It is difficult to imagine that our very first day looping could have gone any better.

We left Port Washington, Wisconsin, just before sunrise and pointed our bow south toward Chicago. Lake Michigan can be an unforgiving lake, but it was cooperative this day. The wind was out of the S/SE at about 5 knots with waves of less than 1 foot. The temperature was a comfortable 60s rising into the 70s. There was a haze that cut visibility to a few miles, but all it impacted was the view.

As we left Port, we could see the fishing fleet working the waves and the occasional cruiser passing by.

We set the engines at 1700 rpm which had us at about 9 knots. That’s a good pace to make the 110 mile trip in about 10.5 hours.

As we came into the northern Chicago area, the traffic really built up. We had to dodge a few sailboats and were waked by one careless loser, but otherwise it was uneventful. We saw the towers of Chicago rise out of the mist when we got within about 5 miles.

We stayed outside the breakwater and made our way into the southern entrance of Burnham Harbor. After topping off the tank with 110 gallons, they put us on the long side of Dock S – the southernmost dock. What a serendipitous choice that turned out to be!

We walked about 2.5 miles down to the Chicago River to watch the lock operate and have dinner. We wanted to see the lock in action since it was going to be our first lock EVER! After a nice dinner on the lakeshore and a walk through the area, we returned to the dock.

That’s when we met our neighbor, Ed. He was a resident of the dock and we struck up a nice conversation about boating, the Loop, Chicago, and the like, before he invited us to join him on his boat to go out and watch the weekly Navy Pier night fireworks from the water!

What a treat! We went for a little cruise up the north shore before winding our way through the Play Pen to the mouth of the river. The fireworks were launched from a barge positioned just outside the lock. We were positoned on the immediate perimiter to the east with the city skyline as a reflective background to the booming show. It was magnificent.

After the finale, we made our way back to the dock and called it a night. What a wonderful day and our first of many high water marks on this wonderful journey.

Since you’ve made it through reading this long post, I’ll reward you with some pictures and videos 🙂

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•