Making Lemonade

They say that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  We’re doing our best to add lots of sugar.

We've been living in the slings for 1-2 weeks.
Need to take a big step across to get aboard.

 

The new prop shaft is supposed to show up by the end of this week.  It will be over 16’ long & weigh several hundred pounds.  Should be interesting trying to thread it into the hull from the outside, all the way forward to the transmission coupling.  Then the drive system will need to be aligned and balanced.  Will take at least 3 days to do all this.  Meanwhile, we’re still living on the boat.  Most of the time, the boat is in the water in the haul-out slip, still in the slings of the Travelift, but at least we have raw water to flush the heads & for cabin heat.  Since the old shaft was cut out & removed, we had an extra 2” hole in the boat which was temporarily plugged with a short 2” stub.  But since it may leak, the boat needs to remain in the slings so we don’t go “glub glub”.

Sunset over Green Bay, looking out our aft sundeck


 

Looking at the winds & waves out on Lake Michigan, this is a great week to stay in port.  Strong south winds up to 30 knots are causing waves of 7-9’ with occasional 11’!!  Even an inexperienced Deck Ape knows that we shouldn’t oughta think about going out there.  But summertime is over, and the temps at night are going below 50 degrees.  The leaves on the trees have begun to change color, and by the time we leave (pun intended) here, we’ll probably follow the changing leaves all the way south (yeah, I know, but someone has to do it!).  We went out on the dock at night to see the bazillion stars (a “bazillion” is the size of the federal debt, but I digress).  I was able to see Polaris and the entire Little Dipper, which I hadn’t seen since I was a wee tyke.

We rode bikes over the weekend to the next little town north of here to see what there is to see.  This Door County peninsula, between Green Bay & Lake Michigan, is filled with beautiful scenery, high bluffs right at the water’s edge, small touristy towns & lots of restaurants.  There are almost no chain stores (fast food, grocery stores, hardware stores, etc) anywhere in the county, once you get north of Sturgeon Bay.  It’s definitely a summer tourist area, and becomes a ghost town during the winters.

One pleasant surprise is that we’re right in the middle of harvest season for all the different types of apples in the area.  And we’re just at the end of cherry season.  The other day we had to stop to sample different types of hard apple cider.  The next day, we had apple cider doughnuts for breakfast, and a piece of fresh cherry pie for lunch (yeah, I know, but someone has to do it!)

Yet this week, we plan to eat breakfast at the Swedish restaurant which has goats on the roof.  Worth a picture!

Did I mention that we're near the Green Bay Packers
& the home of the "cheese-heads"!?!