Milwaukee

         When we left Sheboygan, the weather was good enough to allow us to get all the way to Milwaukee.  We had Port Washington earmarked for a destination if the Lake was too lumpy, but Lake Michigan laid down enough for us to travel the 44 nautical miles to Milwaukee harbor.  

We entered the breakwater and made for the inner basin next to Discovery World.  When I realized this was immediately offshore of the SummerFest grounds, I started looking up to see if there was a music festival this weekend.  SummerFest, for those who don’t know, is a two week lakefront festival of music from the end of June through the fourth of July.  The grounds consist of multiple stages - the jazz stage, the country stage, the rock stage, the local stage, etc - and people spend the entire day moving from one music venue to the next.  It’s fabulous.  During the rest of the summer there are various international music festivals over long weekends: German Fest was the end of July.  Festa Italiana will be toward the end of September.  Fiesta Mexican is the end of August.  Irish Fest started yesterday, I told Dan, and runs through Sunday.  (We arrived in Milwaukee on Friday afternoon, August 18th.)

    We were anchored right in front of the Lakefront Stage, which faced us, and turned out to be the one that offered music until close to midnight.  They were doing soundchecks when we arrived, and we could hear the musicians saying “I need more bass” and “the drums could be louder” so we pretty much knew what we were in for.  

Just before sunset, John from the nearby anchored sailboat came over with his whaler offering pizza and wine on his boat.  He’d been anchored behind us, but moved forward of us to accommodate rafting up with his friends Peter and Amy on their sailboat Dagny.  Peter is a photographer and immediately asked for Dan’s phone so he could snap pictures of us and the Willie Dawes.  Turns out they were all from the area and they all offered their services and advice.  Peter and Amy also wanted to know more about traveling the river system down to the Gulf of Mexico.  They aren’t Loopers, but plan to go to the Bahamas for the winter and will be following the Great Loop crowd down.  We had wonderful evening trading stories while Irish Fest treated us to loud Irish rock music in the not-so-distant background.

On Saturday we scoped out Center Point Marine in the Milwaukee River.  This is the place we’ll be hauling out on Monday.  It’s right on the riverfront, in the middle of an industrial area.  This boatyard has no marina, it’s a service yard mainly for day boat owners who keep their pontoons and runabouts there.  Dan spoke with some of the workers there and got a good feel for the yard.  We spent the rest of the day walking around the lakefront and making preparations for the coming haul-out and our upcoming trip back to Boston by car.   

Sunday my sister Terry came to take us out to Mukwonago to spend a nice afternoon with her son Jeremy and his family.  I don’t see my nieces and nephews often enough, it was great to have a meal with these guys, and to get updated on their lives and all their activities. 

Monday we took the Willie Dawes to Center Pointe and put her on the hard.  Dan was pleased with his initial inspection of her bottom - looks like all she’ll need is paint.  We spent the day readying the interior for some serious flea killer bombs and packed up our rental car for the trip back to Boston.  We moved some stuff to Terry’s house, as she’ll be hosting us for a couple weeks in September.  The plan is to drive out to Boston, spend some quality time with family, attend Dan’s niece’s wedding, and head back to Wisconsin by the end of August.  The Willie Dawes will stay on the hard for a couple weeks while Dan paints and putters, and I will earn my keep at my sister’s house by preparing suppers.  The locks in Illinois won’t be open until Oct 1, so we can take our time visiting family and friends and doing whatever biggish maintenance needs to be done.  

Willie Dawes hauled out.