Day 2-279 passing Sleeping Bear Dunes on way to Frankfort, MI

     We left Leland at about 8:00 am for a trip of 41.1 miles to Frankfort in a light haze and a southerly breeze of about 8 mph. Normally this would be perfect weather, but there were residual seas from the west, which were left over from the storms 24 hours earlier. The rollers (or dead sea) were about 3 feet and caused us to roll from side to side for much of the trip. Several of our new Looper friends departed about the same time that we did and one of the boats had stabilizers that really kept them from rolling (Akasha, at right). Stabilizers are large rectangular fins that swivel about a central axis. There is one on either side about halfway between the bow and stern, and they are hydraulically controlled. They turn to apply pressure much like a rudder, but they are used to stop the side to side rolling motion. This was the first time that we had the opportunity to observe the results, and judging from our what we saw, they work very well. For now, we will add stabilizers to our wish list for when we win the lottery...

      Back on Day 2-272, we had driven to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on the Lake Michigan coast, and today about halfway through our trip we went past Sleeping Bear Dunes in Lucky Us. As we passed along the north end of the park we got great end or cross sectional views of the north-south trending dunes (picture at left).The dunes have a gentle slope on the upwind side and a steep face on the downwind side. These dunes have been stabilized by vegetation, and the bare face that we see has been cut by waves eroding at the base.

     In another mile we turned south to follow along parallel to the elongate dunes. This is the area where we visited by car. In the picture at the right there is an observation deck at the trees in the upper left. I posted several pictures from the top of the slope looking down the 300+ feet to the water. This view gives you a good idea just how steep the slope really is. The signs at the top warned how strenuous the climb back up the hill is, and they also warned that it is very expensive if you need to be rescued... Now you can see how strenuous a climb it would be with poor footing on the loose sand.

     It was fairly deep quite near the slope so we went in close to get good views of the fool hearty climbers. The picture at the left shows a slightly different view of the steep slope as seen from the flybridge on Lucky Us.

   The close up picture on the right shows some of the climbers resting on the beach and two groups in the process of climbing/crawling back up the slope. The people also serve as a convenient scale to show the huge size of the slope. On the boat at this position we would have been somewhere on the gentle west dipping (up wind) slope of the dune. Most of the dune has been removed by wave action, and we can see some near horizontal lines in the slope. These are the layers in the dune that are actually dipping gently toward us.

     Altogether we have seen the top by car and the bottom by boat. We got to do all of this without the exhausting climb in between. This works for me!  Personally, I think that this is also why helicopters were invented... Back in my ancient history of doing geological field work in the US and Canadian Rocky Mountains, I found it very much easier if one started at the top of a mountain with the aid of a helicopter and only had to walk down...

     There were sand dunes along the shore on most of today's trip. About 8 miles from the end of our trip we passed the Point Betsie Lighthouse (picture at left) and turned almost directly south to Frankfort. The lighthouse is protected by a steel break wall, and the slope is armored with concrete. The black "spots" on the concrete are steel plates designed to create turbulence in the waves that are running up the slope. The turbulence helps to slow the rushing water, and the circular slopes deflect the water around the lighthouse. Like the locals say, the storms here can be fierce.

   The picture at the right shows more of the dunes along the coast as we approach our destination of Frankfort. Like I said, it was a day for sand dunes...

     This is the light on the jetty as we were about to enter the harbor at Frankfort. The lighthouse was a welcome sight after 5 and a half hours of rocking back and forth, since you can see the calm water in the channel behind the jetty.

     After securing Lucky Us at the dock, we set off to explore the town. We had not gone very far before we were surprised to see this movie theater. Guess what? There was a movie stating in about 15 minutes. No, this was not planned but rather a lucky find. The inside had a wonderful painted art deco style, which had been restored largely by donated local labor. I particularly like the period style clock. We saw "A Most Wanted Man" with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. The movie was quite good but hardly uplifting. Anyway, the popcorn and drinks were refillable, although there was a small charge on the drink refills.

