The next morning we awoke to a thick fog. The forecast was for clearing by 10 am and we had only a short hop to Milwaukee, about 20 nautical miles, so we were not concerned about the late start. We do not have radar but do have a chart plotter and put in way points to keep us clear of obstructions. We got underway in light fog and motored south about 3 miles off shore. The fog lifted, but about two hours out while still north of Milwaukee the weather service issued a thunderstorm warning and reported funnel clouds in western Wisconsin. We decided to hug the coast but the fog returned with visibility of 200-300 yards. We used the chart plotter to pick-up the breakwater of the Milwaukee harbor. While it is required to sound the horn every two minutes, I suspect that I was blowing it every minute or less. We crossed the mouth of the harbor looking for evidence of any lakers and stayed as close to the breakwater as possible to keep out of their way. We managed to find the south entrance of the harbor and turned in towards the South Shore Yacht Club. As we approached shore, the fog lifted somewhat and we were able to find the club without problem. It turned out to be a scarry day and in retrospect, I should not have left with the risk of fog given the large amount of shipping around Milwaukee. Once I quit shaking, we went to the club house for drinks and then walked through the local neighborhood to De Martini's Pizza for dinner and then stopped at an Italian grocery for Italian sausage and assorted groceries.
We had spent most of our trip motoring, so I was determined to sail the leg from Milwaukee to Racine even though "gentlemen do not beat to windward". We got underway at 9 am with a south wind at 10 knots, We tacked our way down to Wind Point and finally turned on our motor for the last hour of the trip. We finally tied up at 17:15 at Reefpoint Marina. We were too tired to go far for dinner or make it aboard, so we ate at the Rum Runner at the Marina. That night we were treated to fireworks as part of a festival next to the harbor.
We left the next morning on our final leg to Waukegan. We had some difficulty getting out of the slip because of a brisk west wind and ended up backing down the fairway. We had a nice sail down the lake but the wind slowly died and once again we had to motor the last 11/2 hours before tying up in our slip in Waukegan.
It was a great two weeks. We did a total of 232 nautical miles and stayed gone 2 weeks. Certainly no record but very relaxing. I managed to finish two books underway. We had all our breakfasts and lunches aboard and all but one dinner ashore. We enjoyed all the places we visited although we still found Sheboygan our favorite port on this side of the lake.
