WEEK 23 and 24 - Charlevoix, Michigan to Benton Harbor, Michigan

We are combining two weeks again in the log because it takes two weeks time to get in a weeks worth of travel on Lake Michigan in the early fall. The lake can be very fickle weather wise this time of year, and when it is bad, it can be very bad indeed. But by not being in hurry and picking travel days carefully, we have (so far) been able to avoid a butt-kicking. But that means a lot of layover days. The good news is there is no hurry at all, since the locks on the Illinois River we need to go through are going to close for maintenance and not re-open until October 5. Our stops this week after finally leaving Charlevoix were Northport (marina), Leland (marina), Frankfort (marina), Manistee (marina), Pentwater (anchor), Grand Haven (marina), South Haven (marina) and finally Benton Harbor (free wall).

We arrived in Leland on Labor day, and the town was packed. It is now the last gasp of tourist season and everyone seems to be trying to make the most of it before they roll up the sidewalks for the winter. We visited the historic Fishtown district and had a chubby mary at The Cove. In case you are wondering, a chubby mary is a bloody mary with a whole smoked chub in it as a swizzle stick. We later had a quiet dinner and evening aboard as we got ready for a 50 mile day to Frankfort in the morning.

Lake Michigan is very calm on this day

The water is still Caribbean blue in these parts

Tied up in our slip

Day tripper and ferry crowds packed in like sardines in Fishtown

A great lunch of fried smelt at the Bluebird which has been around for 80 years!

The remains of the Leland state champion cottonwood tree.
It stood 100 feet tall with a 20 foot circumference and was taken down in 2011 

Fishtown overlook

This chubby mary is served with tortilla chips and a cocktail fork
which provides a nice smoked fish appetizer to enjoy with the drink

The nearby beach

The quaintness of these small towns comes alive once the day trippers leave

The run to Frankfort had seas right on the beam and was a bit rolly for some of our buddy boats, but a strong point of catamarans is we do not roll badly in a beam sea, and we had an OK time of it. The weather forecast was bad for the next few days, so we got a slip at the municipal marina for three days to wait out the blow. Frankfort was a good choice to hole up in – the marina is right in town with shopping and dining nearby, and they were running a deal of stay two nights and get the third night free. There were a half dozen other looper boats there, so docktails every evening were lively. One afternoon we took a long bike ride around Betsie Lake to the town of Elberta for lunch and then up the riverside bike path another 5 miles to an alpaca farm/petting zoo where we saw the ridiculously adorable baby alpacas and bought an alpaca wool watch cap and scarf for those upcoming cold fall mornings.

On this day the lake was rolly

We are seeing a lot of gray days lately

The Michigan side of the lake is lined with sand dunes

Entering Frankfort harbor

Labor Day marks the end of the summer season in these parts

We are starting to see hints of fall

Windy weather beach walk

Baby llamas!

Fun at the petting zoo

We had our fill of blackerries!

Bella approves of her alpaca

Jayne approves of her alpaca headband

When the lake settled down, we next did a fairly short run to the town of Manistee. The fall salmon run was in full swing there, and we had to run a gauntlet of a hundred boats trolling at 2 knots in random directions in front of the inlet and even right down the middle of the navigation channel. The captains are all so fixated on trying to troll 4-6 lines on downriggers that they really do not look where they are going. Manistee Municipal Marina had an excellent diesel price ($2.85 per gallon) so we filled all the way up – a nice change from the $4.00 a gallon in Canada. After getting tied up, we took a long walk to a seedy looking Mexican restaurant and were rewarded with a really excellent and cheap dinner.

Entering Manistee Harbour

A full tank of gas will give us a range of 900 miles

Downtown Manistee just minutes from our slip

Just part of the fishing fleet

Seriously? You can't make this stuff up!

Planning for Lake Michigan conditions

Getting ready to throw the lines and go

The next day our started out beautiful and calm but the conditions got a little bumpy as we made our way to the town of Pentwater, another place I remember from my boating childhood. It looked vaguely familiar. We saw another looper boat, Swede Dreams, anchored out in Pentwater Lake and decided to join them out there rather than stay at the marina. We docked at the marina courtesy dock long enough to see the town, check out the local fishing haul, get an excellent hamburger at the Brown Bear Pub and then went out to get anchored up. The anchorage was in 30 feet of water, deeper than I like to anchor, but we put the full 100 feet of chain plus 50 feet of line out and got a good hard bite right away. Sweede Dreams invited us over for a salmon dinner that night, and we admired their beautiful and salty-looking Mariner 37 pilothouse trawler.

We have never seen so many rods on a fishing boat
 but all the boats are equipped like this

Silver and Coho salmon catch

The Brown Bear is a must stop for their burgers. The best!!

This tree adorns the sidewalk in front of a yarn store

The next day was the last good weather on the lake for a while – after that we knew we were going to have to sit it out somewhere for the next 3 days. We had a millpond smooth ride to Grand Haven and got a slip at the municipal marina for a few days. Grand Haven is a pretty good sized town, and is also close to the city of Grand Rapids where I grew up. On one of our layover days we rented a car and drove to Grand Rapids for some major retail therapy at Trader Joes, Bed Bath and Beyond, West Marine, Walmart, Petsmart, etc, etc,etc. After filling the trunk of the Versa with food, wine, and assorted other things we have been craving, we took a trip down memory lane and visited the house where I grew up and my elementary, middle, and high schools. After getting back to the boat, we spent a carefree three hours stowing all the stuff we bought and then collapsed in a heap in front of the TV with a bucket of chicken wings.

Grand Haven bound

Welcome conditions on the Lake Michigan today

The channel entrance lighthouse at Grand Haven

This barge is so long it can only back out of the harbor once it makes its delivery

Scenes along the waterfront in Grand Haven

All set with provisions for a while

Jonathan's boyhood home, Grand Rapids

Farmer's market at Grand Haven

The next morning we returned our trusty rental car and headed for our next stop, South Haven. The lake was pretty nice, but it was heavy overcast and visibility was only a mile or two most of the day – not bad, but I ran the radar all day, mostly for the practice in using it and playing with the settings. It was about a 50-mile day to South Haven and another municipal marina. The slip the marina put us in was 14 feet wide, which I discovered when I wedged my 15-foot beam between the dock and the center piling. No big deal, we squinched back out and they put us in a bigger slip. It was pretty quiet here, just us and the Tiki Queen, who we have been traveling with quite a bit since Leland. They are going to push on hard to Chicago, so we had some farewell cocktails that night, a concoction called “small beer” which is a shot of Licor 43 with a floater of heavy cream on top. It looks just like a tiny beer with a head on top, and tastes like vanilla ice cream. It’s possible I was overserved.

Leaving for South Haven right behind Tiki Queen

The cut and lighthouse at South Haven

Little beers with Tiki Queen

Weather change is coming at South Haven

Scenes from South Haven

Scenes from South Haven

Departing South Haven

Looking at another slug of wind coming soon, we looked for a spot to spend a couple more days in, hopefully someplace with an anchorage, because we are getting tired of marinas all the time. At Benton Harbor, they had something even better. A free wall. With electric! There is no such thing as a free lunch though – it is right up on a steel wall and is exposed to a fair bit of surge, but we have lots of fenders and by now we know how to use them. This spot will be home for a couple of days until we get our next weather window to get to Hammond, Indiana, where we will dock the boat for a couple of weeks while we wait for the Illinois River Locks to re-open. They have a ridiculously cheap weekly rate there ($200 a week for a secure slip in a nice marina within commuting distance of Chicago – are you kidding me?). We may take the opportunity to fly home and do some family visits, and will certainly spend some serous time in the city.