We left Mackinaw City under less
than ideal weather conditions but conditions on the Straits of Mackinac were
beautifully calm. We could not complain
at all about the cruise to Petoskey on Little Traverse Bay. Upon our arrival at the marina, the sun was shining
making it a perfect day to explore downtown Petoskey. The Crooked Tree Arts Center, housed in a
former church originally constructed in 1890, was exhibiting a large collection
of photographs by Ansel Adams.
Downtown
Petoskey is a pretty vibrant town with lots of shopping, restaurants, coffee
shops and pubs to choose from. Frank
chose Beards Brewery and enjoyed the beer sampling there but passed up the
opportunity to buy some gnarly-looking yarn beards in the gift shop.
We originally planned to spend
just one day in Petoskey but then we learned about Little Traverse Wheelway, a
26-mile paved trail that connects the towns of Harbor Springs, Petoskey and
Charlevoix. On day two we hopped on the
bikes and pedaled ten miles to Harbor Springs where the big boats dock at the
Municipal Marina.
It was hard to miss the 196-foot
yacht Blue Moon available for charter
at $395,000 a week (yes, a week) plus expenses!
She boasts six luxurious staterooms, two gyms, several dining areas and
a glass elevator. For playtime fun – two
tenders (one classic 28-foot Riva and one 25-foot Chris Craft), three kayaks,
two WaveRunners, paddleboards, fishing and snorkeling gear, water skis,
etc. And a crew of 15 to cater to your
every need.
After ogling the boats and wandering through downtown Harbor Springs we headed back to Petoskey and our tiny 43-foot yacht. As we neared the marina we spied this little waterfall along the Wheelway.
The NOAA forecasts for Lake
Michigan over the Labor Day weekend were quite ominous with waves approaching
eight feet! It was time for us to make
our move further south before the lake turned ugly.
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| Approaching Charlevoix Bridge Street Bridge across the Pine River |
My all-time favorite stop on Lake Michigan is
Charlevoix. It is an easy 18-mile cruise
west of Petoskey through Little Traverse Bay - especially when the weather
cooperates! We tried to plan our arrival
for 11:30 in order to make the opening of the Bridge Street Bridge. As we got closer to Charlevoix we realized
that we might miss the opening by mere minutes and, if that was the case, we
would be idling in the Pine River waiting for the noon time opening. That
obviously did not appeal to the Captain - he really pushed Lazy W to her limits during the last ten minutes of the cruise and the
bridge began to open just as we made our approach. Lucky us!
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| Early morning along Lake Charlevoix |
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| Leaving Charlevoix |
Early morning September 1st
we were back on the lake heading to Leland Harbor on the Leelanau Peninsula. Our last visit here was fifteen years ago and
while the marina has been revamped the town of Leland looks pretty much the
same as I remember it.
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| Leland River |
Along the Leland River is
historic Fishtown, one of the last working and thriving fishing districts on
the Great Lakes. Some of the old ice and fish shanties have been converted into
restaurants and specialty gift shops. We did the requisite browsing before
finding the Verterra Winery Tasting Room.
In less than an hour in town we had, as Frank says, “used this place up.” Luckily we had one more day of decent
cruising weather ahead of us before the front moves through that will put the
brakes on any cruising for up to four days.
Even the dockmaster at Leland Harbor said that Leland is not the place
to have to spend four days weathering the coming wind storm!
Saturday morning we were on the
move just as the sun was coming up in Leland.
The NOAA forecast wasn’t calling for a great day on Lake Michigan (late
morning waves less than 2 feet) but these fair weather boaters decided it was
nothing we couldn’t handle since we would be to Frankfort before the waves
kicked up. WRONG!
As we rounded Sleeping Bear
Point and the massive dunes of Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore came into view,
the waves began to pummel Lazy W’s bow
and continued to pummel us for the remainder of the cruise to Frankfort! We looked at each other in disbelief as we
bucked our way through wave after wave after wave. We were relieved to finally espy the beacons
marking the entrance to Frankfort but angst set in as we saw the waves crashing
over the breakwall. Things calmed down
as we proceeded down Betsie Lake to our slip at the municipal marina. September 2nd gets the award for
most unpleasant cruise of the season and the NOAA forecast gets the award for
most misleading of the season!
Having weathered a storm in
Frankfort years ago, we knew that the municipal marina is not the calmest port
in windy conditions. The waves come
barreling off Lake Michigan and directly down Lake Betsie where the boats are
docked with their bows perpendicular to the shore, perfectly positioned to rock
side to side in even the slightest breeze. So we spent an inordinate amount of
time securing Lazy W at the dock and
hoped we would not have to make too many adjustments to lines and fenders over
the next few days. (The Captain really
doesn’t like getting up in the dark to make those adjustments!)
