Down the Coast of Michigan

Sun 8/20 to Thur 8/31

We ended up staying in Charlevoix for 6 days--the weather was not terrible, but there was too much wind. It was a nice town with all the necessary stuff close: grocery store, beer and wine store, laundry and great showers in the marina center, restaurants, tourist shops, t-shirt shops, and a movie theater! We actually went to see "Dunkirk" and we were the only people in the theater.

Beautiful landscape of a mushroom house on Round Lake in Charlevoix

I also took a bicycle ride around the neighborhood to visit mushroom houses. A local builder built about 30 houses in a very distinctive style.

One of the 28 mushroom houses

And then the eclipse of the sun! We viewed it through the filters of a sextant, but the best view was on TV!

Full eclipse of the sun via TV

Seagull

The wind finally calmed down and we went south to Leland. Their small town dock was called Fishtown with several shops and a restaurant.

Leland Fishtown waterfront

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park

Point Betsie Lighthouse

While the weather was good, we kept going south to Frankfort. There was a crowd of looper boats: Time Out, Ellis' Island, Chrysalis, First Forty, Unruly, Tumbleweed, Quid Pro Quo, Mother Ocean. Several other loopers arrived the next day: Cha Cha, Orion, One Eye Dog, and Gypsies Palace. Great docktails! 

Time Out and Frankfort Lighthouse

In Deep Ship and Frankfort Lighthouse

Fresh blackberries--they made a great cobbler

The weather was looking good for us to depart Tuesday. We got three miles out and Kelly went to check the shaft stuffing box and found a fuel leak! We quickly turned around and headed to Betsie Bay Marina-the only marina near Frankfort with a mechanic. He found the high pressure fuel injector line leak and had a compression fitting to fix it. A couple hours later we depart the Franklin harbor again and make it to Manistee in time to find a wood fired pizza for dinner. 

Manistee Lighthouse

We had planned to leave early on Wednesday but it was very foggy. After an hour the fog disappeared and it was only a 3-1/2 cruise to Ludington.

Big Sable Lighthouse

They still have a huge coal-fired car ferry that makes 2 trips a day to Wisconsin. The docking is a fantastic show to watch the Badger turn! We stayed another day to visit their maritime museum.