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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| Full eclipse of the sun via TV |
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| 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.
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| Leland Fishtown waterfront |
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| Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park |
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| 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!
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| Time Out and Frankfort Lighthouse |
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| In Deep Ship and Frankfort Lighthouse |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
