Introductions

Northern Lights

August 31 at 3:45am I got up to do an anchor check and I looked out and saw stars, so I unzipped the enclosure and noticed rhythmic and shimmering light coming from our starboard side. I woke up Mary and Harold and we sat out on deck an watched the aurora for a half hour until it started to fade. The Milky Way was out in all it's brilliance and so many stars. I even spotted a meteor. Nearly every night I've look up into the night sky looking for the lights and today we enjoyed them from the middle of the Beaver Island Harbor. Tonight we are tying up a the marina because winds are going to be gusting 30mph! Yesterday at 24 mph, we dragged anchor halfway through our first cup of coffee and had to spring into action. When we…

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Anchoring

Northport Apparently, I have anchor anxiety! I'm not used to being able to see the bottom where we put down the anchor. I am really afraid of hitting bottom. When I'm standing on the bow ready to lower the anchor and can see the bottom - it looks like its about 4 feet deep. We draw 4'6". Harold is calm at the wheel monitoring the depth and easing us into shore, I'm ready to hit the button and put the anchor down. I wait, and wait, I look back we are still motoring ahead, I wait some more and more. Now I'm looking back urgently, I think we should drop anchor. But I wait for the signal. When it finally comes I am so relieved. Down goes the anchor, I can see it land, I let out some chain, hook on the preventer,…

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Sailing

Sailing This morning we lifted anchor and followed the Badger out of Ludington. We unfurled the foresail and set a course around Big Sable Point - just north of Ludington State Park. The forecast predicted a zesty wind and building waves all in a favorable direction for todays destination of Onekema. We had a lovely comfortable quick sail - reaching 7.2 knots for a good portion of our day. Instead of increasing wind and waves both actually decreased. We sailed into Portage Lake and are currently anchored near the marina on the south shore. We plan to wait out the rain and weather for the next couple of days before heading to Frankfort. We were expecting rain out on the lake today so we put up the full enclosure. It sheltered us from the wind and made the ride quite comfortable. Rain is…

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We got our ship together!

I finished my work week, tied up some loose ends, and sit on the eve of our month long sailing adventure on Lake Michigan. We've only anchored out one night on Reflection so far. We are looking forward to trying on the cruising lifestyle aboard our comfortable sailing vessel Reflection, a 2007 Catalina 350. This summer we got our ship together. Harold added davits for the dinghy and solar on the bimini to run the refrigerator/freezer, as well as recharge the batteries when we are anchoring out. We've tuned the rig, added a snubber, dieseled up, checked all the systems and engine fluids and completed our to do list. Our son, Tim will drive us to Muskegon tomorrow and catch up to us in a couple of weeks - hopefully, somewhere around Frankfort. We won't need the car for a whole month. There…

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