Journal of Weal Sea: Pat and Dan Harrington's 2005-2006 cruising adventures from Hammond, Indiana on Lake Michigan to The Bahamas and back aboard their 34 ft Catalina sailing vessel (s/v) Weal Sea

Introduction - This is a "warts and all" account of our 15-month, 7,000 mile round-trip cruise to the Bahamas taken from our daily journal entries and the email messages we sent to family and friends. Neither the journal entries or  emails were ever meant to be published. However, with encouragement from some of our family and friends, we decided to put together a more complete record of our trip giving a more detailed account of our experiences.  We elected to keep the format of the account the same as our day-by-day journal entries since this gives a realistic presentation of what occurred during our trip. 

A picture is, indeed, worth a 1000 words.  Everyone wanted to see pictures (©) from our trip. Thus, we've also included representative photos of some of the people and places we encountered during our 15-month adventure.*

During our trip, we routinely recorded the exact latitude and longitude of each of our anchorages using our chart plotter.  We've included "waypoint" latitude and longitude data and Google Earth images to present portions of our routes. While these latter data and images are most likely to be of interest to fellow sailors who might contemplate a similar cruise, their inclusion also allows the curious reader to visually examine the routes we traveled and places we anchored using Google Earth or other similar satellite image software (Click Here To See Example).  For ease of entry in our journal and emails, we used a decimal format for the latitude and longitude data.  

Format Example: Our slip location in Hammond Marine in Indiana is:

41º  41.769' N (latitude), 87º  30.509' W (longitude ),  where degree = º,   minute = '

For simplicity, we eliminated the degree(º) and minute(') symbols and reported this in our journal simply as :

41.41.769 N, 87.30.509 W

To use Google Earth, you'll need to convert the above to a slightly different format

.

Google Earth satellite image of Weal Sea's slip location in Hammond, Indiana is as follows:

Our format = 41.41.769 N,   87.30.509 W  

Google Earth does NOT require the "degree" (º) symbol.  However, it does require the "minute" (') symbol and a space between the degree and minutes as well as between the minute symbol (') and the N and W.  Thus the above should be entered into Google Earth as follows:

Google Earth Format = 41 41.769' N,   87 30.509' W  

[ CLICK HERE TO SEE ACTUAL GOOGLE EARTH IMAGES ON HOW TO ENTER LATITUDE & LONGITUDE DATA ]

Background - The idea of undertaking a sailboat cruise to the Bahamas originated in March of 2005 when Pat, my wife, and I received a telephone call from our sailing friends, Paul and Mary Slotegraaf.  Paul and Mary, who we met while sailing Lake Michigan in 2003, knew I was retiring in June after more than 30 years at Purdue University.  They told us that they, along with 2 other couples, were planning to sail from Lake Michigan to the Bahamas. Question... would we be interested in joining the group?  Although Pat and I had spent one summer circumnavigating Lake Michigan, and another 2 summers in the North Channel of Canada, we had never really considered taking Weal Sea, our 34 ft Catalina sailboat, to the Bahamas.  Pat and I decided to meet with Paul and Mary and the other couples in Holland, Michigan in April to gather more information. Their plan was to sail to the North Channel of Canada at the north end of Lake Huron sometime in late May or early June. They would depart the North Channel for the Bahamas in late June.  Leaving Lake Huron, they would sail to the eastern end of Lake Erie then take the Erie Canal to the Hudson River.  Following the Hudson River south to New York City, they would enter the Atlantic and sail south along the east coast of New Jersey to the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays.  The group would pickup the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) at the eastern end of the Chesapeake Bay (Norfolk, Virginia) and follow it down the east coast of the United States to Florida. From Florida they would cross the Florida Straits (Gulf Stream) to the Bahamas where they would "check-in" at Nassau.  Their final destination was Georgetown on the island of Great Exuma at the southern end of the chain of cays making up the Exumas.  The total mileage from Hammond, Indiana where we keep Weal Sea to Great Exuma in the Bahamas is about 3,500 miles. If we joined the group, we would meet up them in July at an anchorage on Lake Huron in Michigan.  Pat was a bit hesitant at first. But, I was excited about "a sailboat cruise to the Caribbean " and she finally agreed.  She often likes to tell others, "It was his dream, and I was in it".

Google Earth image (low magnification) showing route from Hammond, IN to The Bahamas: 
The Great Lakes (Michigan, Huron, Erie) [ Erie Canal [ Hudson River [ Atlantic Ocean => Delaware Bay [ Chesapeake Bay [ Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) [ Florida Straits [ Bahamas (Nassau [ Georgetown, Exumas). Total distance = 3,500 miles. 

Keeping in Contact – While in the States, we periodically used our cell phone to talk to our children and friends.  In the Bahamas , we use our computer with Skype VOI (Voice Over Internet) software for telephonic communication.  Skype software is free, it's cheap to use (about 2-3 cents / min. to the States, Europe and many other countries) and it worked great, when we could get good WiFi service.  However, email was our main means of staying in touch on a regular basis. Anticipating this, I had purchased Verizon Mobile Office service for our cell phone and a PocketMail email "Composer".  (We had previously learned about PocketMail from other cruisers while sailing in the North Channel .)  With the PocketMail Composer you can compose text messages which are then uploaded via a cell phone (in our case, using our Verizon Mobile Office service) or landline telephone to a PocketMail server using Composer's built-in modem (acoustic coupler) and an 800 telephone number.  During the same session, Composer downloads text messages friends have sent to your personal PocketMail email address.  It worked great.  Indeed, all of our daily Journal / Log entries included here between July of 2005 and July of 2006 were sent using PocketMail.  

4-01-05

Restaurant, Holland, Michigan. - We meet with Paul and Mary Slotegraaf and 2 other couples to learn more about their sailboat cruise to the Bahamas .

The original group. (L-R) Back row: Mary and Paul Slotegraaf, Gary and Mary MacDonald, Dan and Judy Tibbe.  Front row: Dan and Pat Harrington. Restaurant, Holland, MI. ©

CLICK HERE TO START THE TRIP
(INDEX OF MONTHS & LOCATIONS)

*[Copyright (©) notice: All photos / images in this journal created by author are copyrighted.  They are not in the public domain.  If you wish to use them, contact the author.]

^ LAFAYETTE SAILING CLUB  MENU

^ OTHER SAILING SITES  (Note: Some of these sites have pop-ups)