     After the movie we were pretty much too tired to tour much more of the town. The marina had a very nice park between the marina and the main street. The park had many kids enjoying all sorts of climbing, sliding and swinging. The local high school football team was selling BBQ dinners as a fund raiser, and the whole place was a wonderful family setting.

 The picture at the right shows some of the nicely restored downtown. Much of the original architecture seems to have been preserved, which added greatly to the setting.

   As we walked back to Lucky Us, we talked about how many great views that we had seen today. Great day!

Day 2-278 in Leland -scrubbing boat and also some fun

     We had lots of rain in the morning along with strong 15+ mph winds out on the lake. The rains stopped by late morning, and the winds died down over the afternoon. However, we had made the right decision by deciding to stay an extra day in Leland. I wrote and mailed post cards for the Grandkids while the Admiral caught up on paperwork. On the way back from the post office I got this great view of Fishtown looking out toward Lake Michigan in the background. 

      Given the uncertain weather we had lunch on board, but by mid-afternoon the Admiral decided that it was nice enough to scrub the exterior of Lucky Us. I put on my usual boat washing garb of swim suit and water socks along with a long sleeved shirt and sweatshirt to fend off some of the cool wind. We gave the flybridge a good scrubbing as well as the walkways around the salon on the main deck. It was at that point that my scrubbing muscles gave out.

One of our fellow Loopers had come by the boat earlier to invite us to "Docktails" with a bunch of the Loopers at 5:00 pm. We got out our trusty collapsible chairs and headed out to join them. It turned out that we did not have far to go since it was on the dock behind the boat in the slip next to us. There were a total of 13 people from 6 boats. We had fun exchanging stories about our adventures so far on the Great Loop. One of the couples had even built their own 28 foot boat especially for the Loop. Around 7:00 pm, someone wisely suggested that it was time for dinner. We ended up with 8 people (picture at left) at the Cove Restaurant in Fishtown. Altogether it was a very fun evening, and for the Admiral and I it was our very first docktails on the Loop. Until we reached Mackinaw City we had seen very few other Loopers since we were out of synch with the general schedule that most Loopers follow. Now it seems, there are lots of Loopers in every marina that we stay at. The view behind out table is out the Fishtown channel.

From the other side of the dining room, I got this great picture of the dam at the end of the Fishtown channel. As you can see, there is a lot of water coming over that small dam. As a result, the restaurant was quite loud with the background noise from the spillway.

     We stopped at an overlook to see the sunset on our way back to our boats . Not the greatest sunset picture, but many of us could see our boats in the marina in the foreground as we watched the sunset.

     Obviously the skies have really cleared and the wind was under 5 mph so we hope to be on the water again tomorrow headed to Frankfort, MI. We will know for sure when we check the forecasts in the morning.

Day 2-277 to Leland, MI - finally headed south again

     We left Northport at 9:45 am since the (Friday) Farmers Market did not open until 9:00 am. I got lucky again and got to sleep in once more. I am beginning to like these mid-week farmers markets that do not open until later. According to one of the vendors, he goes to 5 different towns each week for farmers markets so they must have a regular "tour".

    ...and so we said goodbye to Northport, Michigan. Yet another pretty little small town (picture at left shows part of downtown). Our trip to Leland, MI was 29.4 miles by water, but it was much shorter in "crow" miles. After 7 miles going north we rounded the point between Grand Traverse Bay and the west coast of Michigan and headed south. After going about 6 miles south, we were only a little over 3 miles west of Northport.

      However, once we rounded the point and headed south to Leland, we had large rollers from the west that were left over from a storm two days ago. Good news/bad news. The wind was 5 to 8 mph out of the south with waves less than 1 foot, the rolling old seas from the west were large enough to rock (side to side) Lucky Us for the whole part of the trip in Lake Michigan. The quiet water inside the harbor at Leland was a very welcome sight (picture at right).

      Leland is an old fishing town, and it has a nicely restored area along the river that is known as "Fishtown". The flow of water in the old channel is quite swift after it passes over a small dam that separates Fishtown (and Lake Michigan) from a large inland lake. In the picture at the left you can see how closely the small buildings are to both each other and to the water.

