We arrived at the entrance of Muskegon off Lake Michigan. What a Beautiful day we had on Lake Michigan. ( bet you never thought I would write that). After anchoring, Bryce dinghyed in to shore and picked up our youngest son Justin and his family. It’s totally amazing when you anchor out and you hear the voice of one of your children. This area  brings back memories to us. We used to bring our children here when they were younger camping. Some of the great sites to see WWII submarine, the USS Silversides at the Great Naval Memorial & Museum. The State Park is a nice place for anyone who wants to camp. We anchored out near the Hartshorn Municipal Marina.  We have forgotten how big Muskegon Lake is. 

This is our youngest son Justin with his wife Tera, son Evan and daughter Bailey…aren’t they cute😉

  
Justin and Tera concerned for our safety, took it upon themselves and presented us with a gift…  They know we will still go into anchorage at night and we didn’t have a spotlight to help see👀 what a thoughtful gift…we cannot Thank you enough. Love you all 

Thanks for bringing our new solar panels to us too🙆🏻

    
George is loving sailing he found one of his spots to set on his towel.

 
A pretty sunset with the stillness  of sails anchored in the background 

   
It was a chilly morning Bryce had to turn on the heat.

 

Although it was bit nerve racking the day we pulled into Pere Marquette Lake (which is inside Ludington harbor), our stay there was relaxing and challenging. It is amazing that there seems to be so many fishermen on Lake Michigan. Even though Lake Michigan has been very rough, the fishermen don’t give up. Inside the harbor they form circles and chase each other tails. If you miss the big one, the boat behind you might catch it. 🚤 

  
We anchored at the Southeast corner of the lake Pere Marquette Lake. We anchored in 20 feet of water. Bryce put out a 100 feet of chain and 100 feet of anchor line. Early Saturday morning around 3:30 we were awoken by the movement of Beauty doing circles and the wind howling at 30 knots and gusts much higher, our anchor let loose. Bryce went up on deck in the gusting winds and pulled in the anchor. I took control of the engine. It was dark… We couldn’t see a thing it was to dangerous to go into a marina. Thank GOD for GPS we made a cookie crumb trail like this ………………….and went back & forth until daylight. NOAA predicted gale force winds on Lake Michigan so we took a slip in the Municipal Marina. 

This is what it looked like for  3 hours to us. 

  
Okay, enough drama..Saturday became a wonderful day in the afternoon. We love ice cream The House of Flavors is always a must for us when we visit Ludington. 

  
My sweater matches the colors in the house of flavored   
The Badger coming back into port from Wisconsin 

 

 Bryce standing by a prop.  A bit too big for Beauty..

  
Enjoying an afternoon walk

 

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 🙋🏻

Just wanted to add, during our adventure at South Manitou Island Bryce and I met a man by the name of Terry Richards who is a Travel/outdoor writer for “The Oregonian”.  Terry sent us an email to let us know that he had mentioned us in is column South Manitou island. 

http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index.ssf/2015/09/great_lakes_playground_michiga.html 

http://oregonlive.com/travel

I found his travels to be interesting you might too. 

 Terry trudging up to the final sand dune peak 

Fabulous..,,fabulous…what a great visit here in Frankfort. It seems like many years have past since my past visit here. My sisters- in-law and Mother Johnson used to have a girls weekend up here.  Bryce and I are really enjoying Frankfort it reminds me of why we are doing this trip. The sun, the breeze and the ambiance which reminds me of the South. 

After our crazy experience crossing from South Manitou we pulled in to safe harbor here in Frankfort. 

 This is the harbor we took anchorage in for a few hours while waiting for the arrival of daylight.  It was a bit rough even inside the breakwater.
  The dancing waves splashed upon the break wall 
After getting in to the river we took a slip at the municipal docks. What nice service we received. We took a walk down to the break wall and noticed a beach. People were gathering from all over to do windsurfing, surfing and stand up paddling. 

