On to Manitowoc

We left at 7:30 and luckily had the waves behind us, on our starboard stern quarter. It was a very comfortable ride, unlike the boats that were pounding into the waves, like the boat below.

Around 9 we entered the Sturgeon Bay Canal that connects Green Bay with Lake Michigan. We had to wait 15 minutes for a low bridge that only opens on the hour and half-hour. Parts of the area are very commercial, with large ship-building areas, and then some parts are residential. As we were nearing Lake Michigan, I heard someone yelling---no blue-light special---but I wasn't driving this time, and wondered what was going on. It turned out to be a bicyclist who was trying to keep up with us. He was asking what our hull number was...because he has a PDQ also! His is newer than ours. So we weren't in trouble, after all!

 Dry dock

Lake Michigan is straight ahead! It looks so calm, but looks can be deceiving. There were no white-caps, but the swells had lots of energy moving in them from the high winds earlier, and they were close together. We were totally safe, but I had no desire to go down to the galley and start making sandwiches at noon!!! 

When we exited the canal, we were 1/3 of the way down the lake. Just 200 miles to go to Chicago by next Wed. But today our next stop was only about 50 miles farther down the lake, Manitowoc, WI, a place I had never heard about until the Great Loop seminar that I attended last spring in Norfolk. We came here so we could go to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. And we discovered Manitowoc's prominent role in building 28 submarines during WWII. After doing sea trials and training on Lake Michigan for about 9 months they were towed down the river systems to New Orleans, then under power, they went through the Panama Canal to Pearl Harbor, and then on to an area of the Pacific where they were needed. Four of the 28 were lost in action. One, the Legato, was discovered by divers, intact, in 2008, near Thailand. 

We had a wonderful tour of the USS Cobia, which was built in Groton, CT, but it is the same class of sub that was built here in Manitowoc. This area has so many former submariners who have volunteered countless hours in restoring this sub. The engines work...all the radar, radios, valves, etc. are in working order!!! On one of its missions, the Cobia was down about 250 feet, sinking in mud, while it withstood 11 hours of depth charges!

 The Great Loop even made it into the museum!!!

It's only 8 o'clock and it is dark already! We can see a hazy "blue moon" and are thinking of Neil Armstrong. Goodnight, Moon!