Week 11: August 15-August 21

We stayed in Mackinaw City another day. Although Peter wasn’t all that interested in sightseeing, we have been told by many that you cannot miss seeing Mackinac Island – the jewel of the Great Lakes. We took a high-speed ferry across to the island since we didn’t think it made sense to move the boat to the marina on the island since we heard so much about the ferry traffic and the intense rocking in the slips.

The island takes you back in time as there are no vehicles allowed on the island and you travel by horse, horse drawn carriage, bicycles or walking. It is considered an ideal vacation spot and only has about 500 permanent residents. The island is known for their world famous fudge, historic Fort Mackinac and unique shopping. It is also the site of the historic Grand Hotel. We explored the island aboard a horse drawn carriage. There were three different carriages of varying sizes for different portions of the tour. The tour covered the island’s main attractions – Surrey Hills Museum, Fort Mackinac and Arch Rock. Of course, we also saw the Grand Hotel and the hotel’s stables. The tour started within the streets of the city so we were given a history lesson by entertaining drivers. We ended our tour at the Grand Hotel, walked around the grounds and finished by dining at the hotel’s famous lunch buffet. An expensive day but fun and interesting.

The next morning we left and traveled through the Straits of Mackinac and made our entrance into Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is approximately 392 miles long so it will be an interesting journey along the sandy, eastern coast of the lake. Our target is to reach the southern portion of the lake by the end of August so that we can enter the locks in Chicago before they are closed temporarily for recreational boats.

Our first stop on the lake was in Petoskey. A buddy boat, Selah Way, was already there and when we arrived, we saw Avalon, a 42′ Kady Krogen, who we hadn’t seen since we started the loop in early June. In fact, they were the first loopers we met on our first night. They traveled through the Oswego Locks and the Canadian route that we were unable to do because of our mechanical difficulties and the loss of time, so we were happy to see them again. By the end of the evening there were a few more loopers and by the next day we had eight boats. Of course, this called for an evening of docktails especially since we all needed to stay put because of weather. Since the weather was not the best, we moved into the boaters lounge and rearranged some furniture so that we could enjoy the time by not being blown away. Fun was had by all and of course, we put the furniture back where it belonged.

The weather cleared and the wind slowed down so we were finally able to move to our next destination – Leland. We only planned to stay a day as Peter felt the need to make up time. Leland was a cute little town, known for its fishing heritage – Fishtown – and the assortment of fishing shanties now used as commercial shops. I also think it has the bluest, near Caribbean blue, water that we have seen so far. It was interesting to see the color of Lake Michigan’s water but then a few feet of this Caribbean blue water near the coast. By the time we arrived in Leland, the marina was all Caribbean blue. I have been continually amazed by the varying shades of blue waters on this journey.

Next stop: Frankfort, a municipal marina right on the edge of town. The weather prediction was for high winds so we stayed two evenings. We traveled with Paddy Wagon and later in the day, Avalon, joined us as well for their short trip to Charlevoix. I was able to visit the local library, a visit we seem to make in most of the towns we visit. We like to look at their paperback and sometimes hard cover books that are for sale. I was surprised to find that the library in Frankfort did not have any books available for sale. The local grocery store was only a few blocks away so I was also able to pick up a few things. We went out to eat to a local establishment called Dinghy’s recommended by the harbor staff. Truthfully, the staff mentioned most of the restaurants in town as having good food (mostly comfort/pub food) but we couldn’t resist Dinghy’s because of its name. We made the right choice – we all had different meals and they were all enjoyed.

On our walk back to the marina, we passed a store that had silk screen T-shirts. A large selection outside on racks and plain shirts with available decals to customize your choice. A few shirts were purchased here that night. I haven’t seen a shop like this in a long time since there was at least one in every mall when our children were young.

Tomorrow we leave Frankfort and head to Ludington, again for one night.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•