 We walked along the breakwater and watched all the going on.

 This is a photo of a windsurfer going out into the Lake Michigan the winds were gusting at 30 knots  

Surf boarder getting ready for the next big wave….

  This is a photo of a windsurfer coming in after he/she road there wave 
  Today the winds are at 17 knots and we are renting a surfboard we/ Bryce lol… will do some surfing. Me, I am thinking a paddle board but that will be determined by the waves. 

 Over looking the marina on our way back from the market.  

Our last day anchored at South Manitou Island. Was very eventful…we started our morning out with what we thought was going to be a fantastic weather day. The forecast was sunny with a low breeze. 

Bryce suggested we take a kayak ride sounded great to me. The water is so deep & clear I was also surprised on how warm the water was compared to the air temperature. The anchorage was so pretty and the bottom was sandy but the beaches or shoreline were rocky. 

 Look 👀 how clear the water is 
We ended up kayaking to the point of the island. I think it’s the nesting grounds for seagulls. 

 Flying seagulls  
The winds started to pick up a bit it was getting a little harder to paddle on the trip back to the boat. One of the power boaters that we spoke with from Frankfurt was out paddle boarding pulled up anchor and headed back. They didn’t stay long at all I would of consider that waste of gas. Two sailboats came in and didn’t stay…

 Me Kayaking  
Oh well it’s time to pull a Kelly’s island favorite ( beach chairs, umbrella, lunch and of course some beer) on the shoreline. We do this every time we go to Lake Erie to Kelly’s island. 

 Our beach opportunity  
The funniest thing happened we are setting there enjoying our conversation and all of a sudden the wind blew and carried away our umbrella away. Bryce ran after it!! I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to take the photo..I missed a good photo opportunity. 

 Bryce caught the umbrella 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 
After a great few hours, I was sitting relaxing in the cockpit when I went to the weather forecast….I went down to show Bryce the forecast..tomorrow (Monday) winds 25-30 knots from the South/West Tuedsay about the same. We were going to have to spend two more days before we get the next window of opportunity to leave! At that moment we both agreed to pull up anchor and head to Frankfurt only 28 miles away. NOAA weather said the winds were only  9 knots. We had to go..,

 Getting ready to pull up anchor  
 We had a horrible time crossing took us 7.5 hrs last night to motor across 28 miles from South Manitou Island. We got beat up on the waves. Waves hit over 10 feet winds gusting at only 17-19 not sure why the waves were so big. We have sailed in gust over 20 and waves were not bad. 3:30 am we finally with the grace of God pulled in to safe harbor.  We are spending 2 days here in Frankfurt. 

Moral of the story is we have to keep a better eye on the weather. No, more coming into anchorage at night or should I say early morning. 

What a great place..the anchorage here is fabulous.. There are no amenities here, but lots of exploring to do. We walked 25,089 steps today that equals 12 miles. Bryce was able to cross off seeing the cedar tress on his bucket list. We climbed sand dunes and saw one of the three campsite here, for those of you who don’t know you can only get here by the waterway. I believe one of the areas that have a ferry to come over here is Lealand.

The anchorage is great sandy button and a huge area.
This is me starting our 12 mile hike out to the lighthouse, ceader trees and dunes.
We saw 👀 the lighthouse, now we see the camera…
We made it to see the ceader trees as I mentioned before Bryce can cross it off his bucket list.. Some of them seemed to be a tad dead to me. I have to admit they are not what I expected.

This is Bryce standing on a dead ceader tree that has fallen to its resting place.

Now.. Walking up the dunes did in need take my breath away.. I feel like I am in good shape too. I huffed & puffed up the dunes…

The view west was spectacular.. You could see the shadows of the clouds on the water.. This seems in contrast to the huge waves we slogged through coming over.

We sailed from Harbor Springs to Northport it was only to be a 35 mile sail. Winds averaged 15 to 25 knots according to our wind instruments and GPS. It took us 10 hours to sail to this point. We wanted to go to Charlevoix Michigan but the weather didn’t allow us to. We would have had to wait for a bridge to open and that would have not been feasible for the type  of wind.

