It’s 7 AM in the channel out of South Haven to Lake Michigan.

We spent two nights in South Haven, but the second day (Saturday) there was rain pretty much all the time, so we didn’t go into town and missed the farmers market. The big lake was still said to be pretty calm, so we left Sunday morning at 7 for Chicago 70 miles across, in a straight line. The first half was calm while the second half was just a bit of rocking from low beam waves. It wasn’t bad, but never seems as calm as I anticipate from the weather and wave forecasts.

Boats going to fish on Sunday passed ours in the dark before we left. We saw them our first few miles out. Notice near the bottom that I changed course to keep us and our wake further from other boats. Each circle is .5 miles out.

Most of the trip was a little foggy, but visibility was more than a mile, so the radar was not really necessary. Unlike NYC, where we saw our destination within 20 miles, we had to get within a mile or so before anything of Chicago appeared. Near Chicago visibility was good enough that radar was not required, but just. Once we got within the first breakwater things got pretty busy. Many boats going in different directions. We had to change course or slow down several times.

Hundreds of boats on mooring balls greeted us within the second breakwater. There was a none too wide channel to get past all of them and into DuSable Marina, where we docked about as close to the Loop as a boat can get.

We’ve not seen Chicago before except one night out I had years ago when doing a trade show here, so we intend to stay a few days and see the sights.

Entrance in the first breakwater of the Chicago harbor.

Exiting the channel from the Harbortown Marina into Lake Muskegon. It’s a major marina in a large basin in a large town. You wouldn’t guess that from its entrance channel.

We arrived back in Muskegon around 5 PM, took a look at the weather (2 feet or less) and decided to leave south the next day. We left at 7:30 for South Haven and found the water a bit more bumpy than the rosy picture I saw on the forecasts. It was definitely a sit down trip. Sue just went down and had a long nap in our bedroom the back of the boat. Bouncing from the waves is least there.

The channel between Lake Muskegon and Lake Michigan is not crowded this Friday morning.

I had the watch in 1 – 3 foot waves. Not much happens a mile offshore and very few boats are around. It would be nice to catch up on my reading but I start getting seasick if I do. Keeping watch out on the horizon seems to prevent that, or cure it if I feel it coming on. I’ll be glad to be back on more protected waterways.

We arrived in South Haven and were all tied up by 2. We’re in a municipal marina again and so are right at the somewhat touristy old downtown. Sue found a place to get her hair cut and I found an old bookstore. There are more benches than usual on the sidewalks downtown. That might be due to the town wide wi fi system. That worked nicely in the several places I tried it. Who needs Starbucks when you can sit down anyplace in town?

Main Street in South Haven. A bit of our marina shows at the end of the street.

I’m writing this on the day after coming to South Haven (Saturday), and it looks like rain most of the day. It’s a very gentle no wind rain, so it’s easy to go out with just an umbrella. There is a farmer’s market we originally planned attending this morning. We may still go later today.

Weather looks calm for a number of days. Think we’ll go over to Chicago and dock near downtown and see the sights there. Hopefully there will be more to see than Detroit.

Sue with the Leonardo Da Vince Horse at Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids. A great stop on the way back

When we arrived at Muskegon we checked the weather and decided the boat would stay there for several days at the least. I finished writing the posts up to the day after arriving at Muskegon (Sunday 23), but we decided to leave for Detroit that day. I could not finish and post this several other entries with pictures until we returned yesterday.

Some of our last minute trips could be better planned. We arrived in Detroit and had all of Monday to take in the sights. We forgot that most museums, and certainly all museums in downtown Detroit, were closed on Monday. That left everything else to see, which in Detroit turns out to be not very much. We saw the Guardian building and Renaissance Center, General Motors headquarters. We rode the People Mover and visited the whole block long single street that made up Greektown.

While interesting, Downtown Detroit is certainly not a tourist destination. Tuesday morning we left our hotel and went to the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn. This really was worth seeing. We met Marty and Cheryl there and took the Ford Rouge factory tour with them. Auto assembly plants were the main thing I came east to see and we got a good several hour tour watching various places along the assembly line from a catwalk above as Ford F250 pickups were assembled by people and robots.

GM Headquarters. Interesting if the museums aren’t open.

