Ports of Call

We left the marina at Blind River on Wednesday the 12th after visiting the Timber Valley Museum and Art Gallery. The gallery had both local artists and local Indigenous artists. It seems to me, and this is a broad generalization, the local artists tend to photograph or paint landscapes. The First Nation artists tend to paint birds and animals. It is common enough that you can tell from a distance from whose hands, mind and heart the artwork was conceived. We headed to Turnbull Island, but there were several other boats already anchored.  We backtracked to Sanford Island and saw that the ‘best’ spot was occupied, but if we dropped near a point of land in about 20 feet of water we would be okay. Protected from the west, and pretty wide open north and south, we had amazing views to the northern…

August 2 St. Ignace is nice town. We spent a couple of nights in the marina. Most everything is an easy walk away. It even has two hardware stores so I had to stop in there, although I didn’t really need anything except a small amount of epoxy. The galley sink has a pull-out faucet and I found a crack at the end of the threads that attaches to the hose. I sealed it up with epoxy and wound some sewing thread around it to provide some reinforcement. It just has to last through the season. It’s the kind that looks like chrome plated metal, but it’s mostly plastic. There are better ones that are made from metal and it’s such a pain to replace faucets, I want this next one to outlast me. We walked a mile to the grocery stores for…

Harold goes up, so Marcia doesn't have to - though she's great at keeping me from hitting the mast. The bag contains tools and parts. We’ve holed up in Northport before. The marina has a good rate, the grocery and library are close by, and so are pastries. With wifi, we’ve been able to stream our favorite YouTube channels, watch the World Cup final, and watch some episodes of British crime dramas. When the weather is decent, we take care of the boat - cleaning, maintenance and repairs. We also like to get out to walk for three or four miles. We check the weather everyday. Both for the forecast locally, and looking at sailing weather towards the weekend. We will leave Northport on Thursday. We have options, but it looks like we will have wind to take us to Beaver Island. We…

We left Washington Island Friday, July 10. It was a calm lake, which meant we motored almost the entire way.  Not ideal, but we’re trying to set up for a trip to Beaver Island and a jump to St. Ignace. We went to anchor. After a bouncy night Sunday into Monday, we took a slip at Northport Marina, one of our favorites. We had a nice visit from our son, Tim, beginning on Monday.  We watched the semifinal match between France and Spain in the boaters lounge at the marina here. We met the owner of a cherry orchard who was using the lounge as his office as he was without internet at the farm.  He gifted us a bottle of cherry vinegar. It’s very nice. RedTruckOrchards.com We marinated pork chops in the vinegar with salt and black pepper. Delicious. The smoke rolled…

We left Frankfort on Friday the 26th. Motored away from shore and had enough wind to have the sails and the motor on. We had to keep a 5 knot average to cross in less than 10 hours. The wind dwindled down to only a couple of knots so we rolled up the sails and motored on. You cross a number of shipping lanes crossing the lake, and we had a chance to meet a thousand foot laker. He shifted a little bit to the right, and we slowed to cross his wake about one mile astern. That was arranged over the marine radio as a sailboat has the right of way, we were also motoring. So I thought it best that he carry on. Even a mile away, these boats are huge. Shortly after meeting the freighter, the fog set in. At…

Frankfort - June 22 We spent the Solstice at anchor in Frankfort. We've enjoyed exploring the beach, the Betsie River Trail, and of course the Library. We are anchored right in front of it and have good free wifi. There is a nice dinghy dock, the Saturday farmers market (strawberries and asparagus), Family Fare Grocery Store, and a laundry a short walk across the street from the boat launch. Best of all Frankfort is very walkable and filled with people walking, biking, walking their dog - and a nice dog park nearby. We saw an elderly couple with their black and white dog yesterday afternoon. Their granddaughter was on a scooter riding back and forth on the trail next to the dog park fence and the dog was racing up and down chasing after her. We've had mostly blue skies with the fluffiest…

We stayed in Muskegon until Wednesday morning. Tuesday was mostly foggy, and we stayed put, as the anchor held us tight. You learn a lot about the bottom when you weigh anchor. We were in black mud and silt. Excellent holding, but you need to go over top of the anchor to break it free. The flukes of the anchor hold onto a pretty big blob of the mud.  Easiest way to remove the mud is to bring the anchor up near the surface of the water, and gently motor forward. The moving water will rinse it clean, and then we pull it up tight with the anchor windlass, attach the chain hook to take the load off of the windlass and ease it back out a few inches.  This is a similar technique used in anchoring. The windlass is designed to move…

Our time was up at Tower Marine, and we had to move on. Yesterday was the Pride Parade in Douglas, and a six hour celebration in Beery Field. Everything was done up in rainbow colors and more. Having lived in Holland for about a year after I retired from MSU, we know how the towns of Saugatuck and Douglas change when the tourists go home. But in high season, it is a wonder-filled accepting community of delightful people. (Let’s just say that the blue wave when the tourists are here fades to a reddish hue in the fall) Saturday was so much fun, we watched the parade at the very end of the route, snatching a bit of shade that we shared with a woman and her little white and grey Havanese. The celebration had about 70 vendors marketing their products and services,…

Haulout for winter storage at Safe Harbor Great Lakes, Muskegon. Our first leg on our journey home was from Northport to Frankfort on September 9. That leg was over sixty nautical miles and took up all of the daytime hours. The second leg was from Frankfort to Ludington, also more than sixty NM. After two long days of sailing, we elected to stay put in Ludington for two nights. Finally, on Thursday, we set out for our home port of Muskegon and tied up in our slip at 6:30pm. That’s a pretty grueling end to an excellent cruise. Then came the haul-out on the 25th of September, ending the water part of sailing season. It was a beautifully warm day to take the boat out, and it certainly was nicer than waiting until the bitter end in October. It might seem a little…