     Part of fishtown is still operating commercial fishing businesses. The "Janice Sue" is a working gill net fish boat.  There were several others on my side of the river and judging from the strong fishy odor, they were also currently working fishing boats. You could buy both fresh perch, salmon and whitefish, as well as smoked whitefish. I really enjoyed this rather quaint little area, and the hundreds of tourists evidently did as well.

      There were (displays?) fish nets drying on rollers, where they could also be repaired by hand (picture at left). The individual nets were only 10 or 15 feet high and about 100 feet long. They would have bottom weights to sink to the bottom and the tops were held up by buoys. The nets would be strung together to be a mile or so long.

     There were numerous small shops and several restaurant/bars crowded into this very small area (several are in the picture at right).  I really liked the ladder on the wall that appeared to lead to a second floor apartment. The buildings were so randomly arranged that I kept losing sight of the Admiral, but sooner or later she would pop out of a shop or come around a corner.

     We only toured part of the downtown, but we could not resist going into this store, which was called Hullabaloo. I even took a picture (at left) for our Aggie friends.  Once inside, I did buy some post cards to send to the Grandkids.  We also found an excellent restaurant called the Bluebird for an early dinner. The restaurant was more upscale, so we chose to eat in the tavern with a more diverse menu. Having never had clam strips, I made the mistake of ordering them...  Let me tell you that fortunately the side salad and the French fries were really good. Lesson learned???

     This is the first marina where we have encountered a lot of boats that are doing the Great Loop, and just walking down the dock, they would see our Great Loop burgee and stop to say hello.

     We ended the day with a lovely sunset over the breakwater and Lake Michigan.

     We will be checking the weather closely both tonight and early tomorrow. At the moment the predictions are for stronger winds and lots of rain in the morning.

Day 2-276 to Northport, MI almost out of Grand Traverse Bay

     Lucky Us was moored on the backside of the fuel dock so we were able to get a pump out (after moving about 3 feet forward) before leaving the dock this morning. Technically, that made the world a safer place since I did one fewer docking/undocking today...  Just kidding.

     We left the dock at 9:00 am for the trip northward up the west side of Grand Traverse Bay. The weather prediction was very accurate with 10-15 mph winds out of the north and 1+ foot waves for the first third of the trip in the West Arm of the bay. When we got out of the West Arm and into the big bay itself, the waves picked up to 3 to 4 feet also as predicted. Fortunately, most of the waves were more in the 3 foot range, and we were going virtually straight into to waves so there was little rolling (side to side) motion. During this kind of weather, we tend to hold on more and take fewer bathroom breaks.

     The last 5 miles was calmer as we turned more westward to enter the more protected area around Northport. If we had continued northward into Lake Michigan, the forecast there was for waves as high as 6 feet. THAT is definitely out of our comfort range.
     The picture at the right shows the entrance to the marina from the inside, and it also shows the beautiful blue sky that we had all day. It is very well protected from virtually all wind directions. We waited until after we arrived at 12:50 pm to have lunch, and the Admiral made one of her delicious salads, which satisfied even my large appetite. After lunch we re-tied the dingy on the stern davits. It has a tendency in larger waves to move around as the big waves come out under the stern and try to lift it. Then (you guessed it), it was nap time.

     We headed into the small town about 4:30 pm. There is a beautiful, waterfront park next to the marina, and as luck would have it, there is a farmer's market there in the morning (on Friday). The picture on the left shows the park and a small bridge over a creek that connects the marina to the park. Hmmmmm. I guess that I will get to sleep in tomorrow morning while the Admiral checks out the farmer's market. That works for me.




    For a town with less than 500 year round residents it had 5 nice looking restaurants. We had dinner at the Garage Bar & Grill. In an extremely rare event we both chose tandoori  chicken salad. It was very tasty and not too heavily seasoned. For both of us, it brought back memories of our times spent in Qatar, which has an incredible breadth of restaurants, including wonderful Indian food.

