ONBOARD ODDYSEA: FRIDAY AUGUST 26TH, 2011

The weather report is for small seas and light winds till mid morning, so we headed out into the pitch dark of Lake Michigan around 4:30 a.m. Only a sliver of a moon so you couldn’t see a thing…unless you looked up! The night sky was incredible. With no artificial lighting around, it was like being in a planetarium. There was no missing the Milky Way. And the Big Dipper was so low in the sky that the last star in the handle was just about the horizon. I was supposed to be keeping a lookout for lights on other boats, but I kept finding myself staring up at the night sky. It was mesmerizing.

Dawn did finally come.

It was an uneventful crossing of the lake.

This photo is of the entrance to the channel at Sturgeon Bay. It is a very significant place to us as it is right here that we are “crossing out wake”. We started out at this spot when we first bought our boat. And somewhere around 6300 miles later, we are back. Hardly seems possible.

Since we have now crossed our wake, we can take down our white AGLCA burgee and now fly the gold burgee. The gold burgee signifies that we have completed the Great Circle Loop of the eastern United States.

Our good friends, the Wards and Heimers, from back home drove out to Sturgeon Bay to celebrate with us.

They met us at the marina and took us

to the Door Peninsula Winery and Distillery.

They make flavored wheat vodkas here. This is what the still looks like. Kinda looks a ship from outer space. And since this is cherry country, they do make cherry vodka.

We tasted a number of wines at the wine bar. It was fun to sample so many different flavors. They had a dessert wine that tasted like chocolate cherries. Not sure this is true, but according to them you get the same great health benefits of cherry juice from their wines. Only with more fun!

Our friends stopped along the way today at a well know meat market named Nueskes. Famous for their applewood smoked meat products. They picked up smoke pork chops for dinner tonight. And since sweet corn would taste perfect with it, we were on a mission to find some. A couple of closed roadside stands later, success!!