That night we stayed with Marty and Cheryl up near Flint. The next day we woke determined to see another car factory. While theoretically other tours were available, Marty had made a number of calls at various factories and could never connect with anyone. Since there was a large GM plant that assembled pickups in Flint we just went there to see what might happen. In an employee parking lot we asked a few questions and were directed to another area to try our luck.

We went in and talked to the security guard at the desk. No organized tours there, but she did make a call and Debbie came out. Debbie did take groups on tours occasionally and had nothing pressing at the moment. By chance someone visiting from Aruba walked in then and wanted a tour as well. He had just bought a new GMC pickup. When Marty said he owns a fairly new Chevrolet pickup Debbie thought we deserved a tour and gave us a great one for several hours right on the factory floor. It stretched past lunch hour when many of the line workers ate lunch right there, so we could ask them questions as we went by. This was better than the previous tour. We saw everything but the painting, a robotic operation where no one goes in. Sorry no pictures. They were not allowed.

It was nice of them to do that for us even though the guard noticed that I drove us there in a Hyundai, the only non GM car in the lot. I explained it was a rental for which I had no choice, and was graciously let off the hook. We were wondering about the other guy. Where would he drive a heavy duty pickup in Aruba?

With Marty, Cheryl, their daughter Kendra and her two sons in Davison.

We stayed another night with Marty and Cheryl and had a great time getting to know them and some of their kids who we had heard about over the years. We left Thursday and visited the Meijer gardens, and the Costco, in Grand Rapids on our way back to the boat.

Leaving the Manistee harbor as we started toward Muskegon

Last night one of my apps said wave height outside the Manistee marina right then was 3.3 feet while outside at Muskegon was 1.3 feet. That seemed to promise that things could be easier down south.

The forecast was waves 2 – 4 feet all day today. I think we saw the 2 this morning and the 4 later today. We did not get away from Manistee until 7:30. Lake Michigan seems different and I haven’t seen great advantage in starting at the earliest part of the morning here. We arrived in Muskegon at 3:30.

We joined the boat parade into Muskegon Lake. Most active inlet we’ve seen.

What a place! As we approached the channel we saw many sailboats out in the big lake enjoying this good weather day. There was a lot of traffic coming into the channel. Some of the sailboats insist on taking it under sail, making them a bit harder to avoid. At channel right just before Lake Muskegon is the WWII submarine USS Silversides. As well as an older coast guard ship and associated museum. The channel exited into Lake Muskegon which is over 2 by 5 miles and was just full of boats moving in every direction.

A typical inlet to a harbor we passed today. Note the public beach to the left. These are often beside inlets.

There were many marinas around the lake’s edges, but ours, Harbour Towne Marina was in its own basin which had it’s own channel off Lake Muskegon. So no current and little wind made for easy docking.

We’re almost certain stay here a few days due to weather, and we are a few miles from any downtown so we will rent a car tomorrow.

A 4 wheel drive hill climb rally was happening here. They seemed to need a running start to make it.

Note added on Sunday: Waves are forecast 5 – 7 feet, with maybe 10% up to 9 feet tomorrow thru Monday. The ferry across to Wisconsin didn’t run today. It’s amazing how much better a car drives than a boat on a day like today.

I drove through a part of Muskegon on the way back from the car rental office. A really interesting and very boat oriented town. This has got to be one of the largest recreational boat areas on the Michigan coast.

Sand dunes along the way. The entire west coast of Michigan is this way so far.

We bravely left Leland this morning and headed for Manistee. The NOAA predicted wave heights grew from 2 – 3 feet last night to 2 – 4 feet this morning. The wind was down from 30 last night to 15 mph by our measurement. Weather underground said it was 16 mph last night and 7 this morning. I’ve still got some learning to do concerning how to use all this weather reporting information. At least the waves weren’t crashing over the breakwater like yesterday.

We got the lines and fenders arranged, used the bathroom and both got our seats topside before we left the marina breakwater, because once we were in that stuff nobody was walking anywhere. We’d already moved things that might fall off a shelf or table to the floor. One cupboard door did open in the kitchen and some dishes were on the floor, but only two broke.

Waves today were the roughest we’ve seen this season and equal to Albemarle Sound last year. They were head on or nearly so, so there was less roll than there might have been, but a lot of the bow rising on one wave and then crashing right into the second.

We passed several inlets to harbors. Most are 20 – 30 miles apart.

Fortunately things calmed a little (not a lot) later and we could use the bathroom and get some fruit to eat. Next time we’ll prepare some sandwiches in advance for lunch. Forgot that today.