     The picture at the right shows the marina's beautiful new clubhouse on the shore side. The original marina was built about 60 years ago, but the harbor was recently renovated, including new docks and clubhouse.

     We will need to check the weather in the morning to see if Lake Michigan has quieted down some as predicted. If conditions permit we will go out into Lake Michigan and head south to Leland, MI for a total trip of almost 30 miles.

Days 2-274-275 a sad start to 2 days in Traverse City, MI

     Unfortunately after 12 days (11 nights), it was time for Seaman 3rd Class Ann to return home (and even worse for her, to return to work next week). We had come to Traverse City a day early, not to get rid of Ann, but to extend her adventure on the water by a few miles.

While she was with us, we travelled 243.2 miles on Lucky Us from Alpena in northeast Michigan through the Straits of Mackinac to Traverse City on the northwest side.

Before she departed, we held an impromptu promotion ceremony, where the Admiral promoted her to Chief Petty Officer and presented her with an official "Lucky Us" cap. It really was a fun time with her aboard, and who knows, maybe she will come back again some day???

   The second picture is the congratulatory hug from the Captain (that's me in case you had forgotten).

     Then it was off for a 1.5 hour drive to Gaylord in the center of the state where she had left her vehicle. Befitting the sad occasion, we had rain during much of the drive.






     We went to two more movies over the next day and a half:
    1. Sex Tape - funny, but...   We stopped at the mall theater on the way back from Gaylord, MI. Remember the rain? Well, I think that the entire populace of Traverse City decided to go to a movie on a gloomy, rainy day. We had planned to see this movie "sometime", but the other movies that we wanted to see were all sold out. Hard to believe since there were at least 6 other people in the theater with us (?).
    2. The Hundred-Foot Journey - This completed our trifecta of "chef" movies and was really enjoyable. We had dropped the rent car off at the Traverse City Airport on the way to the movie. Then we took a city bus to the mall theater and later took another bus back to downtown (and Lucky Us). The weather was good so we had no trouble getting tickets this time.

    We got back to Lucky Us about 6:00 pm. After a little rest, we decided that "we" would rather walk the short distance to a downtown restaurant rather than eat on the boat. Well, another long but fun day in Traverse City. The weather forecast for tomorrow looks acceptable to head north to Northport just at the mouth of Traverse Bay. We will not be going any further than Northport tomorrow since the winds (15-20 mph) and waves (3-5 feet) forecast for Lake Michigan are at the top end of our comfort range. However, we will check again in the morning to see whether we depart or go back to sleep.

Day 2-273 Elk Rapids to Traverse City

     With higher winds and up to 2 inches of rain predicted for tomorrow, we departed Elk Rapids today, which was a day earlier than planned. HOWEVER, there was one big difference in today's trip...  If you remember, the Admiral had ridden her bike to Traverse City to pick up a rental car, and thus, she remained at the dock as Seaman 3rd Class Ann and I took the boat out. She was the designated driver of the rent car to the marina in Traverse City. I must admit that it really felt strange waving goodbye to the Admiral as we backed out of our slip. Ann had been learning how to handle and stow the lines, but this was her first solo performance. She performed quite well with fending the boat off of the pilings, etc.

     We departed about 9:00 am for the 28.0 mile trip to Traverse City and arrived about 12:45 pm. The Admiral took the picture at the left as we went out in the channel. As the crow flies it is only about a 13 mile trip, but we had to go north and around the peninsula that divides southern Traverse Bay into the East and West Arms. So we went north about 9 miles and then west for several miles around the point before we could head south directly to Traverse City. The sky was grey, but the temperature was just above 70 with a 5-8 mph breeze out of the north. It was far from our best day on the water, but it was much better than the 20+ mph winds with 2-3 foot seas that are predicted for tomorrow.

     As we were going west around the tip of the peninsula, I heard my phone ring. I had been taking pictures of the Old Mission Point Lighthouse at the tip of the peninsula, and the Admiral was calling from in front of the lighthouse. It was quite shallow for nearly 2 miles out from the point so the photo at the right is not very clear so you would need a very good imagination to actually see the Admiral standing there waving at Lucky Us.

