I am writing from Luddington, Michigan, in a little boaters lounge with an internet plug. It is around 11 PM. Things are going great on our cruise. After waiting out some severe storms and 3 inches of rain in one day, We crossed from Sheboygan, Wisconsin to Pentwater, Michigan on July 9, and we had a great time in Pentwater. We made friends with another family on a boat and we are all travelling together for the next few days. They also have young daughters for Amy and Heidi to play with. We caught a 8 lb Coho salmon out of Port Washington (WI), that was very exciting and fed us for 4 meals. We'll try for another tomorrow on the next jump north to Frankfort, MI. I don't have time to write a lot because tt is too difficult to get around to email on our cruise, we are having too much fun fishing, swimming, meeting people, and looking at boats to read a lot of email! A couple of vignettes, however: Today, we watched the Badger -- a car ferry - dock in Luddington. This giant ship came motoring straight to the dock. About a ship length away they let go their starboard anchor. As they powered forward, the ship pivoted around the anchor and then they backed against it to the slip. After the pivoting around maneuver, they just dragged it backward to the slip but it acted like a spring line holding the bow up a little. What an amazing skill - no bow thrusters here and only a big single prop. Not like watching the Middletown (a coal ship) maneuver out of Port Washington - I would guess that they had a 2000 HP bow thruster to steer the ship with. Prior to our 55 nautical mile crossing of Lake Michigan, we waited out very bad weather in Sheboygan harbor. A nice place with good facilities, but quite expensive. However, we got about 3 inches of rain in one day. We were in the boaters lounge, along with all the other cruisers. The rain stopped. A large black wall of clouds was approaching from the north east - strange since the main strom was coming from the north west. As the wall approached, we watched one, then two and then about 5 waterspouts form and blow to the south at tremendous speed. Karen asked me "When does a storm like this get dangerous?" I said "When the cloud is rotating." She said, "You mean, like that?" pointing directly overhead. Just then a tremendous blast of wind I would estimate at 75 mph hit the marina. Many of the sailboats were knocked down in their slips! All sailors not in the lounge came running up from their boats. I jumped into my foulies and went running to our boat. We were sitting fine on our spring lines when I got there but even before I was out the door the storm was gone. Thankfully we were in port, that would have been terrifying on the lake in a small boat. It was terrifying in port. We have not yet been in a port in which we have not seen someone come in on one engine with major mechanical problems. They have all been big, expensive, motor yachts. Mostly with Mercruiser inboards. We saw one with a thrown rod and one today with a broken transmission. And this on a boat with less than 30 hours on her. By Great Lakes standards, we are small, slow and we don't gleem very much. These big motor yachts cruise 30 miles per hour and get 0.7 mpg. Airconditioned, with dual 50 amp shore power connections. And they hold 700 gallons of fuel. The aft cabin motor yachts have more windage than the Queen Mary. Yet their skippers handle them very well and I can learn alot watching the good one. Gleeming and glowing like mother-of-perl. Beautiful boats, nice people. Marine Gas here is $2.35/gallon. I paid $1.91/gallon in Wisconsin for marine diesel. Here in Michigan I can get filled up for $1.55 but we don't need fuel for a while. We will get around to a web page update next rainy day, meanwhile, see you on the water. Indiscipline, monitoring 9 and 16, out. -JimB Jim Baumgart Join the virtual Cruise 2000 at http://www.indiscipline.org