It is quite warm here in Hammond Indiana tonight. Mary Lynn has already cashed it in for the night and as she does she hogs covers when cold and hogs fans when it is hot. So I will watch TV and blog. If someone told me in high school that when I retired I would look forward to commenting on my day and publishing to the…you get the idea.
I have to comment on the fact that every Looper we have met to date is genuinely friendly. We have met some personally, we crossed paths with a couple at Wolf’s Marine who drove us back to the boat, out of their way I’m sure Randy and Cheryl. We shared our wall in St. Joseph with Andante, Blue Loon and UnTide all loopers. I’ve already mentioned meeting Dave and Roberta from Rodalee. Tomorrow I’m looking forward to meeting up with the crew of Ede J. We are AIS buddies and we both commented on a Facebook page. We’ve talked on the VHF a couple of times and so it goes.
Just a few minutes ago John and Karen from ‘Last Mango’ stopped by just to say Hi. Yes, more Loopers. John arranged the mast unstepping, shipping and stepping for our group. Yes, they are very friendly and nice folks. Loopers?! Notwithstanding that I reported that it would be 32 tomorrow…John looked quizzically at Karen who pointed out ‘Canadians’. I was trying to suggest very hot to them when in American 32 is not hot but cold. So much to learn.
It has something to do about boaters and sailors but it’s more. We are on the same team. Americans and Canadians, it doesn’t matter we’re Loopers. We’re looking forward to facing the same challenges, smiles, belly laughs and alligators. I have a problem with alligators. I’ve swum oh damn swam with barracudas and twenty feet from a bull shark but I am, lets call it leery of alligators.
Everyone but Fracas flies their Looper burgee as an immediate identifier. I ordered our burgee too late and it would not meet us prior to our leaving. So I had it shipped to our daughter Jeni in Toronto so that she could bring it to Chicago on Sunday when she comes to enjoy the city with us for a few days. We just got word from Jeni that the Looper burgee has arrived and she will bring it along. Thank God, it’s one thing to be on a team but you have to have the burgee.
Enough about that… Today Lake Michigan was a pussy cat. Not chrome but damn close. Our garmin autopilot was flawless. Linda Faubert of DevOcean had a pet name for their autopilot and lord knows I have a wooden parrot, rubber chickens, stuffed rats, a squishy lizard, and a hand carved pirate with a cow leg. All of my little friends have names but not my auto pilot. Henry Hudson came to mind and Hudson as a pet name for our auto pilot…but he was set adrift by his crew. So I chose Ferdinand. Our autopilot will be named after Ferdinand Magellan. Ferdinand, it has a nice ring to it…Ferd for short. Take over Ferd…
Anyhow, Ferd did a great job of straight lining us across 50 plus nautical miles of the big lake. We did not sail, we could not sail. The biggest wind we saw was in the last half hour when 7 kts of wind popped up.
Here are some of the pics from today.