We did pass by Sleeping Bear dunes and saw them from the lake side. They’re not the only dunes. Along the way we saw more hills coming up to the water’s edge today, and all of them were sand.

After 60 miles we arrived at Manistee. In size it’s between Leland and Traverse Bay. It has a nice old downtown that is very pleasant, but would be nicer if there were fewer vacant buildings.

Sue stopped to watch the TV weather in one downtown store. They said “Winter is coming early, if you want to go boating or do something outdoors tomorrow (Saturday) will be your last chance until maybe Thursday next week.” Sure enough, when I checked my weather apps this evening tomorrow looks on the edge of doable while the next number of days are out of the question.

So it looks like no resting here, we’ll be off early in the morning. We’re shooting for Muskegon, 80 miles to the south. It’s a long trip, but we may be stuck there awhile, and that’s the first place since Traverse City where we can rent a car. If we can’t boat, we’ll drive across Michigan to Marty and Cheryl’s. We want to tour some car assembly plants and see the Henry Ford museum.

The Ferry boat was the only one leaving today. It’s considerably larger than us but had a wild ride.

We’re on our third day in Leland. Our wind gauge is steady at 30 mph. The boat is rocking quite a lot. It’s good to have a handhold if standing, Sue says she feels a bit green when she is up and about and we’re still tied up at the dock! If we were outside the breakwater we’d really be rocking.

The boat rub rail is against a piling making continual squeaking noises. It doesn’t hurt the boat any but is annoying. If I could shorten the lines on the windward side I could stop that, but they are way too tight from the steady wind to attempt that. We’ll just have to rub.

Little of our traveling before now has been weather limited. We have sat out a few days because of rain or winds. Rain just makes it more unpleasant for us, but doesn’t affect how the boat goes. We had not seen any really high winds. A regular stiff wind certainly affects docking the boat, but does not impact travel much. We just zip up the isinglass to avoid it in our faces and go on. When it gets too cold we go downstairs. That’s only happened twice that I remember, and then only for a few hours each time.

On Lake Michigan things are different. There are many days, like yesterday and today, with waves of 5 feet or more that are bigger than we want to take on without having some stabilization. The boat should take it OK, but we might not, and anything not screwed down would be off the tables and counters and maybe out of the shelves and onto the floor. Boats our size or smaller usually sit these days out. With worse weather it’s not hard to get 20 foot waves that might sink a boat our size. The last time they had those conditions in this area was August 2.

One of Paul’s last pictures. Rain off and on. Wind came up and stayed up our second day here.

We’ve been out in the town a bit, but periodic wind and rain is keeping us on the boat also. The local “Mercantile” is the only grocery store and is pretty complete if a bit higher priced, so Sue and I can get our shopping done and be ready for hopefully better weather tomorrow.

There is a lot in this small town. Marty and I look at a preserved and still used fishing village. The boat is lat 1800’s.

The first night in Traverse City I noticed that while good weather was coming the next day, winds would be coming up for some time after that. The predicted wave heights would also come up. I didn’t like being 30 miles down in a bay so far away from the main lake. If I were to leave and conditions were too bad to go on, I wouldn’t know about it first hand until we had travelled three hours and were somewhat committed to continuing.

Since the next day was to be good, we all decided that getting out and around the point to Leland was the best option. The nearest other refuges are here in Traverse Bay and 40 miles south of Leland at Frankfort.

Later in the season and a bit further south both caused daylight to come a little later. Six fifteen was our new early leaving time. We were out of the bay by 9:30 and got to Leland easily before noon with very little rough stuff.

A boat in a preserved rescue station. We saw demonstrations and equipment they used at the turn of the century.

Leland is very small, but has an interesting preserved and still used fishing village next to the marina. Except for the small stream where the few fishing boats have always parked there is no natural harbor, so breakwaters were built with big rocks to form a harbor of refuge.

We all came in early and Marty and Cheryl had their van, so we soon headed for the Sleeping Bear sand dunes. These dunes at 450 feet above the lake level are some of the highest hills in Michigan. The slope steeply and very straight from their top down to Lake Michigan. It’s hard to believe sand can hold a slope that steep.

Sleeping Bear dunes. The vertical drop from here to the lake is 450 feet. Its all just a pile of sand.

Leland is a nice town to be stuck in. We may be here awhile.

