Sunday, August 8, 2010

Big Waves & Big Dunes

Lake Michigan was quite cantankerous this past week, we ended up spending 3 nights in Leland waiting for the waves to settle down. The beaches on this shore of the Lake continue to amaze us, with their fine sand and turquoise water. Here's the beach just north of Leland.
Five Looper boats had come in that day and all reported that they had gotten pretty whipped around. We had a Looper gathering that evening and the next day they all headed south. The predictions didn't seem that bad and we were getting anxious to go ... so off we went. We passed by Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, with its huge pristine sand dunes.
The waves were 2-3 feet, some larger, and that is about as big as we care to be in. After hearing the wave height reports from the Looper boats ahead of us, Eschaton turned back, but we went on. It was a pretty uncomfortable ride, hanging on with both hands, but the sun was out and Shingebiss handled it well. We passed by Betsie Point Lighthouse ...

... and these humongous sand cliffs just before our destination of Frankfort.

We were happy to enter the breakwater and the short man made cut into protected Betsie Lake.

The City Marina was full so we dropped the anchor just a short distance away in hopes of getting into the marina today. But no one left the marina and the few boats that ventured out from the other marinas (including a 60+' tour boat) almost all turned back as the seas were higher today. We took the dinghy out to (but not through) the breakwater this morning, where I snapped dozens of pictures just to get this perfect shot of the waves breaking over the wall.

On the north side of the breakwater are the dunes in the panoramic above with this beach at the base. The folks in the water look tiny in the big waves.

Even in the protected basin, the boat has been bouncing around since we got here. It's late afternoon and its finally settling down. Predictions for the coming week are for the waves to be 1-2 feet on some of the weather web sites that we monitor and less than 1 foot on others. We like to see that !!! Frankfort has a lovely park adjacent to the marina and we're getting ready to take the dinghy in for a Looper dinner gathering this evening and plan to move on tomorrow. We're sure Eschaton will catch up in a day or two.

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