The Weather Buoy - 471

The NOAA has a network of weather buoys that are maintained by the Coast Guard. There are two of them in Lake Michigan. The one in southern Lake Michigan is 45007. Its location is listed right on the map and the NOAA gives the lat and long of the buoy on the NDBC website. For some reason if something is out there, I have to go find it. I deliberately would plot my courses across the lake to rendezvous with the supposed location. The Coast Guard doesn't follow the location markings, or I don't know how to put them in my GPS so for five years after finding out about said buoy I had no luck. Last summer without looking for it, on a crossing back from Port Washington to visit Six Flags Great America the buoy found us. Great day for me. Better than finding the base for the Cuba watching radar blimp in the Florida Keys. (Don't go past the warning buoys surrounding the blimp base, trust me.)

This looks like it would be easy to find, but it isn't marked on any maps and it is located on an island surrounded by other islands. The path to it is surrounded by reefs. It was fun to find. I am sure my every move was watched.

Oh, by the way. Touching these things is a Federal felony, not my interest whatsoever.

The Sailboat is Moved 6 - 485

The final step is unloading the sailboat from the truck and placing it at its new home. Now I have to redo all I undid. The mast has to go back up and everything has to be put together. Now that I have done it, I would rather have taken a couple more weeks off of work and motored up the Erie canal than taken everything apart. Live and learn. My boat looks completely out of place next to all the fiberglass bathtub toys. The third one over is my 27 Catalina. Two boats - yes I am insane. We are not sure we want to sell the old vessel yet. Rachael may want to use it with her new man. Details to follow.

Moving a Sail Boat - 5 486

This is the scary part. I really can't describe the feelings I was having watching my boat go down the highway. I followed for about 100 miles, and then took a different route. The trip home took me 12 hours. The trip for my boat took three days. Oversize loads can't take the shortcut through Canada, or go through most toll booths. Three days. The hauler was good though, he called me twice a day with updates.