Them's worth fixin' - July, 2021

So,… we officially bought the boat on June 4, it is now July 12. Between those dates, we’ve spent a couple weeks in Dexter tending to our home, neighbors and jobs, and fit in about a solid month of plumbing. With periodic help from the Ness brothers, Lori, Quang and Davi, I have fixed/replaced 4 pumps along with more hoses, fittings and hose clamps than I can count. As of now, everything in both heads is functional but for a slow drain in the aft sink that I haven’t got around to snaking. Plenty of carpentry and electrical as well, but that tends to come easier to me than the liquid management stuff. The hour-meter on the dash now says we’ve run the diesel 27 hours since purchase, equating perhaps to 200+ nautical miles. Lori is getting more confident in her docking maneuvers, and we haven’t scraped too much paint off the hull.

We’re just back from our first overnight. Lori searched the GPS unit and found a course already laid in for Jackson Harbor on Washington Island, as this was a favorite spot for Roy and Lola Ness during their 25 years of sailing the Perseverance. Joining us for the 25-mile crossing were Davi and friend Lauren, a psych grad student at MTU. While preparing to depart, Davi, as Davi is wont to do, chose to jump down from the top deck, landing badly on the lower walkway, wrenching a right ankle. After a quick run to the St. Vincent thrift store for crutches ($5, genuine wood) and Walgreens (ankle compression sock), we were off, headed south east for the northern extent of Wisconsin’s famous Door County peninsula/island archipelago. With Davi moaning in pain in the pilot house.

The crossing went smooth as can be, gentle winds, low waves and tons of the graceful and charismatic American White Pelicans, many of them flying in formation inches above the water using ground effect aerodynamics. We also got buzzed by a single engine red sea plane that cut across our bow, just clearing our VHF whip antennae. Just another friendly Yooper wishing us well. No sharks.

Lori followed the ancestral plotted Ness course over some deep shoals, and soon Washington Island became large and distinct, with its smaller companion, Rock Island, just to its north. We saw a freighter bearing down on us from starboard at about the same time on radar and visually. It was clearly on the deep Rock Island passage out of Green Bay, and out into Lake Michigan, bound for the straights of Mackinaw. Radar said that we were on a collision course (though still 5 miles off), so Lori opted to change course so that we’d tuck in behind the freighter. We followed it through the passage and peeked out into the big lake to travel around the east side of Rock Island.

Having completed our reconnaissance lap of Rock Island, Lori doubled back and got on the recommended approach heading for the harbor on Washington Island. The harbor entrance is notoriously narrow and requires a dogleg turn after entry to keep to deep enough water to sidle up to the dock we had reserved. It was all going pretty well, till just past the point where Lori had committed to the channel. It was then that we saw the Karfi departing its dock within the the shallowharbor, making a beeline right for us.

The entirety of Rock Island is a Wisconsin state park, save a small plot still used by the U.S.C.G. for navigation lights. Tourists and campers drive north from Green Bay across bridges and car ferries until they dead end at the north end of Washington Island, then board the ferry that makes the ½ mile crossing over to Rock Island. The Karfi is about the same size as the Perseverance but is outfitted with twin screws for greater speed and maneuverability and can carry 50 passengers plus gear. She makes crossings every half-hour and her pilot expects everyone else to make way.

Lori noted with increasing horror that the Karfi, with its greater speed, was going to meet the Perseverance exactly at tightest spot between the twin shoals guarding the entrance. We were already in shallows going slow, and couldn’t abort. Slowing further or stopping would cause the rudder to lose authority and drift us into rocks where we’d instantly get jammed diagonally and become famous as “The Ever Given of the Jackson Harbor Channel.”

Lori chose to shoot the gap, and kept as close to the starboard channel markers as she dared… and then some. Watching the rocks grow closer through the clear water below, I did my best to urge Lori more to Port, but Lori is still traumatized by us meeting the Juno ferry in a narrow canal in Sweden a couple years back and just couldn’t bring herself to inch closer to the Karfi as it sped toward us. Our keel started dragging bottom and I told Lori to give more power, which got us clear of the shallow rocks after an agonizing 20 seconds of shuddering noise. The construction of the boat saved us, the single screw being very protected by the hull and keel structure.

Once she got her hyperventilation under control, Lori recovered nicely and put us neatly into our docking space, making use of the light breeze to drift us in. We tied up and had a delightful lupper at the soup&sandwich spot nearby, and then I got to work on the dinghy. Lori and I hoisted it down from the top deck using the port side davit, and like last time, I got the old outboard started using lots of choke. But also, like last time, I couldn’t get it to run more than a few minutes before having to row back. I got several offers of help from neighbors at the marina, including a friendly fellow (Paul) who offered to loan me his little spare outboard from his sailboat. I told him thanks, but that I wanted to prolong my bonding experience with my own motor.

