Gooood Times in New Buffalo, MI

(Sat Aug 18 - Dist: 49.3 mi; Avg Speed: 9.6 mph;
        Seas: calm; TTT: 5:15 hrs)

It was a perfect day for travel on Lake Michigan... except for the fact that we were watching a couple of waterspouts in the distance.  The photo does not do it justice other than to show that it was a beautiful sunny day with this one cloud showing some rain and to fingers dipping down into the water.  We were watching this when the Coast Guard came on the air with the warning to all boaters.  For those not familiar with waterspouts, they are, in effect, tornado's on the water.  Needless to say Headquarters and us decided to run and make some distance between us and the system.  Other than that the cruise was great.

It was not easy to get into New Buffalo and I will not rant on and on about the inefficiencies and laziness of the staff at the Municipal Marina but thank goodness for our personal cruise director Chris from Bade Boomer.  She got the two boats in and the party started.  Chris and Bruce own a dockominium next door in a beautiful marina.  We were even treated to a great roast pig meal on our arrival.  Well done Chris.

From the luau we carried right in to happy hour and well into the night.  For the next two days we golfed in the day and "chatted" the evening away.  The folks from "downunder" are very keen competitors when it comes to their golf.  I offered to play Shirley match play straight up since her handicap is better than mine.  She almost insisted on giving me strokes but being the gentleman that I am, I politely refused.  They use the Stableford scoring system however for all or most of their matches.  Well, we did learn to count 3 points for a net bird, 2 for a par and 1 for a bogie.  It did not matter which system we used, I received my winner's drinks on both days.  To be fair Tony did do better than I on the first day but unfortunately we did not have a bet on.

We did have a special occasion, Happy Birthday Bruce.  It was another excuse, as if we needed any, to party. 

Again thanks to Chris and Bruce the four of us from Headquarters and Q's End borrowed their car and drove to St. Joseph to the big marine store there called Wolf's.  I was somewhat disappointed because they did not have any of the items on our list but we did manage to spend a pile of money anyway.  Between there and the grocery store we ligthened our pocket books a lot.

St. Joseph was a neat looking town with pirates on every corner.  The beach there also looked phenomenal.  Oh well maybe some other time.

For Lisa: