The Admiral was up early as usual, and she captured another colorful sunrise from the marina (photo at right). Before departing from Northport, MI, the Admiral did a run to the grocery store. The grocery is a straight shot about 2 blocks from the marina. They have a supply of dock carts outside to load your groceries in to and push back to the marina. You just leave the cart at the head of the dock and they come pick them up. Just another example of great small town service and hospitality! We had stopped in Northport on our first Loop, but we had arrived late and left early so we really had not experienced this delightful town.
We departed about 8:30 am and headed east across the mouth of Grand Traverse Bay into Little Traverse Bay where our destination is Petoskey. It is near the bottom (east end) of the bay, and our total trip for today is about 40 miles or 5 hours. Two families of geese showed up to say goodbye as we departed (photo at left). In the background is the outer break wall of the marina, and you can see that the marina was so full that there were even boats moored there. The winds were light at about 6 to 8 mph so we looked forward to a smooth trip.
About 14 miles from our destination we passed the city of Charlevoix, which will be our next destination after Petoskey. We have reservations there, but it is such a popular destination that we were not able to get a slip there for another two days. As we passed Charlevoix, we also passed the Beaver Island ferry that makes twice daily round trips from Charlevoix to the island (photo at right).
We also made several detours to avoid commercial fish nets. One was a gill net (diagram at left), which are generally set at right angles to the shoreline, and as the diagram says, they may be up to several miles long. They are anchored to the bottom with prominent red flags at the ends and at unspecified intervals in the middle. They would be safe enough to go over, but there is no way to tell how close to the surface of the water that the net reaches. So, it is best to go around them and not take any chances.
We also passed one fish trap, which poses a greater hazard (diagram at right) to boaters. The fish traps often go all of the way to the surface with small floats every few feet. With all of the flags and floats they are perhaps easier to see, but the nets are going to be at the surface when you can see the floats. Once again, the best strategy is to go completely go around and not take chances. Autopilots are a great convenience, but they do no relieve you of the responsibility of keeping a sharp watch ahead...
We had stayed in Petoskey on our first Loop and found it to have many really good restaurants and stores so we are looking forward to our time here. There is a really nice park along the bay front between the marina and the city. The main highway along the shore separates the park and marina from downtown, but they have a very wide pedestrian tunnel the leads right to the edge of the shopping and restaurant area. We docked at about 1:15 pm, and by 2:00 pm we were at an "authentic" Mexican restaurant. We had been on a great run of really good Mexican restaurant, but I'm afraid that this one fell a little short of expectations.
The last photo (at left) shows our flower girl Lucky enjoying a little rest during one of several long walks. We did not have a dog on our first Loop so we are finding that by walking Lucky we are getting to thoroughly explore the waterfront parks on this trip. On the way back to the boat we had a late dinner at Jimmy Johns of all places (?). It turns out that we discovered that they have a "sandwich" that uses a lettuce wrap instead of some sort of roll or tortilla wrap. It was really very tasty and as healthy as fast food can get..We will be here two nights so we plan to do a lot more exploring (i.e. shopping in the Admiral's view) tomorrow.
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