Lonely Boat & "Suddenly Hawai'i" (Jan 2023)

Trip report (composite) covering MI-IN-IL-WI-MI-WI-IL-IN-MI (pt 1) and MI-HI-MI (pt 2)

Abstract: The Plan was to make a midwinter jaunt up to Marinette to do a little work on the Perseverance. The trip was planned to coincide with the Chicago Boat Show so we could kill two birds with one stone. Kent and Hannah were to meet us in Chicago. Davi and Lauren would join us in Wisconsin. The rest of this report is about Mission Creep.

Part I – Edna-Boat Show-Perseverance and back

2023/01/12—2023/01/13: Edna spent 10 days in the hospital for more respiratory issues which turned out to be pneumonia. Hospital release seemed imminent so we decided en route that we’d better make a side trip to see if we could help with getting her settled back at home. We failed to break her out during our visit, but she has since returned to her apartment. Had a nice dinner with Great Aunt Martha, who made Lori a remarkable NY Sour and cooked us some great pasta. She had her doorman let us park inside her Highrise next to the dumpsters, since our car was too tall (roof rack with boat stuff) to go into the garage like normal people.

After dinner, we checked in to a fancy hotel next to McCormick Place, which was hosting the Chicago Boat Show. Neighbor John (a sailor) from Dexter really wanted to come with us, but it turned out to be better that he wasn’t there. It was basically a pontoon boat show, with enough other stuff to make it nominally worth our visit. Kent and Hannah flew in and stayed at the same hotel, arriving at about 3am prior to the show. (Lo-o-ong delay at JFK.) The New Yorkers ordered us room service breakfast which offended our midwestern sensibilities but was delicious. The show had a great display of some vintage wooden powerboats and nice folk from the USCG auxiliary. Spent a bit of time with the sales guy from Garmin who thought we needed new navionics. We do. (But he admitted our Raytheon CRT radar unit might be too cool to retire just yet.) Had another nice dinner with Great Aunt Martha + Kent and Hannah at a pub, had some more drinks back at the hotel.

2023/01/14: Moderately rested, Kent drove us (which he usually does when visiting as he only rides public transit at home but actually enjoys driving) north to Milwaukee where we stopped for lunch at the Public Market where you can buy everything from oysters to bratwurst and eat it right there. Hunger sated, we continued to Marinette, dropped off Lori and Hannah at the rental house while Kent and I lumbered on north to Escanaba to fetch our new custom-built stainless steel (1/8” 308 for the metallurgist nerds out there) water-lift muffler from Northern Machining. It was sitting just outside dock #2, as planned, next to its rusted-out predecessor. They looked identical in dimensions, so we loaded up the shiny one and headed back to Marinette.

2023/01/15: Kent and I attacked the Perseverence in the morning… first up was me further beautifying the muffler with 220 and then 320 grit sandpaper on my random orbital sander until it gleamed! I wished I had finer grit to get it a true mirror finish, but even as is, it’s probably the nicest looking muffler on Lake Michigan. Kent and I installed it with nary a hitch… the mounting holes lined up well enough that all the bolts just dropped right in like MAGIC. Kudos to Northern Machining… they know how to nail a dimension! Much easier than when Lori and I wrestled out the heavier, dirtier old one. (LMS: Amen to that!)

Davi and Kent worked on IT infrastructure and lighting, including brand spankin’ new LED strips in the engine room. A vast improvement on the old 120 VAC fluorescents that Roy built in 30 years ago. (LMS: So many photons. Holy wah!) After much debating, we (temporarily) settled on a rigging scheme for the new Kent-specified “festoon” lights leading from bow to mast to aft quarters. Kent got some preliminary programming loaded in, but he hopes to provide more sophisticated lighting shows later and has procured a stand-alone device that will drive 10 separate light shows of up to 40 minutes in length without needing a computer, he just has to program it first.

Lori: There was not that much for me to do at the boat so I purchased a copy of Richardson’s Cruising Guide to Lake Michigan. I had checked the date on the Perseverance copy and it was published in 1987 so I decided to splurge on an update. My job was to check out possible ports for a southern Lake Michigan cruise next summer. I pretty much spent my day at the rental house reading GLCC harbor reports getting the lay of the land/water while Hannah and Lauren worked remotely. We managed to pull the guys away from the boat in time to drive down to Oconto for the Crivello’s Chicken Dinner Sunday Special. All agreed it lived up to the hype. The waitress had no idea what beers were on tap but she must’ve grown up making Bloody Marys for her grandma because mine was pretty tasty. She looked really proud when I took a picture of it.

