Frankfort was an ideal stopover for us. Full of sights to see plus we had time to meet new friends, Kurt and Susan Smith from Irish Lady Too which is a 42′ Grand Banks. What a nice couple. Sue Introduced me to two new apps: Wind alert & Great Lakes Portal. Thank you Sue, I am sure we will get lots of usage out of those sites. We said our goodbyes the night before and that morning we battened down all hatches and departed from Frankfort.  Once again our tip is full of adventure on Lake Michigan. The weather protected South winds at 13 knots awesome that is perfect for a great day sail down to Manistee.  Pulling out of the break wall area, the waves were once again dancing over top of the break wall. Lake Michigan was playing her orchestra once again for us. Bryce and I agreed we would give it a try and if it was to rough we would head back to Frankfort. We stayed toward the shoreline hoping for the South wind once promised by our weather app. That didn’t happen. We had SSW 20 knots wind gusts to 25 knots. I didn’t want to turn back so we kept going. However, the view was still beautiful.

These are the sand dunes that stretch across the shoreline.

One of the fun things for us to do is to sit on the deck and enjoy a beer or two. Bryce and I were hanging on tight and you noticed we were wearing out PLB (Personal Location Becon) and life jackets. This ride is similar to ridding a roller coaster.

Bryce, is enjoying the view too. Our auto pilot was hard at work

8 hours later we could see the channel markers for the entrance to Manistee. We anchored right inside the break wall. We could see the Coast guard station from where we anchored. I made spaghetti for dinner and we ate up in the cockpit and watched the fishermen troll for fish inside the break wall.  Bryce noticed the gas gaged stopped registering. This was not good so he new he would have to figure out what happened. With all the rolling and banging beauty has been through on this trip something surely would stop working. It was just a  minor repair, a wire came loose..(Thank god). The next morning we headed down the river looking for a gas station. The first one shipwatch Marina was closed. We headed down a tad bit further and saw a gas sign and a women was standing on the dock. I yelled out “do you sell diesel” the women by the name of Laura answered back “yes” I handed off a dock line to her we spoke for a bit her name was Laura she manages the Manistee Municipal Maina. She was a delightful person to talk to.  We were now getting ready for our next journey on Lake Michigan.

What a great day this is going to be winds are South at 19 a little bit high but we will have a reef in. We set our sights on Ludington. But what another disappointing day. We tried to sail by tacking but it just didn’t happen. With heavy winds on our nose, we dropped the main sail then had to pull in the gen. We had rollers over 10 feet mixed with 5 foot waves. The winds were gusting at 30 knots. I am getting use to this.. by the time we get out of Lake Michigan we will be looking forward to the rivers.. Lol

We pulled out a small portion of the gen to help stabilize

Bryce had to go to the bow to fix the bumpers, water cans, and our diesel cans they were trying to escape.

We made it to Ludington.👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 We anchored in Pere Marquette Lake. This is a deep lake we found a place at the SouthEast corner that is 20 feet. It was a goodnight. Now let’s see what today brings.. To be continued 🙋🏻