This is me sitting on the windward side of beauty rough Lake Michigan 

  
We had another moonless night as we came into anchorage around 11:00 p.m again. It was a bit chilly this morning as we set on the bow having our morning coffee. We were able to see a few sailboats go out for a day sail. 

  
We took the dinghy into shore and took a walk through town. I had a bag of returnable bottles that I needed to dispose of so off to town we went. Northport is a small quaint town with some of the nicest people. We parked the dinghy and started to walk into town. The first sight a caboose. We met the gentleman who restored this caboose, and  Bryce asked him if it was a place of business and the man replied no it’s a home what a beautiful site (home) it was. 

 Bryce if front of the caboose  
Of course there is nothing  like have ice cream. 

 
This Ship is the  Manitou out of Traverse City. They brought the ship in and tied it to shore.

   
OK who’s to say 30 years of marriage and there’s no romance well, I’m here to tell you there’s plenty of romance after 30 years. To be honest, I feel like I’m more in love today than when I was 30 years ago.

 

After the rollers of Lake Michigan, we finally motored into Harbor Springs. It was around 10:30 p.m a night without a moon. This has to be a sailors bad dream. Bryce had the GPS & radar on it showed all of these weirded spots that some looked like boats some dots well we could figure it out so off went the radar!!

We followed the big green light tower that marked the point of an island that we had to go around to anchor. As we motored around this point, rows of white lights laid on the water ( my heart was pumping fear) but I didn’t want to alarm him that I was very nervous. I went up on the bow with my life jacket on with my personal beakon  incase I fell overboard he could find me. 

My eyes searching the bay.. Bryce asking me if I see 👀 anything… All of a sudden my heart dropped.  “Bryce..,there is something out here I see things that look like little mines… Holy-schmolies where are we..I cannot see clearly!!!” I have to breath I cannot panic I kept telling myself..lol “what do you see” Bryce asked. As we got closer, Boats are on those anchor balls, all over the place..

Well, we searched and ended up hooked up to one of those balls not knowing if it belonged to someone or not.. We were set, off went the engine. We looked at our book called Watetway Guide and found out the balls belonged to the city docks and we were ok…what a night.

The next morning I called into the harbor master to register our arrival on ball 23. “Yes. I see you the Catalina with the orange kayaks right.” His voice was so smooth spoken. Yes, that is right..are we ok or should we move? I asked but was thing dear god please let him say we can stay here.. “Nope you are fine. I am the only one here today do you have a dingy to come aboard he asked he also stated that they had a dingy dock. 

 Me sitting on the dock with dingy. Look at the town it just Beautiful… 
 It rained all day..lol 
This is a must see place if you are ever in the area Harbor Springs is a great little town with lots of shops and a mile or so walk up the hill to the local IGA..

 The harbor of Harbor Springs  
I recommen not coming into port at night

We woke up to thunder and lightning. The winds were 13 knots and gusting even higher. We knew the sails would have to be reef to the first reef. By Reefing the sails to the first reef would allow us to sail up to a max 40 knots wind. We had a 14 mile sail to get to the Mackinaw Bridge.

This photo shows what the sails look like reefed. 

 
Bryce enjoying sitting on the bow while sailing up to the bridge. Although the waves look small it is a misconception. 

  
 You can see the bridge behind us. Yes…I was cold. Under my sweatshirt is my life jacket… 
Lanny, this photo is for you…The Mighty Mackinaw…. After transferring to the Lake Michigan side, winds shifted to our bow, waves built, so we tacked to Northern Michigan shoreline

  

Took a short cut through the straits between Beaver Island and Michigan..  Finally hit close reach winds.. 

We are finally in Lake Michigan now👏🏼👏🏼⛵️⛵️⛵️⛵️⛵️ this is our first sunset