2023/01/17: We were up at 3am to haul Kent & Hannah to their flight out of Milwaukee. After slowing down enough for them to tuck and roll we stopped for breakfast in Kenosha at the Marina Garden Restaurant right across the water from the Coast Guard station. (They were out practicing in their small rescue boats.) Fully fortified with a breakfast skillet and crepes, we tooled down Sheridan Road from Kenosha to Waukegan stopping to do a little recon on all the harbors along the way. One thing we noticed is they are all in close proximity to the commuter train out of Chicago. Good to know. Aided by liberal intake of caffeine, the rest of the drive home went fine

Part II- Suddenly Hawai’i

Working jobs for the DOJ is always interesting. This trip had been lurking in the background for several weeks but suddenly got the green light. We’d just have time to hustle back to Michigan and repack our bags before flying to Honolulu.

LMS: Strictly speaking I was not essential to this mission but Jim might have to wait for a weather window and I could help him with that. I’d never been to Hawai’i and there was no way I would let him go without me. (I’m still a little sore about him not taking me on his last Goodyear trip to Belgium and England.)

We were booked into the Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa in Waikiki which is hardly the place to go to “get away from it all.” Everything you left at home is there and much, much more. I really wished I was into luxury shopping because that is apparently the thing to do in Waikiki. Turns out you can also lounge on the beach and see cool birds in the nearby parks…or from your hotel balcony. The people watching is also some of the best anywhere. But it was a nice hotel, and our room had an ocean view. There were no bugs, so we left the balcony door open the entire visit. The hotel courtyard featured some nice events such as a local craft fair and even the mandatory hula/fire-dancing show (which was actually fun and nicely done). I also treated myself to a ukulele lesson, but I’m not ready to trade in Ferdinand (my ‘cello).

JKS: Flew out from Barber’s Point USCG air station in a 1980 French-built MH65 “Dolphin” Short Range Recovery Search and Rescue Helicopter. The MH65 has twin 853 hp turboshaft engines driving a 4-blade main rotor with a geared output shaft driving a variable pitch ducted tail rotor. The MH65 is certified for all-weather and nighttime operation… the reason this aircraft was selected for our project. We took off at sunset with the 3 USCG crew plus myself and another pilot. Helicopter nerds may wish to compare/contrast this craft with the much larger Jayhawk that I discussed earlier https://www.naval-gazing.com/post/under-the-bridge

The pilots were extremely professional and friendly, and absolutely nailed the flight path we had requested. They were sticklers regarding safety, I got several pre-flight briefings and participated in a real-time mission risk assessment as the engines were getting up to temperature. My ride was very uncomfortable due to the contortions I had to perform moving around the tight cabin while tethered by the gunner’s belt and comms cables, but we got all the data we wanted. Though nothing to do with our project, I learned a ton about their winch, the airframe, operations and procedures. Now I know that the Dolphin carries Helium bottles used for the Emergency Inflation System. Pilots can deploy multiple external floats to keep the craft floating and towable in conditions up to Sea State 5 (~8 to 13 foot waves!). Good to know, but I’m still glad we didn’t need to ditch. Cruising back to base fast and low over the water just off Waikiki beach after we finished data acquisition was a great finish. This visit did nothing but improve my already high degree of appreciation for how the USCG performs. As a bonus, I think it may have made niece Ella a bit jealous…

After the flight, a late dinner and a short night, I spent the next day with the clients, processing data and preparing for a deposition on another project. Lori convinced me that I didn’t need to be in Michigan for the depo, and that since I have to be miserable anyhow, I might as well do it somewhere that she wants to be. I got my prep done, but then the opposing attorney canceled at the last minute, so we had another day free.

Like Lori, I had never been to Hawai’i either, and there wasn’t much time to plan. Lori did a good job of scheduling things given the quick discussions we were able to have between sleeping and working. She also found us great meals, and yes, we we ate some Spam (in Musubi, giant Spam sushi). It was delicious. We also found out about Malasadas - basically Hawaiian paczkis.

