This summer has been a bit of a bummer

[Gofirstclass]

I'm back home in WA now and it's really hot and the air is full of smoke from all the fires burning in the PNW. When I got up this morning I couldn't see land on the opposite side of the Columbia, and that's only about 1/2 miles away.

We spent Saturday night on the boat. It was hot until about 10:00 p.m. so we were able to shut off the A/C and open hatches and doors.

Sunday afternoon we cruised back to the slip to pick up two kids and three grand kids. This was the first time on board for the grand kids and they had a ball. We fished for awhile and my daughter caught this great photo.

I'd title it "Here, fishy, fishy, fishy".

After a dinner of burgers and boat dogs we returned to the slip and home.

 

[hakunamatata]

Funny as my wife and I were just talking about how they had predicted this was going to be a hotter then normal summer but was a bust. We lost a lot of weekends to wind/rain/fog. The two weeks we were planning on doing a couple of min-trips the lake decided to churn up so that didn't happen. Hoping next year will be a better season. Scheduled to come out 10/14.

 

[bracketracer]

We'll probably come out in about 3-4 weeks. We'll sneak a few good days in between now and then but I doubt we'll put many more hours on. Nights are getting cold and the wind is pretty brutal this time of year.

Yeah, yesterday was crazy. None of the 35+ ft boats at my dock went anywhere, meanwhile some idiots about halfway between you and I decided it was a great day to kayak....in 6 footers.

 

[tdschafer]

Rained Saturday & Sunday here. Par for the course this summer.......

 

[Woody]

A disappointing summer for us on Lake Superior, the least boating in 15yrs, windy, wet, cool. In addition to mother nature the grandkids don't come anymore, they're missed, they gave us something to do.

I'm making sure I have everything ready for putting the boat up for the winter.

Running over to Marquette, MI for the blues festival on the 1st, coming back on the 4th. Forecasted weather isn't great but maybe it'll change. I've got my fingers crossed for some nice September weather and squeezing in a couple more adventures but this weekend could be it, the end until next year.

We went, but actual lake conditions were much worse than expected. It wasn't a nice ride at all. Some folks talk of ringing the bell...our bell fell right off. I also must have shook some wires loose, my two E-120's no longer communicate with each other. Saturday was cold, windy, with rain, we didn't even go to the festival area until around 8pm. They wouldn't even take our tickets, just let us in.

Sunday was perfect but Mondays forecast was for worse weather so I got a days slip refund. My wife walked over to the festival gate, told her story, asked them to give our tickets to someone over 60 years old that like boats, a 100 bucks down the drain.

We headed out Sunday, a day early, a perfect day. Everything was going great until we tangled with a fish net by the Huron Islands, yup we were caught. I was able to snag some line with the boat hook, pull it up, and cut us loose. I started stripping my clothes off and my wife wondered why. I explained I have to go under and get things untangled.

I'd like to say I did a manly dive like Johnny Weissmuller with a big knife clamped between my teeth but really I went down the swim ladder, my wife accused me of squealing when I stepped off it, I think she's making stuff up...but the water was really colllld.

I got untangled pretty quickly, everything looked OK. For the rest of the trip I paid close attention to the boat, every vibration and noise made me try to remember if it was there before.

Back in our slip tied up my wife said 'did you notice we never saw another boat?' True, 160 miles and no other boats, what did they know? So we're out for fuel, slip fees, and tickets about 850 bucks, it's possible there could be more. I wish I'd have stayed home and cut grass or something.