The Charlevoix bridge opens for us at 8 AM.

After two days in Charlevoix we travelled south to Traverse City. Traverse City is at the south end of the 30 mile long Traverse Bay. The NOAA weather site said 2 – 3 foot waves (last night when we were planning this it said 2 foot or less) but we went anyway since we would not be in the rough water for long. Once we left the Charlevoix channel only the first 13 miles of our trip would be in open Lake Michigan waters. The last 30 miles would be protected in the bay.

The first part of the trip was certainly grab a handhold or two if you were to stand or walk, but nothing unusual, and we were able to keep the waves from hitting beam on. We did see a some coast up close at times, but much of the time were kept off by various shallow areas shown on the charts.

The last 30 miles was calm and easy and we came to the harbor at the end of the bay by noon. One reason we were there was that it is the last place to rent a car for Paul and Sharon until we get 3 (or more, depending on weather) days to the south. Sharon and Paul were leaving with Marty and Cheryl to visit them and other relations in the eastern part of Michigan before flying back home, so the trip from Charlevoix to here was the last for all of them.

Front Street in Traverse City. Interesting downtown. Largest we’ve seen in the US since Canada.

Traverse city is the largest town we have yet visited in Michigan. It has an interesting main street (Front St.) just a block up from the marina. We plan two nights here.

Charlevoix and Round Lake. Lake Michigan to the left and Charlevoix Lake to the right.

Charlevoix turned out to be an interesting town. Michigan tries to have a marina every 30 miles along its west coast, so if weather and waves kick up on Lake Michigan a boat is never more than 15 miles from safety. Some of these harbors are made and some, like Charlevoix, are natural with just a canal inlet added.

There are marinas out on the much larger Charlevoix Lake, but our marina is on the west shore of round lake. We’re on the third of four docks down. The downtown main street runs north – south immediately to the left of the marina and park. I wonder if some of the other towns and marinas will be this nice.

Dancing on the stage to a local band at the park at the marina. Downtown is across the street.

The chart as well as the radar located this lighthouse (no light!). We only saw it briefly off the side as we passed.

The northern Lake Michigan Monday forecast was two foot or less waves and 3 to 4 mph winds. That promised such smooth sailing with just 50 miles to go that we didn’t bother to get up at 5 and leave at 6 like usual, but rose at 7:30. No pictures of sunrises this morning, but we were off by 8:30.

We headed straight for the south tower of the famous Mackinac bridge and passed a few feet from it, just south of the main span. We went west to the lighthouses at the northwestern extreme of southern Michigan and then turned south through a channel between them. We sailed south and immediately came into a fog with visibility of 500 feet. It wasn’t deep top to bottom because the sunlight came through enough to make things pretty bright. That lit up the fog around us and so it didn’t improve visibility, but did make for a very pleasant fog. All we saw all around us was a sea of white. It was nice to have the radar.

We went right by the base of the south tower.

We saw very few boats except Flight Plan, a large catamaran sail boat. We saw them on the radar, that is. They called us to warn of their presence. We both were going south, but they were going 5 mph to our 10 and asked us to watch to avoid overrunning them. They were the first boat I’ve run into that had AIS receive only, so they could see our direction, speed and everything about us. They had no radar, however. Without AIS transmit they were concerned we would not see them. They described where they were relative to us and we easily found a splotch on the radar to match. Of course I was not about to run over a radar splotch whether I knew what it was or not, but they didn’t know I had radar running until we talked.

It was fun to be able to play with the radar again. I altered our course to take us within a tenth of a mile as we passed them. We had to get right across from them before we could just barely make them out. Had we not been looking we would have missed them. That’s how I know the visibility was 500 feet.

Entering the channel from Lake Michigan a few minutes before 2:30.

Not what I wanted to see. A large boat closer to the bridge than me. 

The channel into the lake at Charlevoix is not terribly wide and has heavy traffic when the drawbridge across it opens every half hour, so I was happy the fog lifted before we approached its entrance. We hung around with a few other larger boats and started in just before 2:30. As the bridge raised a large ferry boat came around the corner on its other side. The channel was large enough for us and it, but without much extra space. The bigger boats tend not to slow down for anything, and this time was no exception. Fortunately the captain was accustomed to the bend in the channel where we met and made it without unduly sticking out either end of his boat.

We’re here two nights. Looks like an interesting place.