Waikiki beach is pretty unique. I had one good swim, and found it to be gentle, wide, welcoming and safe. A perfect place to learn how to surf. The wave forms were complex, though the more experienced surfers/swimmers seemed to be able to read the waters well enough to know where the next trio of good rollers would break. The waters were populated with surfboards, canoes, catamarans, powerboats, boogie boards, Stand-Up paddleboards and hydrofoil “jump boards” where vigorous “pogoing” caused the wings below the board to flex and propel the board forward at an impressive clip. Of course the sunsets were astounding due to the beach’s perfect west by southwest alignment. People would swarm down to the beach, most on the sand, many in the water, for the evening show as the fusion orb was swallowed by the Pacific, illuminating the clouds from beneath with a fantastic array of hues (or so I am told).

We did a chunk of touristy stuff, nice boat ride to see some humpback whales (at a distance), and a bus trip to some cool places in the island’s interior and north shore. The stop at Waimea Valley Cultural Landmark was long enough to get in a nice hike up to their waterfall and bathing pool. We skipped the dip in favor of looking over the flora and history lessons. The Sandbox Tree, native to the Amazon was my favorite in the garden. This huge plant would seem to qualify as venomous as well as poisonous. Every part of the tree can hurt you, the trunk has sharp irritant-coated thorn/spikes, the sawdust causes blindness, the sap and fruit cause rashes and worse, and best of all, it distributes its noxious seeds by exploding its dried seed pods, a trick known to botany as explosive dehiscence.

Having narrowly escaped death or injury from the nature path, we found an informative history display regarding Polynesian recreation, including a form of bowling using hockey puck-sized stone cylinders called “Ulu Maika.” This was of great interest to me since the John W. Sprague Indian artifact collection contains several great examples (non-perforated Cahokia style) of what have been termed “discoidals” or “chunkey stones.” I found it fascinating that archeologists believe the Mississippian discoidals began appearing ca. 700 CE, and that the Hawaiian islands were first settled about 4 centuries later. The stones are pretty similar… multiple invention? Rules seem to have been quite different though. The Hawaiians tried to roll stones between stakes or for distance, the Native Americans in Illinois seemed to have teams with a stone roller and a javelin tosser, goal was to have both items reach a common rest point and keep doing it all day under the hot sun.

We did not do any part of a Pearl Harbor tour on this visit, but we were pleased with our visits to both the Honolulu Zoo and to the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. I got most of what I was looking for regarding Hawaiian history and settlement at the Bishop museum… highly recommended. They had great presentations on navigation, politics, warfare, and even had the actual dagger that some angry Hawaiian used to end Captain James Cook after Cook made a trio of really bad errors. First, he let the natives see that a crew member died and that white men therefore weren’t divine. Second, after leaving for home he got demasted by storm and returned to Hawaii for repairs using Hawaiian goods without permission. Third, after tensions rose further he tried to kidnap the Hawaiian king for ransom and things got real ugly. While the Hawaiians apparently did actually disembowel and cook Cook, it seems they only did so as part of their normal funeral preparations for the high ranking, and they returned Cook’s bones to the crew, who might have been just a little bit freaked out. Good story.

LMS: Birding—Most of the “good” birds have gone extinct due to disease or competition by introduced species. Being mostly confined to Waikiki I had to make the best of the location. There were fairy terns that are generally somewhat uncommon in Hawaii as a whole but there is a pretty good population in Waikiki and they were active outside our balcony. They lay a single egg right on a branch, no nest, but somehow that works for them. Also seen: rose-ringed parakeets, common mynahs (filling the bluejay niche), spotted doves (like mourning doves only larger) and zebra doves (like mourning doves only smaller). Also pigeons rock doves which have a great tendency to be white since they were mostly released from magician/wedding stock. There was a lot of cooing. I saw more and different birds in the Weiamea Valley which I’ll mention if there are good photos.

As unexpected events go, the surprise trek from Wisconsin to Waikiki was much better than most we’ve encountered in the last couple years. If you get an opportunity to travel to our 50th state on the government’s dime I recommend you carefully read the fine print and then go (if you don’t find a big catch.)