Port #16: No Point at North Point...

Great Loop II Date: 8/25/2014

Day #25 {Monday): 46 miles (956 total miles)

Locks: 0 (2 total locks)

Port #16:  Winthrop Harbor, IL

The clock was set for 4:45AM.  I woke up at 4:25AM and reset it for 5:30AM.  I couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up, got dressed and set up the crockpot with a pork roast, potatoes and carrots.

The weather looked overcast with rain developing all around us.  The seas were supposed to be 1 foot or less.  Todd and I readied the boat and were out of the dock by 7:30AM.  Once we passed all the break walls, we were in very confused seas with closer to 2 foot waves and they seemed to be building.  We decided to turn around and go back to the dock and wait out the incoming storms.

Storms to the North of McKinley Marina.

Storms south of McKinley Marina.

Charlie doesn't like storms...he went into full panic panting mode.

By 11AM all the fun was past, the winds seemed to have calmed and we headed out to Lake Michigan once again.  The seas were nearly calm..

Lake Michigan settled down nicely after the storms passed.

Charlie, our barometer, demonstrated the settled seas.

We were in and out of rain for most of our trip to North Point Marina at Winthrop Harbor.  Todd had called the marina office on Sunday and again the morning before we left.  There was a recording advising us the marina office was closed Saturdays through Mondays…period.  The recording did say ‘In case of emergency, call Security at…. or hail them on Ch.9'.  I mentioned Security might make dock assignments on.  Todd called back, got the Security phone number and called.  Security said indeed they would make a dock assignment for us when we arrived.

An hour before our arrival, Todd called Security at the marina….no answer.  As we got closer, he hailed them on Ch.68, the channel he thought they had told him to call when we got to the harbor.   No answer.  He called Ch.9.  No answer.  He called on the phone again and finally someone answered.  By then we were entering the harbor in increasingly windy conditions with an incoming storm.

We asked for directions to the dock and what side our lines should be on in order to tie OB to the dock.  The Security fellow stammered and basically had no clue.  We started down the row of our dock assignment and noticed the docks were for smaller boats.  With the direction and speed of the wind, Todd was not going to be able to easily turn OB around to get out of a bad situation.  He hailed Security, asked for a dock for larger boats and he began backing OB back down the long approach we had just come through.  Security came back with a new dock assignment.

We went to the newly assigned dock which indeed was on a longer dock however there was another large boat in the adjoining well.  With the wind direction and speed, we would again be in a bad situation so we proceeded down the row of docks until we found 4 or 5 empty ones we could maneuver into.

As Todd was backing into one of these docks, the huge center post was dead center on our swim platform.  I was already prepared with the boat hook to fend us off of anything we were sure to hit.  I pushed the pole against the post and my right shoulder stuck me with intense pain.  It was the shoulder I had injured last summer and had extensive surgery to repair it.  Now I was going about my line work moaning and trying to help Todd with our sad situation!

Ultimately Todd got us into the empty dock, I was able to get a line around a cleat from our mid-cleat.  Todd scurried down the stern ladder and secured the stern cleat.  He called Security to tell them our situation and asked if we could stay in the dock.  They said they were on their way.

Moments later they rumbled up in their Security car.  They said we couldn’t stay in the dock.  We both looked at them like they were speaking a foreign language.  Apparently the dock belonged to someone who was out on a boating vacation.  We told them we were only there for overnight.  Nope, that wasn’t going to work.  We all finally agreed on the T-head at the end of the dock.  It would make for easier docking and no one belonged to that particular dock.  They registered us right there on the spot and promptly left.  Todd and I just looked at each other.  Great…two big sturdy guys didn’t offer any help and just left us to our own.

Lines off, back on board, a shoulder that hurt with every movement, dark imposing clouds moving in quickly and the wind picking up even more made me a very unhappy customer.  With a deep breath, I retrieved the lines, did what I could to push us off the dock with the boat hook and away we went to the T-head.

We now had a stiff wind out of the west.  Todd put OB’s nose to the wind, brought us up to the T-head, I finally lassoed a dock cleat from the bow, Todd jumped off and got the center cleat secured and I got the stern.  We made quick work of securing OB properly, Todd got the water and electric set up and we waited for the storm that eventually passed us to the north and south.

A fine fellow, Wayne, had helplessly watched all of the proceedings and came over in his dinghy to make sure we were okay.  He asked if there was anything he could do to make us more comfortable.  Todd needed to go West Marine before they closed to pick up an inverter he had put on hold.  Wayne quickly agreed to take him there.  Todd and I both decided Wayne was our angel for the day.

North Point Marina is a huge marina with 1500 slips.  They advertise themselves as the largest marina in the Great Lakes.  Only half the slips were filled and it is obvious the marina is bigger than the income to help maintain it.  Further, with a security team left to tend the docks without full knowledge of what they are doing (other than keeping the bad guys out and the good guys in) puts transients in a difficult situation.

Early morning pictures of North Point Marina in Winthrop Harbor, IL.

Can you see OB?  Me neither...she's at the very end of the dock.

 Our stop in North Point was a basic stop much like a motel or a RV stop on the way to somewhere else.  Unfortunately it caused great frustration, inflamed an old repaired injury and left a bad taste in our mouth.