Death's Door

The waters between the tip of the peninsula and Washington, Plum and Rock,etc. islands is called Death's Door. The waters were treacherous before good navigational aids -- lots of wrecks. There was a fog bank over Washington island right where the cool and warm air were meeting. The winds and water are always doing something different here than elsewhere in the county. Its also the coolest area.

The picture with the waves washing up onto the shoreline -- you can see that the shoreline looks "piled up" -- the piles are actually shells of dead zebra mussels. The pile was 3 feet high and four feet wide and extended down the beach at least a quarter mile. So instead of walking on sand or rock you crunch along on top of all these shells.

The zebra mussels get dislodged with the wave action and thrown up on shore. Many times if you see a pile like this you can smell it first. The dead mussels -- still have some mussel in them that rots. These mussel shells were all very clean and bleached out.

Cave Pt

We did some more exploring on our days off since we couldn't fish -- the waves were 5 to 8 feet high-- too much for us. CavePoint County Park has the rock formations with the holes along the shoreline. It's on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula next to White Sands State Park. It's a small park but very pretty like most of the county parks here and the county parks are all free. We were surprised to see the beaches were closed on the lakeside due to Ecoli bacteria.

I also took a picture of Bailey's Harbor. Its a cute little town on the Lake Michigan side north of CavePoint park. All of the boats tied up in the marina there were rigged for salmon and lake trout fishing. We aren't really interested in this kind of fishing and we didn't pay the extra money for stamps to be able to catch them. Neither one of us like lake trout and don't like salmon enough to go after them. We also don't want to go out on the "big" lake --- the waters of Green Bay are plenty big enough.

The picture with grass on either side of water is a picture of the canal through Sturgeon Bay that dumps out into Lake Michigan. Its manmade and allows ships to cut through Sturgeon Bay to get from Green Bay to Lake Michigan. Ships had to go up and around the tip of the peninsula before it was cut and navigate through waters called Death's Door. Lots of shipwrecks there before the days of modern navigation.

Sailing

The owner of the campground (our boss, John) and his wife, Marty, took us out sailing on their 35 ft sailboat. The sailboat is called Rainbows End. Neither of us had ever been sailing before and we weren't sure we would enjoy it. I guess we've seen too many movies where the sailboat is tipped so far over that it looks like everyone will just fall right out. They keep their sailboat on a mooring in Egg Harbor. John has a dinghy on shore that he rigs a 3 hp motor to and use it to motor out to the sailboat. So we had to safely get into the dinghy and then climb aboard the sailboat. Once onboard we just kept out of the way while the two of them worked together to take the boat out to sea.

It was very interesting watching them get the sails up and catch the wind. Jim helped tighten some of the ropes while they "tacked and jibbed". It was a beautiful evening on the waters of Green Bay with just enough wind to make it fun and the perfect temperature. Sipping wine and sailing along -- we both decided that sailing was great fun -- as spectators. We got to enjoy a beautiful sunset on the water. Of course then the wind kicked up so we got to experience a little of the "tilting" or "heeling" but it was still a pretty smooth ride even with the waves kicking up. It was dark when we got back to Egg Harbor. Riding in the little dinghy in the dark was a little scary -- probably the most scary thing about the adventure.

It was very nice of John and Marty to take us out sailing. I guess they try to take all of their workampers out for a sail at least once. John also flies a small plane out of the Cherryland airport in Sturgeon Bay and has offered to take Jim flying with him. Jim is going to take him up on it but wants to wait until fall when the air is smoother. (Its a very small plane so the ride will be bumpy regardless. )

A Fish

Friends of ours camped for a few days with us over the 4th of July. We had a good time inspite of being the busiest weekend of the season at the campground. I have a picture of their campsite. I have to say the campsites are all pretty nice here even though the campground is huge -- over 300 sites. The campground was pretty much full but it was still fairly quiet. No loud screaming children -- they were all fairly well behaved, no incessant dog barking -- you can't leave your dog unattended and no shooting of fireworks was allowed in the campground so all in all in was a nice weekend.

Jim took his buddy out fishing and it was so rough that they couldn't fish out in the bigger water. Jim managed to catch a small mouth bass -- finally a nice fish. It was 19" long and he caught it right in Sturgeon Bay in some shallow water. His buddy caught a couple of nice sheepsheads.

We all went to a fish boil on the evening of the 4th at the White Gull Inn in Fish Creek. A nice place to stay with a restaurant that is open to the public. Watching how they cook the meal outside over a fire and do the "boilover" is as big a part of the meal as eating the finished product. Of course it wouldn't be a Door County meal without cherry pie for dessert.