     She took some nice pictures of the "rock art" that locals had created in the shallow water (picture at left and below) in front of the old lighthouse.

     As I said earlier, it is very shallow for a long way north off the point, and the art works extend some distance out into the water. It is too shallow for real waves to reach the rocks, but they were very well placed or stacked to withstand the strong winds that would hit them. To be stable each rock must have at least 3 points of contact so they have to be moved around to achieve this for each additional rock. It is not easy, and some of the stacks are quite elaborate.

     We arrived off the Clinch Marina at the same time as 3 other boats. Also, I slowed down for the last mile to allow time for the boat that was in our slip to depart. This allowed for time to enjoy the beauty of this gaff rigged two-masted schooner that had almost finished putting up her sails.  They had quite a crowd on board for their trip. However, in about 15 minutes as we were just finishing the docking process, it started to drizzle so that might have put a bit of a damper on their fun cruise (?).

Anyway, she was a beautiful sight to add to our list of unexpected wonderful sights on the trip.

     The docking process went very well with the Admiral, who had already arrived, there to help catch and tie the mooring lines. For some unknown (to me) reason, Seaman 3rd Class Ann seemed to be very happy when we were safely tied up and the engines had been shut down....  At least, she did not run down the dock and kiss the ground.

   The Admiral had prepared lunch for us to have on board during the trip. That meant that the only thing left to do after checking in with the marina was to take a nap.  We headed into town to see a 4:15 pm movie at the nicely restored State Theater. Notice the "It's not confusing at all" on the sign. They were indeed showing the movie "Chef" at 7:00 pm, and we were going to see the movie "Le Chef". We had seen the "Chef" several months ago during its first run, and as it turns out "Le Chef" is in French with subtitles. Now, we have now enjoyed watching both "cooking" movies. We plan to complete the cooking movie trifecta soon when we see the new movie "The Hundred-Foot Journey". I never would have thought that I would watch 3 chef/cooking movies in the same year. Traverse City has a 10 year old movie festival that draws large crowds including stars, executives to this lovely little town. They have 6 indoor venues ranging from 35 seats to 500. There is also an outdoor theater adjacent to the marina, and they have recently added a "floating" theater on a large trimaran that sails out in the bay.
     After the movie, we set out along the main street looking for a restaurant where we could have a very light dinner after all of the movie popcorn. Of course, we did visit a few stores until we selected a restaurant. Then we had a 30 minute wait for a table so we "hit" two more stores while we waited.

   After dinner, it was a very tired group that walked through this tunnel under the main highway on our way back to the boat...

The picture below shows her relaxing in her (not very) luxurious quarters. Like the rest of us, she is trying valiantly to stay awake until 10:00 pm. so she won't be up before the Sun.  Good luck...

Days 271-272 in Elk Rapids, MI -having fun!

Two full days in Elk Rapids starting with:
Day 1.
     We headed to town about 9:30 am for some shopping. We ended up having an early lunch in downtown. The first restaurant that we chose was (emphatically) serving only breakfast until Noon so we found another nearby. We got back to Lucky Us about 12:30 pm, and we unloaded the "bikes". We set off on a back road about 1.5 miles south of Elk River to the "Art Park". The park is a do it yourself walking tour along a path with fairly dense tree cover. Perhaps it was just perfect timing, but the sun lit the "Lotus" perfectly in this tiny clearing. The figure seated in the Lotus position is carved in Spruce (and coated with epoxy (?) to protect it from the elements.

     Altogether, there were 16 pieces of art along the trail, and the park itself is along about a half mile of public beach that was totally uninhabited while we were there.

     One very unusual piece of art was actually partway out on the beach (photo at left). The work is titled "Singing Pail of Dreams", and the shovels and the half buried beach basket are made if stainless steel. The Admiral is holding a shovel for scale in the picture. Since the inside is shaded, it was difficult to photograph, but if I had my own beach, I would love to have this as a cabana, but I would skip the shovels since they would be a little heavy... In case you have not gathered it, this was one of my personal favorites!

