We left the boat at about 8:45 am to walk in to downtown Petoskey for a morning grocery run and a little hardware shopping before our 18.1 mile trip to Charlevoix, Michigan. We left Petoskey at 11 am after stopping at the fuel dock
for the obligatory pump out. The pluses for Petoskey would be that we enjoyed walking around, shopping and eating in the
downtown area and in the very pretty waterfront park around the marina. It was at some point before we departed that we actually discovered that Lucky had truly suffered some bite marks from the incident with the 2 dogs on the beach last evening. She is being very good about not licking or scratching the wounds although she is a bit tender in the right rear hind quarters. In spite of this, Petoskey has been a very good stop overall.
We arrived at Charlevoix in picture perfect weather, and we were greeted with this scene on the breakwater as we prepared to enter the channel (photo at right). There were a few of the usual fishermen, but mostly the crowd was teenagers who were showing off by jumping off the pier into the (chilly) water. We were about to round the red and white channel marker and enter the channel on the other side of the breakwater. The point is that they were not jumping into the channel, which would have caused us some problems.
The photo at the left shows the "style" of the average jumper. The next sound that we would hear was often shrieks as the jumper came back up to the surface and reacted to the temperature of the water. Oh, to be young again (NOT!).
We were in the channel keeping station waiting for the 1:30 pm opening of the dual bascule bridge, when we heard the Emerald Isle call to say that she was enterring the channel as well. The first photo show my view from the flybridge looking aft at the Emerald Isle, which is the ferry between Charlevoix and Beaver Island. It did concern me a little with the ferry rapidly approaching at our stern, and the bridge ahead of us was not yet starting to open. However, the bridge opened, and we cruised through with plenty of time to spare.
In the second photo (at left) we have cleared the bridge, and the Emerald Isle is approaching the bridge. Obviously, when the ferry slowed down, we had plenty of time to clear the bridge and safely get out of her way. Once through the bridge, the channel opens up into a small lake called Round Lake that essentially forms the harbor for Charlevoix. Round Lake opens on the other side into the much larger Lake Charlevoix.
In the photo at the right the Emerald Isle is passing through the bridge. She will turn to port (her left) and back into the dock parallel to the wall facing the viewer on the left. She is a stern load/unload vehicle as well as passenger ferry.
Our first view upon passing through the bridge (photo at left) was this hotel on our port (or left) side. we were o learn later that the hotel is actually a condo with individual owners of the rooms (or units), but the whole operations acts as a hotel that rents out the units as available.
As I have said before, we have heard a lot of good things about Charlevoix, and we are looking forward to checking it out during our two night stay here.The movie theatre, hardware store, outdoor amphitheater, several banks and the post office are less than three blocks from the marina. We have called ahead to Walgreens Pharmacy to pick up 90 day prescriptions for our upcoming 4 or so week trip in Canada where there are no Walgreens. Several of the prescriptions were not due for a refill for another week or 10 days, but they were able to get refills from the doctors, and they contacted our health care to get permission from them to pay early. We have used Walgreens on all of our travels, especially on the Great Loop, and we have had excellent service the majority of the time.
We are really interested in exploring "Charlevoix the Beautiful".
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