Fun Facts of the great lakes

Pirate Lady said:
Seems you been at mouth of middle river on a weekend!
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It was at the western end of the Sound in the area around Port Washington and west toward the bridges. On Memorial Day. Lots of boats, narrow seaway only about 3 miles across or less, very confused seas. We hit one wave that turned the boat 50 degrees sideways in an instant.

I’m used to being in the widest part of the sound, 20 miles across. Wakes don’t really matter there. Further out, if there’s a blow you can often hug one shore or the other to stay in the lee of the wind.
 
sbw1 said:
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Navigation is the Georgian Bay is pretty intimidating with modern electronics. Can't imagine traveling by sailing ships in that area.
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That is for sure. For you guys down south that have the Navionics app or go on the Navionics chart viewer on the web, zoom in and look around the East side of Georgian bay and you will see what a challenge navigation is through there. My first boat did not have a chartplotter so I used paper charts. Pretty scary when you lose track of where you are on the chart. You simply have to stop moving and figure it out or there is a huge grounding risk.
 
Creekwood said:
That is for sure. For you guys down south that have the Navionics app or go on the Navionics chart viewer on the web, zoom in and look around the East side of Georgian bay and you will see what a challenge navigation is through there. My first boat did not have a chartplotter so I used paper charts. Pretty scary when you lose track of where you are on the chart. You simply have to stop moving and figure it out or there is a huge grounding risk.
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Yes, but GB and the North Channel are by far the best cruising grounds in the eastern half of North America. So worth the trip, you guys live in summertime paradise, but definitely "need to keep it between the navigational beacons".
For you guys in Florida that are familiar with the Bahamas, finding the best anchorages where most don't dare to enter is the same thing in both places. Carefully venture into uncharted bays, nooks and crannies using "visual piloting". The big difference of course is unlike sand, granite trumps nibral every time.
Once you get there though, it's just you, the moose and the loons.

No passing zone
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Easy does it...
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@my3sons you're right beautiful up in the North Channel.... This was us chartering a Trawler out of Gore Bay...anchored in the Benjamin Islands...talk about navigating by sight :)
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Awesome thread Blueone! Can't believe I missed it all weekend.

1. Yes indeed it is a sea.
8. I don't believe that. Last year I caught a whopping two. ( it's me)
8. It is also 'shark free', although some people still believe there may be sharks in there. Sometimes, if I can get away with it, I like to spread the myth.

I got stuck in 8'ers about 6-7 years ago. Too top it off, they were confused seas, so tacking was almost useless. Didn't think we were going to make it. It was a real eye opener for me.
 
There don't really need to be any sharks. There's been a few times way off shore when I hit a spot of warm water and I stop to dive in. I want to see if it really is warm and how deep the warm water is so I dive deep. Then I'm looking down into several hundred feet of water and I'm waiting for Jaws to rise up toward me. I give myself the heebie jeebies sometimes.:eek:

Seriously though, I've had weird things happen 3 times, gauges and electronics go wonky. This happen in two different boats, twice during daylight hours, and once about 2AM. All due to magnetic anomalies I'm told.

A couple guys had told me in the one location that they had seen strange unusual light activity at night. What appeared to be individual light objects and impossible maneuvering. I've never seen anything like that but the one night I was on autopilot trawlering through the area and my boat went goofy. To make things worse I was in the process, while sitting there in the dark, of telling my wife about the strange things those guys said they saw.:eek:

Anyway, my boat by itself had went into a hard turn, I could feel it. For a second I thought the autopilot kicked out so I grabbed the wheel to turn back but the autopilot was engaged, the steering wheel wasn't. At night I run with some thick black towels over the dash to eliminate light, I just peak once in a while to make sure we're on course and everything is running ok. So at this point I flipped those off, disengaged the autopilot, went to neutral and sat there trying to figure out what happened.

When I looked at the chartplotter and compass nothing was right, I was actually disoriented, we were heading the wrong way, almost 180 degrees, it made no sense. Then my wife said 'look the moon is on the other side of the boat' and then everything clicked...somehow the autopilot had turned us completely around. I don't know what happened that night, everything on the boat worked fine before and has since. Where this happened is at the circle just off the Keweenaw Peninsula.
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For those that have not been in the area, here is a picture out the back of my boat taken on a blue bird day with glass water. In the open area you can see the water depth varies from 1ft deep to 150 ft deep. You better know where it is. And below that is a chart snip of that same water you can see in the picture. The red arrow shows the direction you are looking. The start of the arrow is where I was. The bottom in the shallow areas is solid granite rock. Those ain't sand bars you can pull yourself off.
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Creekwood said:
For those that have not been in the area, here is a picture out the back of my boat taken on a blue bird day with glass water. In the open area you can see the water depth varies from 1ft deep to 150 ft deep. You better know where it is. And below that is a chart snip of that same water you can see in the picture. The red arrow shows the direction you are looking. The start of the arrow is where I was. The bottom in the shallow areas is solid granite rock. Those ain't sand bars you can pull yourself off.
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That's nuts. I watched a documentary on the Great Lakes shipping and the locks between lakes. One of the sections had been blasted there was something like 2 feet between the ships' props and the granite boulders on the bottom. I'll stick with my sandy / mud bottom on the LIS, thank you!
 
b_arrington said:
That's nuts. I watched a documentary on the Great Lakes shipping and the locks between lakes. One of the sections had been blasted there was something like 2 feet between the ships' props and the granite boulders on the bottom. I'll stick with my sandy / mud bottom on the LIS, thank you!
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The advantage of granite bottoms is clear water. I like it the way it is, but you need to navigate carefully. Luckily I now know the waters I typically boat in really well and with both the raymarine and an iPAD mounted on the dash, I have no issue. Every summer we do get transient boaters towed into our marina with mangled props/rudders and bottom damage. Even one of our marina residents with a 50ft carver missed a marker this summer and had to be towed/hauled out for some major work after hitting a shoal.
 
Heard about the rocks up north, can’t imagine. Get a stainless prop here and all good, just mud and sand. On the Chesapeake, 10’ is deep water, we get good at 3’ navigation, depth gauge is the most important one on the dash.
 
There is a Monk parked beside my boat. Its a lot older and was just sold a couple months back. The guy that bought it has gutted it. Ripped everything out but the Fordson diesel . he plans on taking it on the loop in 2022.
 
RBB said:
There is a Monk parked beside my boat. Its a lot older and was just sold a couple months back. The guy that bought it has gutted it. Ripped everything out but the Fordson diesel . he plans on taking it on the loop in 2022.
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We had that trawler for 2 weeks and travelled 4 hours a day and the sight glass never moved
 
Blueone said:
We had that trawler for 2 weeks and travelled 4 hours a day and the sight glass never moved
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did it have the hydraulic thruster on the stern?
 
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