returned Grant’s fender Grant hardly appeared to notice it was missing and didn’t seem to care much that it was returned. He also seemed smugly satisfied his craft was unnecessarily banging against the dock when an extra dock line and an adjustment to another line would make life more comfortable.

A chronic and longtime chain smoker, it is not hard to imagine half of his cargo hold being filled with cartons of his favorite Canadian cigarettes. He owned a pharmacy in his small town that his daughter now owns and operates. He says he was in politics and claims to have been the mayor of his town. I find it difficult to envision this man as a politician. He's articulate in his choice of words but he...speaks...ever...so...slow. Not once in a while… but... all... the... time.

Grant plans to complete the Loop solo on his brand new Rosborough 246 trawler he bought 3 years ago. The boat's equipped with radar, airconditioner, Garmin Chartplotter, and marine radio. He doesn’t have a cell phone but uses a satellite phone to contact his son who he said is an airline pilot for updated weather reports. Inside the cabin, he has a rather cozy setup. No microwave, just uses an alcohol stove similar to mine aboard the Sea Marie. On the stern, there is a stainless steel propane grill as a backup. With his 150hp 4-stroke Honda outboard and a 4-stroke generator, he doesn't need to fix that broken double 30amp breaker switch that his friend broke. Looks like an easy fix for me but Grant would like a marine electrician to fix it. He insists he doesn't need electricity provided at the dock, the 2400-watt sine wave inverter off his 3 x group 37 batteries does the job. Just charged his batteries off the 150hp Honda outboard or he can use his generator also.

The trawler cruises at hull speed which he says is 6 knots. Any faster and he burns through his fuel for a small gain in speed which I can personally attest to aboard the Sea Marie. He certainly was going much faster than 6 miles an hour the other day as he passed me in his wake. He is determined to complete this journey and I wished him much luck.

Grant on his satellite phone aboard the Gale Force.

We had continuous drizzle and rain till about 11 am. Around noon we got a break in the rain and I hitched a ride with Mike an employee from this marina along with Grant to a local grocery store for Mickey’s kitty litter. I returned to the marina with close to 100 dollars in more groceries. The prices were much more reasonable and being shuttled in a pickup truck allowed me to extend my purchases beyond what I could carry in my small backpack and bags on a bike. Mike from the marina dropped us off at the store and a phone call brought him back to pick us up.

While waiting for Mike to pick us up I met another interesting old-time character. He goes by the name of Benjamin Head and rides a Miami Sun 3-wheeler to get groceries with his wife who he just calls "the old lady" and she rides a mountain bike.

Ben is on the Miami Sun Rider and his “old lady” is on the mountain bike.

Back at the marina, the 2016 presidential election was only five weeks away, I took a short walk and saw my first Hillary for President yard sign. Of all the towns I visited, I observed four single Trump yard signs in four individual towns. It will be interesting to see what we find as we travel further south through Illinois.

The railroad track gets a fair amount of train traffic. About five trains a day and two are daily Amtrak runs. The CSX freight train northbound just passed through about an hour ago. I see on my Google map there is an Amtrak station on the other side of the St. Joseph River.

A BNSF diesel locomotive in its familiar orange and black with its yellow stripe paint job rushes by to its destination. Looking through one of the four foul weather panels attached to the bimini with the velcro fastener I sewed on gives a distorted look to the photo.

The sailboat in the picture is a Morris 48 that I have been told by the marina employee the owner sailed around the world. The name on the boat is Cheshire Cat.

Mickey had a quiet restful day. Gets really startled when a fish jumps and splashes nearby. Hides when the trains rumble by. The skies were clearing an hour ago. That didn’t last long. Now a soft gentle rain has started. Well, time to fix a cup of hot chocolate and hit the sack. Looks like the weather is clearing for tomorrow and got to get an early start in the am. Fair winds and gentle seas.

Comments from 2016:

• Dan Whitmore Glad to hear you're able to move on. Safe travels

• Pogo Bob Sounds like you've got a plan. Don't hurry TOO much, though... We're still in the "season" down here in Florida. Hurricane Matthew just got upgraded to CATEGORY FREAKIN' FIVE! That'll give us something to watch over the weekend as it makes its turn north. If it threatens too much, we'll hook up the hurricane escape vehicle (camper) and bolt. Safe travels, tomorrow!

  • Henry Krzemien RN Oh No!

• Jacki Liptak Kinda strikes me that YOU are probably one of the interesting people that others are writing about in their sailing blogs! Keep safe and keep up the good work. Say hi to Mickey for me.

  • Henry Krzemien RN Thanks and I will say hi to Mickey!

• Pogo Bob Love that Benjamin wears his helmet on TOP of a ball cap! 

• John Sopczyk Safe Travels.

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