Monroe Harbor, Chicago

Good ol' Lake Michigan had to show us one more time who's the boss around here with 2-3 foot waves when only one foot were predicted. Oh well, it was our last day on the big water and it was a memorable one.

The Chicago skyline can be seen at about 20 miles out ... here's what we saw about 5 miles out.

We came into Monroe Harbor on a Sunday, the final day of the Chicago Air and Water Show. Our assigned mooring ball was right on the edge of the wide entrance that splits the North and South Harbors. After securing the boat to the mooring ball, we were hopeful that the wave action would smooth out. It seemed like every boat in the harbor was out for the day and as they all came back in the wakes continued to rock us almost as if we were still out on the Lake. We've been in several mooring fields on this trip and this is the first one that was NOT a "no wake" zone.

We had a great view of Buckingham Fountain right from the boat.

By dark, both the wind and the boat wakes settled down as we enjoyed the lights of the spectacular Chicago skyline. The next morning, we launched the dinghy and took some pictures of Shingebiss on her mooring ball.

To go ashore, however, we opted to use the Monroe Tender service and be picked up at our boat. These nimble little double ended tenders run around the harbor from 7 am 'til 3 am bringing boaters out and back to their moored boats. We found the service to be efficient and friendly.

Our first stop ashore was Millenium Park, built in 2004. The beautiful amphitheater has concerts all summer and seats over 11,000 people.

The "Bean" is the most popular feature of the park. This unique mirrored sculpture delights young and old as they walk around and under it, checking out the reflections.

Here's our reflection in the Bean as I take the picture.

We walked over one of the many, many Chicago River bridges that we will pass under when we transit this river tomorrow.

Down on the Riverwalk, we passed by this fountain.

For the first ten minutes of every hour, the "water arc" is turned on ... not knowing what it was, we had to wait around to find out. Here it is.

We walked out to the end of Navy Pier, with it's dozens for restaurants and tour boats. Our final stop was back to Buckingham Fountain. One of the largest fountains in the world, it was designed in France and donated to Chicago by the Buckingham family in 1928. It's so huge, you can't get it all in one picture.

Our all day walk had taken us to our favorite highlights on the Chicago lakefront. It's a great city and we're very excited to cruise through the Chicago River tomorrow.

50 mile days

We've completed our journey down the east coast of Lake Michigan and are currently in Michigan City, Indiana, with plans to head for Chicago. The Lake gave us one more day of big waves that were not predicted at all, but we've had three perfect cruising days since then with sunny, hot, humid, and calm weather. We stopped in three more Michigan Harbors: Ludington, Muskegon, and South Haven. All of the towns have breakwaters with cute little lights leading to the harbor ...

... and they all have beautiful sand beaches.

We've been leaving early and encountered a bit of fog on some days, so we are grateful for our broadband radar that lets us monitor other nearby watercraft.

South Haven was a particularly favorite stop. The town is built around a narrow creek that is absolutely crammed with marinas and restaurants. We were fortunate to get a slip.
Looper friends Tom and Diann (Noah Genda) were docked right next to us. We hadn't seen them since NYC, so it was really great to see them again and get caught up. We had a good fish dinner in a local restaurant and enjoyed walking around this fun little town.

We had another long day of cruising ahead of us, so we left early. The South Haven Light was still on ...

... and got to see this lovely sunrise.

We are no longer traveling with Jack and Nan (Eschaton) as they are taking their time completing the Lake Michigan route and we are getting just a bit in a hurry to get home. Spending a night in the Chicago Harbor is about the only "must see" that we have left on our Looper Wish List. The Chicago shoreline has accomodations for 5000 boats, spread over 7 marinas and 1000 mooring balls. A quick review of their website http://www.chicagoharbors.info/ however, and we learned that only about 10% of them are for transients and are usually reserved far in advance, especially over the many festival weekends in Chicago. We are on a waiting list for a slip, but have a confirmed reservation for two nights on a mooring ball.

The marina we are in tonight is also pretty big, 600 slips. Just look at how long this dock is ...

We're sitting in the AC, listening to the Twins (alone in first place, at least for a day) and thinking we'll be home by mid-September, which will require us to keep moving at a pretty good pace.

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.

NE Lake Michigan

We're about one third of the way down the east coast of Lake Michigan and so far, it's been a great place to cruise. This arial shows the three connected bodies of water that make Charlevoix a unique place for boating. At the very bottom of the photo is a sliver of Lake Michigan, then the short canal that takes you into Round Lake, which is ringed with marinas and private docks. The next canal leads to Lake Charlevoix, about 14 miles long. We anchored for one night in the narrow cove in the lower left corner of Lake Charlevoix while we were waiting for our slip to become available.

Reservations can be made at the majority of the Michigan Harbors, but it costs $8 extra to reserve and if you cancel for any reason, another $10 ... or you can take your chances on one of the "drop in" slips. Charlevoix is the second most popular stop on the circuit, so we thought we'd better reserve. It was worth it. The building below is the new marina building, with the play fountain in front of it, beautifully landscaped and the main street of the town just steps away.

