Racine to Waukegan Sept. 26th

We slept in until 6:30 as we are not sure if we are moving today as it will depend on the forecasted weekend weather and whether the River Rat Loopers are moving on the IL River. We took our time walking around the lakeshore as well as the paths along the Root River. Racine has a number of tourist offerings: the Heritage Museum has an interesting exhibit on how boats were used to ferry slaves north to this area as part of the Underground Railroad; the Art Museum features a contemporary craft exhibit housed in a modern glass building which complements the more traditional surrounding buildings.

We decided to leave port at 10:30 for Waukegan IL about 25 miles south. Weekend weather promises strong NE winds which will build a fetch the entire length of the lake. Today we had light SE winds and 1 foot waves which allowed us to put up the flybridge bimini top for the first time this trip. We arrived at 2pm and were assigned a tight dock.
Waukegan is definitely a city marina with plenty of road construction in progress. The northern part of the harbor is mostly abandoned as the fixed docks are 3 feet above the water. We stayed on the south side had all new floating wood and concrete docks. Sue, the harbormaster, was very helpful and pointed us in the direction of the ice cream shop which featured freshly made waffle cones. The marina was abuzz with weekend boaters and all were very welcoming.

We finally met up with our first Looper, Ted on South Shore III, and we traded information about all the variables we will face going down the rivers. The flooding seems to be subsiding but there are some delays due to a fish netted area to catch Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan.