Weathered into White Hall

Well, it now looks like I’ve retired and moved to White Hall Michigan! I guess with a couple of faux palm trees and some Jimmy Buffet music I could pretend I’ve retired to the islands. Hmm…that might be a tough sell come December.

The weather here has fallen into a pattern of N-NW winds 20-25 kts, waves 3-5 feet, small craft advisory for Wednesday and probably the same on Thursday. If you look at the chart you’ll see that from White Lake you need to sail NW to get around the points (Big Sable and Little Sable). As anxious as we are to be on the go there is really no point in sticking Enee’s prow into 5 foot waves while maybe maintaining a speed of 2-3 knots. Gracie agrees! This is also tough on the entire rig.

So, our overall goal is around 30 miles per day. Statistics being what they are we realize that averaging 30 a day doesn’t mean accomplishing 30 miles every single day. Right now the wind is expected to shift to the NE on Friday and pipe down to 10-15 knots. If that is true it would be perfect for making a long run. Assuming we want to get back to our average then on Friday we’d want to make a 120 mile run. That would be a 24 hour sail and would take us to Leland. So, that’s our current plan. We have a couple of days to read, write, work on boat projects, laundry and so forth. We are excited about trying a 24 hour sail for the two of us. We think leaving White Lake around noon would be good with each of us taking turns sleeping during the daytime so that both of us can be awake for the through the night hunk of the trip. Leland is an excellent goal. We like that little town and there is a food store for provisioning.