We biked up the walking path next to the canal to visit the beach on the Lake Michigan side...

... and then through the pretty town to this beach on Lake Charlevioux. This is definitely a vacation town.

Here's a view of Round Lake.

Adjacent to the marina is the amphitheater where we were treated to a Charlevoix City Band concert ... we thought the best seat in the house was right on our flybridge.

With waves about 1-2 feet we left early the next day for Leland Township Marina, where they do not take reservations. It's all first come, first serve ... they won't assign you a slip until your boat enters the harbor. We had called and been told that many boats were leaving and we should try to get there between 11 and noon. As we approached the harbor, three huge cruisers were roaring up behind us, but we all made it in and all got slips. By afternoon, they were rafting up boats all over the place, they never turn anyone away. The marina is all brand new and their marina building is also gorgeous, with a big covered porch lined with Adirondack rockers.

Leland has a long history of fishing and is still home to a large charter fleet and a few commercial fishing boats. Where the Leland River meets Lake Michigan (right next to the marina) we discovered Fishtown. This marvelous collection of old fishing shanties, previously used by the commercial fishermen in the early 1900's, has been revitalized by the Fishtown Preservation Society and houses shops and restaurants, along with the Carlson Fish Company.

Here's one of the shanties close up. On the other side of the river, some shanties have been fixed up as vacation rentals.

This device, I think, is called a net roller.

Leland has it all ... beaches, groceries, fabulous bakery all within walking distance. Last night this string quintet performed a lovely concert in town.

The Leland Harbor is on the main coast with only this breakwater between us and Lake Michigan. The ferry to Manitou Island takes campers daily over to this popular camping destination. The island can be seen in the distance in this sunset picture.

Like Minnesota, it's a short boating and vacation season in Northern Michigan and people are all squeezing in as much fun as possible. The docks are full of boats and boater (lots of big performance cruisers and sailboats) and vacationers walking the docks. Lucy sits on the front deck and soon a crowd gathers, they seem amazed to see a cat on a boat. Today, it is blowing hard (10-20 knots) and waves of 3-5 feet are being reported, so not too many boats are leaving today and it's rocking even in the slip. Since they don't accept reservations here, they won't kick us out as long as we pay our modest $39 slip fee each morning. We're very impressed with Lake Michigan boating !!

Mackinac Island

The DeTour Lighthouse has guided ships from Lake Huron to the mouth of the St. Mary's River leading to Lake Superior since 1847. No longer an active lighthouse, it is preserved and open for tours and overnight stays.

We had another sunny, warm, calm day as we headed for the Mackinac Straights and the Mackinaw City Marina. We saw a couple of "lakers" ...

The Mackinac Straights connect Lake Huron to Lake Michigan and Mackinac Island is right in the middle of the Straights. There are three ferry companies each running boatloads of tourists out to the Island and back every half hour. We felt like a turtle crossing the highway dodging them and their large wakes.

The marina at the Island has a reputation for being very wavy because of the ferry wakes and they were full anyway, so we opted to stay at Mackinaw City Marina (just 7 miles away) on the mainland. We walked around the perimeter of the shoreline of this very touristy town and visited several small city parks scattered along the shoreline among the homes.

We got great views of the famous Mackinac Bridge. Yes, the water is really that color, these pictures are unaltered. The bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was built in 1957, connecting lower Michigan with the Upper Peninsula. The deer hunters were happy because every fall they waited for hours in lines stretching miles to cross to the UP. Seriously, they were instrumental in the drive to get it built.

The next day we took our bikes and rode the ferry to Mackinac Island. 500 people live on the island year round, but about a million visit each year, most of them from June to August. We went up to the Fort which has been immaculately preserved and rebuilt. There are costumed soldiers who shoot off the cannon and the rifles, conduct court marshalls, and even provide musical concerts. We enjoyed a great lunch at the Fort Cafe where we had this view of the harbor.

The Cafe is where you see the yellow umbrellas.

After lunch, we rode our bikes around the eight mile road that runs along the perimeter of the island. No cars are allowed on the island, but there are hundreds of horses (mostly pulling carriages) and thousands of bicycles. As we left the town, we passed by many meticulously maintained and beautifully landscaped homes. This one happens to belong to the Mackinac Island Yacht Club.

We stopped to hike up the hill to Arch Rock.

The views along the road were wonderful, one of the best bike rides ever and so nice to not have to worry about cars coming. It was overcast, but that kept us cool.

We stopped at the ice cream and snack stand that is strategically placed at the four mile mark. As we came back into town, we turned up the hill to see the Grand Hotel. The hotel and gardens are spectacular, but alas, it costs $10 to walk the grounds, so this was a close as we got.

A parting shot of the main street where the carriages, bikes and pedestrians all manage to move without running into each other. It's very entertaining to just sit and watch it all happen.

Today, we had another perfect day as we went under the Mackinac Bridge and entered Lake Michigan.

We are at the Municipal Marina in Petoskey tonight where we scored the last two available slips. Took a tough uphill ride to a "real American supermarket" ... fabulous ... and are now planning our next move.