You climb from your berth and start the stove for coffee, warming the cabin. You check your position, looking out the ports as the sun is about to rise. The pristine forest of an uninhabited island is visible out one port, open water out the other. The great lake, Lake Michigan, is glass.
You open the companionway and take your first sip of coffee as the sun breaks the eastern horizon. No other boats, no other people, no houses, no cars. Your only company is a pair of loons taking their morning tour of the harbor. This is why I gunkhole.
One of my more treasured nautical books is a 1982, self-published softcover with hand-drawn graphics titled . Its authors, Patrick and Judy Nerbonne, extol the self-reliance and freedom they discovered gunkholing after growing tired of the marina-cruising lifestyle, sailing from one electrical outlet to the next. This tattered guide was handed down to me when my sailing mentor left the Great Lakes for the Caribbean. Now his ashes bless his favorite gunkhole in these waters, and I try to keep his legacy alive as best
