Fish Creek, WI

Monday, September 13, 2010

045-7.860 N
087-14.820 W

Ahoy from Fish Creek in Green Bay, WI!

When you last heard from us we were in Leland, MI waiting for the gales to end and an appropriate weather window to open up so that we could get across Lake Michigan. Thankfully one opened up last Friday and we had a nice 63 miles passage across the lake. I think that virtually the entire marina cleared out, as we could hear engines starting as early as 3 AM. Some people had been stuck in Leland for 10 days, so they were anxious to get moving.

Everyone had been asking for low winds, and that's what we got. We had 5-10 kts of wind from the E, which was pretty much dead behind us. That's too little to sail with, so we motor sailed until got to the other side and turned S and then we had a great 17 mile sail down the Door peninsula. The names of the entrance to Green Bay are pretty interesting. The channel by Washington island is called "Porte des Mortes Passage" which translates to "Door of Death Passage" and the bluff that overlooks the passage is named Death Door bluff. You can only imagine how these names came to be. Lake Michigan, and all of the Great Lakes, are not to be taken lightly. The image above is of the Porte des Mortes Lighthouse...very appropriate!

One of the biggest differences between the Great Lakes and the ocean is what's known as the wave period. This is the time between wave crests and on the Atlantic you typically see periods of 7-10 seconds and on the Pacific you often get 10+ second periods. This compares to 4-5 second period which are typical on the Great Lakes. NOAA considers 4-5 seconds to be "very steep", and I couldn't agree more. When you get waves that close together, the wave face is very steep and your boat just falls off the waves and you pound through the waves, making for a very rough ride.

Once we made it past Deaths Door, we had a wonderful sail along the Door peninsula which is home to Peninsula State park. This is an beautiful area with high limestone cliffs coming straight town into the water. We ended up in Sister Bay, WI where we ended up spending 2 days. This area is very Swedish and one of the highlights of the town is Al Johnson's restaurant, which has goats grazing on the roof! We didn't eat there, but it's clearly a big tourist draw.

After a day of rain, we moved down Green Bay to Fish Creek, which is a very nice town with LOTS of galleries and artsie shops. One of the big area draws are Fish Boils, where a huge pot of fish and vegetables are brought to a boil and then kerosene is added to the fire which brings the pot to boiling over. The pot is immediately pulled off and served. That didn't do much for us, so we skipped that, instead having one of our top meals of the trip at a restaurant named "Mr. Helsinki" who serves crepes and Asian cuisine! Both of us went for Asian and it was wonderful.

Today we're headed to Sturgeon Bay, which is half way down Green Bay and located in a deep bay mid-way across the Peninsula.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser: We've had a bit of sticker shock in WI after the relatively inexpensive MI. Sister Bay was $1.75/ft and the Alibi Marina in Fish Creek was $1.85. Both marinas are well maintained.

Log ID: 1386