By 3:30 we had calmed down
enough to head over to Villa Marine, a sports bar on Main Street, to catch the
kickoff of the University of Michigan opening football game of the season. After a somewhat sloppy start, Michigan got
its act together and beat Florida 33-17.
The day wasn’t a complete flop after all!
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| Rainbow over Betsie Lake - day four in Frankfort waiting for calmer conditions on Lake Michigan |
Years ago when we embarked on the
Great Loop aboard our Mainship Sea
Venture, a common belief was that boaters should aim to be off Lake
Michigan by Labor Day. Many boaters
attributed this to the “myth” that the lake was unpredictable and prone to wind
storms for much of the months of September and October. Well, we are here to tell you that the myth has
become a reality! We are tired of
reading warnings such as this posted for the lake from Frankfort to Ludington,
our next stop -Northwest winds of 10 to
20 knots will hold waves at 3 to 5 feet through late this evening. This is not what fair weather boaters
want to see! (In fairness to the lake, much of this is due to the remnants of Hurricane Harvey.)
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| It looks so pretty out there on Lake Michigan... |
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| ...or maybe not! |
While we were griping about the
weather that kept us in Frankfort for the past six days, we received an email
from John and Karen Siscoe. It contained
a link to a very recent news article concerning the Apostle Islands where we
anchored off Rocky Island last month and it made us realize that we really had
very little to complain about! Here is
a portion of the article from the Duluth News Tribune:
OUT OF NOWHERE: Furious winds, waves ground several vessels
in the Apostle Islands
By Brady Slater on September 6, 2017
Harrowing overnight waves and winds late Sunday into Monday
left several boats beached, grounded and even partially sunk in the outer
Apostle Islands, where storm conditions persisted into the next day and even
thwarted some of the salvage effort.
No one was injured, but Capt. Tucker Culberson of Black
Warrior Marine / TowBoat U.S. in Bayfield said he was taking another 25-mile
jaunt Wednesday to retrieve the last of eight boats marooned following a period
of reported 6- to 8-foot Lake Superior waves that sprung up at the start of
Monday’s Labor Day holiday.
Several boats had been anchored peacefully on the eastern
sides of the islands’ outer rim of Sand, Rocky and Outer islands on Sunday. A
westerly breeze was keeping them company, Culberson said, when conditions
drastically changed.
“Two storms blew everyone apart,” Culberson said. “They came
through as a really big windline and when it shifted north-northeast that was
the problem.”
Chris Smith, chief ranger of the Apostle Islands National
Lakeshore, said the intensity of the storms was sudden and unexpected. “It’s the nature of the beast sometimes with
Lake Superior,” he said. “These squalls seemingly came out of nowhere.”
Boats dragged anchor as winds blew the private vessels onto
beaches, rocks and into thickets of trees overhanging the waters of Lake
Superior. Winds were reportedly up to 35 mph within the island chain and up to
twice as fast out on the lake, enough to stir the waters into a boat-shoving
frenzy.
_______________________________________
After a full week at the dock in
Frankfort, Lake Michigan finally settled down and we were on our way to
Ludington. The water was pleasantly calm
for the entire 50-mile cruise – what a relief!
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| S.S. Badger arrives in Ludingon |
The S.S. Badger is a
passenger/car ferry that make 450 crossings of Lake Michigan per season between
Ludington, Michigan and Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
Built in 1953 for the primary purpose of transporting railroad freight
cars across the lake, the Badger is the only coal-fired steamship in operation
in the United States. In 1991, the
Badger was repurposed and ever since she has been ferrying leisure passengers
and their vehicles sixty miles across the lake in four hours (twice as fast as Lazy W).
She is 410 feet long and can carry 600 passengers and up to 180 vehicles;
each of her two anchors weighs 7,000 pounds; her propulsion system has been
designated a mechanical engineering landmark by the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers. In 2016, the
Department of the Interior designated the ferry a National Historic Landmark. It is always an awesome sight to watch the
Badger enter the harbor in Ludington, noisily drop anchor and then pivot around
to the dock.
I was anxious to make Muskegon
before any other bad weather got Lake Michigan riled up again, so we left the
dock the next morning. The start of the
cruise was smooth going but the waves picked up some as we passed Little Sable
Point. Luckily the waves were nothing
like what we experienced heading to Frankfort and our final cruise of the season
was quite comfortable.
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| A stoic Captain at the helm for the last cruise of the season |
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| Approaching Muskegon |
We are now safely docked at
Great Lakes Marina. Along with
reminiscing about the great summer we had on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior,
we are busy prepping Lazy W FOR SALE! One of the crew is happier about this than
the other and I am sure you can guess who is who…
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| Sunset over Lake Michigan at Frankfort |
