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10/14/10 – Ephemeris – The star Capella
Thursday, October 14th. The sun will rise at 7:56. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 3 minutes, setting at 6:59. The moon, at first quarter today, will set at 12:32 tomorrow morning.
A bright star called Capella has slowly been rising in the northeastern sky in the evenings for the past few months. At 9 p.m. now it is low in the north northeast far below the letter “W” shaped constellation of Cassiopeia. This winter Capella will be overhead the highest of winter’s seven brilliant first magnitude stars. Capella never quite sets for anyone north of Ludington. Due to its brightness, and being the closest first magnitude star to the pole, Capella appears to move slowly as the earth rotates, and spends summer and autumn evenings close to the horizon, and has in years past elicited a few phone calls and other queries about that ‘bright object in the northeast’. Capella belongs to the pentagonal constellation of Auriga the Charioteer.
Astronomy Cruise – Day 1
October 1st.
I got up about 6 a.m. and got on deck. Orion was shining in the south, with the nearly last quarter moon high above. Fellow passenger Chris, who is another amateur astronomer from Dayton, Ohio was also up drinking in the winter sky preview.
Daybreak from the deck of the Manitou at 6:56 a.m.
The twilight showed a line of clouds just above the eastern horizon. It looked like the day was going to be great for sailing. At 7 a.m. Brent of the galley crew brought out coffee and scones.
A passenger looking at the sun through the Questar
Not knowing how long it was going to be brfore we sailed, I brought out the Questar with it’s solar filter and set it up on a bench on the dock. There was one good sunspot visible.
8 a.m. was breakfast. All 20 plus passengers squeezed into the galley. Chief cook Lulu fed us some wonderful meals during the trip, including this breakfast.
Captain Dave came aboard before breakfast and after breakfast gave us our morning briefing. We would cast off at 10 a.m. so some of us could go ashore to get some last minute items.
We had a deck crew of 4 headed by Cheyenne who was also a certified captain. She captained by earlier 2 hour cruise Labor Day weekend that I was on. Also in the crew were Neil, who grew up in Suttons Bay, Matt who really looked like a old fashoned deck hand with his beard, and Ann a crewman from a prior year who volunteered for the cruise.
The moon through the rigging
Besides 6 sails, the Manitou has a diesel engine and we motored away from the dock. After a bit Captain Dave headed the Manitou into the wind to begin the process of raising the sails. The crew got at least 6 of us passengers lined on either side of the deck forward of the main mast to raise the mainsail. The Manitou is a gaff-rigged schooner in that its main and fore sails are trapezoidal in shape being stretched between the boom on the bottom and the gaff at the top. The port line raised the throat of the gaff next to the mast, while the line on the starboard side raised the peak of the gaff. I was on the port side when the time cane our side shouted to the captain “Ready on the throat!” The other side shouted “Ready on the peak!” At the signal we hauled away. As we were raising more and more canvas the task grew harder. Near the end we end we gave some mighty pulls with commands of 2-6-Heave.
The crew unfurls the staysails
The foresail was easier taking only three on a side and pulling vertically. The crew then unfurled the three stay sails attached between the foremast and the bowsprit.
Matt unfurls the topsail
Last to go up was the topsail. Matt climbed up to set that sail.
The Manitou under full sail (From the Traverse Tall Ship Co. Website)
We headed northward from the southwest shore of the west arm of Grand Traverse bay under a light westerly breeze. That breeze died just as we tacked to the west to clear the shoals off Power Island. The map below shows it as Marion Island. I recall that it was even named Ford Island being once owned by Henry Ford, but I can’t find anything on the Internet about it.
Captain Dave resorted to starting the diesel engine to make up some time. The wind came up in the early afternoon, but this time from the north which put Omena and Northport out of range for the day. Also it was becoming overcast. Lulu fixed us lunch including French onion soup. It was delicious!
We tacked back and forth in West Bay (the west arm of the Grand Traverse Bay) in order to clear the Old Mission Light and so to enter East Bay and head south with the wind to anchor in Old Mission Harbor. Along the way we saw rain showers in the distance. I may be wrong but I’d say they were lake effect showers from the cold air blowing over the warm waters of Lake Michigan.
We're passing Old Mission Light to enter East Bay
Rainbow spotted in the late afternoon
Toward the end of our sail that day we saw a rainbow in the distance. It was truncated because it was in the distance and the clouds were low. After we anchored in Old Mission Bay we had dinner and the Zodiac boat was lowered from the davits at the stern of the Manitou to let those who wanted to go ashore.
The Manitou in Old Mission Harbor with the Zodiac returning for more passengers
Old Mission was actually the oldest continuous settlement in the Grand Traverse Bay area, even older than Traverse City. It was founded in 1839 by the Rev. Dougherty who started a mission there to convert the local Native Americans. Some of headed to the Old Mission General Store for ice cream. That place is all decked out as a depression era store. It is run by a cranky old guy who forbids the taking of photographs inside. But the Moomers ice cream was worth the visit. After this we headed back to the dock in the dark, and our warm beds aboard the Manitou..
Map of Grand Traverse Bay from Wiki Mini Atlas
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 