   Another simple but very graceful piece was "Sail Form". It was also along the edge of the beach and easier to photograph.

     I skipped several of the pieces, but the Admiral (Terry) and Seaman 3rd Class (Ann) claim to have visited all of the pieces.

     We all met back at the parking lot for some water, and then we bid "Goodbye" to the Admiral as she started off on her electric assisted bike to the Traverse City Airport about 16.5 miles south. She had reserved a rental car there for pick up at about 3:00 pm. She had a safe, if somewhat hilly, trip with several stops for water (and to check the map on her I-Pad). This was her longest trip on the bike, but she said that the electric assist was especially useful on the uphill portions of the trip. The bike folds up nicely for storing in a cars trunk. Anyway, about 2.5 hours after she left us at the park, she arrived safely back at Lucky Us.

     We decided on a late afternoon swim, and of course, even though we had a rental car, the Admiral insisted that we walk about a half mile to the beach.... Show off!

     I tried to get the ladies to take my photograph as proof that I had finally had a swim in Lake Michigan, but there were no takers??? The various reports that I saw put the lake temperature at 64 or 66, but the water was really shallow so it might well have been a little warmer. The Admiral and I probably spent 15+ minutes in the water while Ann perhaps chose the wiser course by just wading along the shore.

Day 2.

      We headed west in the rental car at about 9:00 am for a visit to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Our trip took across the southern end of the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay to the shore of Lake Michigan. Then we headed north along the coast with Lake Michigan to the left and Grand Traverse Bay a short distance to the east. Thus, we were travelling along a narrow peninsula-like strip of land that ended when Grand Traverse Bay opened into Lake Michigan. Along the last 8 or so miles of the Lake Michigan coast lies the Sleeping Bear Dunes. One of the first sights was this reproduction of a wooden bridge done by the National Park Service. It looked realistic enough, but most of the wooden bridges that I have seen were fairly narrow one-lane bridges.

     What makes this park unusual is that there are large areas where the dunes have not been stabilized by vegetation. The picture at left is a view looking north with Lake Michigan on the left. The very steep slope down to the water has been formed by erosion by waves at the base of the sand. The top of the sand has been partially stabilized by vegetation, and we are perhaps 300 feet above the lake at this point.

     The picture at the right was taken from about the same place as the one above. However, this picture is taken looking down the slope (to the west) at the water below. For scale, the larger of the two boats is a 58 foot Hatteras yacht that we had been docked next to in Mackinaw City. You can also see people (tiny "dots") on the slope. These people are learning the hard way about how easy it is go down a sandy slope like this and how hard a climb it is back up! Several people had given up trying to walk/climb up in an upright position and were crawling up the slope on all fours...

     The views from on top were often quite good. The picture at the left shows where Lake Michigan meets Grand Traverse Bay (in the middle). Most of the small "hills and valleys" that you see are probably dunes or dune related features that have been stabilized by vegetation. We did drive north to the lighthouse (and chapel) at the north end. At that point we decided that we were long overdue on a lunch stop. The Admiral found a town just a few miles away with several restaurants. The one that we chose had a waiting list to sit outside, but by then we were more than happy to sit inside in air conditioned comfort. I had a perch sandwich with genuine imported (from Canada) perch. The sandwich was so full of perch that I ate 2 full filets before actually eating the sandwich.

    We got back home to Lucky Us about 3:00 pm, which was just in time for a nap... We had dinner on board, and headed to town for some evening shopping. We had agreed earlier that we would end this excursion with a visit to an ice cream parlor. We found one that was open but actually trying to close up (we got there at 8:57 pm). As we walked out the door, the owner, who had been waiting outside, locked the door behind us. We were so happy to get the ice cream that none of us actually realized that the servings were very small until after we got outside. Oh well, we were all so tired that we were happy to be headed back to a much needed early bedtime. When we got back to Lucky Us we were pleasantly surprised to find her rocking away in a 10 mph wind on the beam (side). Ah, yes. We were all rocked to sleep ...