Good morning, Absent minded Cruisers!! How could we have traveled from Michigan City to Hammond Marina without taking any pictures? Maybe because Wayne didn’t believe me when I told him to turn left and go straight to Hammond?? Maybe because it was only 30 miles?
We did have excellent water after that squall yesterday. The water quieted right down and we had less than 2ft waves. Rollers. Not bad at all.
Michigan City to Hammond Marina
Hammond Marina is renowned for being at the gateway to the Cal-Sag Canal bypassing downtown Chicago and Chicago’s many bridges. It is one of the largest marinas in Illinois and is enormous. We pulled up to the fuel dock (lowest diesel prices in the region) and got pumped out. We asked if there would be anyone to help us to get to our slip. Well, no. We were given our slip assignment and we were expected to dock ourselves. No one from the marina was available, apparently. This might be interesting. Always Home is a tall boat and with floating docks (which are lower) this might be challenging to lasso a line over a cleat from 6 feet above the dock.
We cruised over to X dock, found our slip and a fellow boater came over and grabbed our lines. Yea!! The man quickly tied the lines and disappeared. Shortly afterward, we were quickly told “Welcome to X-Dock”!! The friendliest group of local boaters we have encountered.
We wondered what could be wrong with X-dock since many of the slips were empty. Spider webs were plentiful around the electrical pedestal and water outlet. Wayne used our broom so he could plug our 50amp cord into the outlet. The local boater welcoming committee made our initial arrival very pleasant and positive.
Later in the evening, on a Labor Day holiday weekend, the local boaters were all out in their chairs, drinking, talking and regaled us with their local stories. We told them all about the Loop. Several have been “planning” to do it, but just have to wait till retirement. Alas, work keeps getting in the way. 🙂
Twilight at Hammond Marina
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