“The year past was a good year to be a member of the Great Lakes Cruising Club”, says Editor Philip R. May. This issue of Lifeline covers many of the events where fond memories were made. All the information necessary on all three boat shows where GLCC will have presence — including how to sign up is included. Lifeline reports on the happenings at the Annual General Membership Meeting including the Change of Watch where our new Commodore; Rich Barzyk is introduced as such. Click here to access the 2017 Winter Lifeline magazine, and here for updates and information on GLCC Events.

WOW! Where does the time go?? It’s that time of year again. The 2018 Mid-America Boat Show is going on January 18–21. GLCC will have our presence here at the show and are asking for members to help with the booth. If you have never done it, you don’t know what you’re missing! Look at what you get for helping out. You meet all kinds of people! New boaters, experienced boaters, people just looking at getting into boating. You have the opportunity to show and tell what GLCC means to you and how it will help them enjoy the water. Please click here to read more.

The Toronto Boat Show will open its doors in less than two months and we need your help to make the Great Lakes Cruising Club’s (GLCC) participation a success!! This year the show runs from Saturday, January 12 to Sunday, January 21, 2017 inclusive (10 days). For more information about the show, check out their website. To read further please click here.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources recently completed an emergency dredging project in Keweenaw County to restore the Grand Traverse Harbor channel for commercial and recreational boating. The $246,230 dredging project, undertaken by Marine Tech, LLC of Duluth, Minnesota, through the DNR’s Parks and Recreation Division, pumped 9,000 cubic yards of sand to a beach area north of the harbor. Previous dredging at the harbor was done by the DNR in 2015 and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2009 and 2003.

Meanwhile, more extensive sand removal and containment efforts are needed to protect important lake trout and whitefish spawning habitat on Buffalo Reef and a juvenile whitefish area south of the Grand Traverse Harbor, which is situated on the east side of the Keweenaw Peninsula, northeast of Lake Linden.  Read rest of article.

Let's welcome newly appointed White Lake, Mich. (M-21) Port Captain Chip Sawyer to the alliance of GLCC helping hands. Here's a porthole glimpse of this sailor's story:  I began sailing at the age of five. “Cruised” the western shoreline of Green Bay in a homemade eight-foot plywood pram with a bedspread sail. Probably put 200 miles on that craft. Graduated to a Seagull class sailboat at about the age of ten and began competitive racing. At age 17, I began cruising (North Channel, Georgian Bay, Lake Superior, half a Great Loop) in earnest with the then GLCC Port Captain for Menominee, Mich. aboard his 45-foot converted schooner. Please click here to read more!

Newly appointed Port Captain for Wye Heritage Marina, Ont. (GB-22.4), Paul Strub is quite the explorer. Let's give him a warm welcome and if you stop by; be sure to give him a holler. Here's a little insight of his "learning the ropes"... 
     I was introduced to the cruising lifestyle around the age of ten while watching an episode of PowerBoat Television. They did a feature on Killarney and the North Channel. After watching the episode, I knew I had to eventually have a boat.
     Finally, in 2007 I got my first pocket cruiser, a 23-foot Cooper Yachts Prowler. I kept this boat four seasons as I learned the ins and outs of boating. Click here for further reading.

For the 2nd time in three years a troubling and very toxic algae bloom has occurred across Western Lake Erie. For more information click this article from the Cruising Odyssey ezine, an on-line powerboat-focused publication of Blue Water Sailing magazine: http://cruisingodyssey.com/2017/10/04/toxic-algae-blooms-cover-western-…;

Past GLCC Commodore Niels Jensen's narrated video of his August trip from Lake Superior's Apostle Islands to the GLCC Lake Superior Rally in Silver Bay, Minnesota, certainly whets one's appetite to attend a regional rally or the annual rendezvous. Check it out here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXA_MP89cNM

Let's welcome Lynn Dupuy with a hearty "ahoy!"  He is our newly appointed Port Captain for East Harbor, Ohio (E-167). Here's what he says about his boating experiences: I have been around boats and water as long as I can remember. I began by running around with my cousins in the swamps of Louisiana in a 10-foot johnboat. In high school I taught swimming, diving and canoeing classes for the YMCA. Fortunately, I married someone who enjoys boating as much as I do. Our first boat after we got married was a homemade dinghy that accommodated one person comfortably and two people uncomfortably. Please click here for more reading.

We're very happy to welcome newly appointed Port Huron, Mich. (D-1) Port Captains Dale and Teena Lashbrook. Their love for boating began on their 20-foot Carver Son of a Sailor. In addition to cruising in the “Blue Water Area,” basically Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron, they trailered their Carver to places in Michigan such as the Les Cheneaux Island, Inland Waterway, and Traverse Bay. Please click here to continue reading.