Lori got in some great birding with large numbers of pelicans seemingly perpetually on patrol around our boat. Some sandhill cranes were wading nearby, a Bald Eagle grabbed a fish right out of the harbor while being mobbed by gulls, and a trio of ornery pelicans got into a naval turf battle with a great blue heron. The pelicans would calmly swim (in perfect formation) up to the heron’s point of land to grab a few fish, the heron would make an absolutely hideous and unearthly screech, the pelicans would briefly reverse course, rinse and repeat.

After a round of Mah Jongg, and a good night’s sleep, I gave the Johnson yet another try the next morning, but met with similar failure. I decided to take Paul up on his kind offer, and swapped outboards with him. Crippled Davi and Lauren took a “cab” ride (actually the back seat of a loud pickup towing a trailer) into “town” at the south end of Washington Island for their entertainment for the day. Lori and I had a quick brunch, then provisioned my backpack with plenty of water, some snacks, a camera and some trekking poles. Paul’s 2 hp outboard started up nicely and drove the dinghy across to the giant antique boathouse on Rock Island in about 20 minutes against a moderate breeze.

We had a nice day of it romping around the island, touring the lighthouse (4th order Fresnel lens, 170 feet above lake level, visible for 13.5 miles) and hiking nearly the full 7-mile circumference. We saw snakes, deer, wildflowers and heroic stone structures built by an Icelandic dude (Thordarson) who made millions in Chicago by inventing giant electrical transformers and bought the island in the early 1900’s. Rock Island has beaches of sand, pebble, rock and sheer cliffs. Forests of aspen, oak, birch, cedar and beech.

The return dinghy trip also went well, but Davi’s ankle was looking worse, so we decided to leave that evening to give us better medical options back in the ‘big city’ of Escanaba. Return trip was another 2.5 hours of beautiful cruising over a mirror calm Green Bay. Our distinctive wake spread gently literally to the horizon. More pelicans and a gorgeous sunset just as we docked in Esky harbor at 9pm. We grilled a late dinner and made plans for errands/medical care in the morning.

While Lauren drove Davi out to the hospital for x-rays and diagnosis, I called Dave’s Outboard Repair, and Dave picked up the phone.

“Hey, I’ve got this 1990 era 2-stroke 15 horse Johnson I can’t keep running, could I bring it by and have you take a look at it?”

“Yup”

“… Ok then, we’ll swing by later with the motor.”

“Yup”

Dave’s shop was located just outside the city limits off the main drag. It had a lot of trailered boats scattered around. I parked and opened up the hatch for him to look.

“I just want some advice from a professional as to whether this age and type of outboard is a good bet, or whether it’ll be too tough to keep going”

He eyed it and thunked the motor cover with the heel of his hand.

“Them’s worth fixin’.”

As we wrote up our own service order in a logbook on his counter, as instructed, another man wandered into the shop area and spotting a small, neat cabin cruiser, commented to Dave

“that’s a nice rig you got back there in the corner…”

Dave looked evenly at both me and the other guy and simply said “there ain’t nothin’ nice about boatin’.”

Lori and I thought about that on our drive back, and decided that from Dave’s viewpoint, he probably really never saw much but sad boaters coming into his shop, and poorer boaters leaving his shop.

We stopped by a shop specializing in marine engines to inquire about the cost of a new motor, and ended up chatting for quite some time to a shop employee who told us

“I’d love to sell you something, but I’ve got nothing to sell.”

We heard all about how the twin forces of heavy demand and a badly CoVid disrupted supply chain have combined to make getting a new boat motor a long-term proposition. The price he quoted for a hypothetical replacement motor gave us further encouragement that the old motor was “worth fixin’.”

We stopped by a bike shop to inquire about getting some dedicated folding bicycles for the boat, or maybe even some e-bikes like my brother keeps going on about. The bike store owner told the exact same story we’d just heard from the lonely motor guy and showed us lots of nice pictures of bikes that he’d love to sell us if only he could get any product. After hearing about the bikes we already have at home, he concluded

“You look like you can probably still pedal OK, you’re probably better off just fixin’ up the ones you’ve got.”

Davi shared the diagnosis with us which was pretty much as predicted. Bad sprain, elevate for a month, no amputation indicated.

Dave’s advice, once again, seemed to ring true… even with regard to Davi’s ankles, “Them’s worth fixin’.”