Operation Adventure - Northern Lake Michigan Boating

Dinner on the deck at Wagners

Thursday, July 25th: We have been looking forward to "Operation Adventure" for quite a while now and the time has finally come to start our adventure! Our friends Dennis and Christa had an extra leg of towing added to the trip to bring their boat "Wet Ink" up from Lake Shelbyville, Illinois to the starting point of Portage, Indiana. They decided to come up the evening prior to leaving and stay in a nearby hotel. We used this as an opportunity to have a pre-trip planning dinner and catch up with friends Joe and Pat from "Better Yet"! 

2 Four Winns in a row

Part-way through the 6 hour tow

Friday, July 26: The next morning we towed Seapickle over to the hotel and departed Portage for our destination of Petoskey, Michigan some 320 miles away! The tow was one of the easiest we've ever had, and it was nice traveling with another couple and sharing the experience.

Storm Heading our Way - over the Petoskey Marina launch

The mad dash begins!

Wet Ink launching

Seapickle tucked into slip 19

Celebration drink - "We made it!"

Once we arrived in Petoskey, we noticed dark storm clouds were rolling in off the bay, the wind was picking up, and it was just starting to drizzle. We had to make a decision...put the canvas up and launch as quickly as possible, or try to wait the storm out. We decided to try to launch as quickly as possible and try to beat the storm.  Within minutes of reaching our assigned slips we realized it was the right choice!

Walking to dinner at Mitchell Street Pub, Petoskey

Mitchell Street Pub - Moose

After settling into vacation mode and enjoying the fact that we had FINALLY made it to Petoskey, we decided to have a late dinner at a nearby pub in Downtown Petoskey. Dana chose Mitchell Street Pub based on the fact that they covered 2 of her Friday night dinner requirements: fried fish and interesting beer. We loved the fried walleye, and salmon for Christa, along with some interesting local beers. Dana enjoyed the "Petoskey Horny Monk," a Belgian Dubbel by Petoskey Brewing.

After dinner, we were all stuffed and tired from a long day, so it was off to bed! We all had a great first day of vacation, and cannot wait for the rest of the trip!

Trip details:
Portage, IN to Petoskey, MI - 320 miles towing
Left Portage 8:10am CST, arrived Petoskey 3:30pm EST
3 fuel stops along the way (+ one bathroom stop)
 Weather: rainy, cloudy, strong west wind - which made the Petoskey Marina quite uncomfortable

Saying Goodbye to Summer...Part 1

This weekend is going to be our last on the big lake till next season since Seapickle is scheduled to be pulled out of the water for winter storage this Thursday. Flat calm days on Lake Michigan are hard to come by, but to have three consecutive days of glass flat water is really rare! Three perfect days is exactly what we had, and we made the best of them!

Friday

Meeting Pier Pressure at the beac

Shortly after we raft up with Ron, Debbie and Jacob on Pier Pressure, Greg and friends on Not Now arrive for a port side raft up!

Rafting up with Not Now and Pier Pressure

This sure beats going in the cold water to get from boat to boat

 With everyone here it is time to start our nightly potluck style dinners at the beach!

Ben fires up the grill for some steaks

Dana heating the pulled pork for sandwiches

Beautiful sunset

Can you believe we had three days like this

Hey Greg are those Milano cookies in your hand?

 Saturday

I was not always a morning person, but when we stay at the beach I am up with the sun! It's hard to not be a morning person when you are greeted with a sun rise like this. Dana on the other hand still likes to sleep as long as she can.

Also up with the sun was the Pier Pressure crew who had a quick cup of coffee and then departed to take Jacob to band camp

Early morning departure

After Pier Pressure left we had a quick breakfast and decided to check out some of the trails that wind through the dunes behind our camp. We spent the next couple of hours hiking through some beautiful nature trails, and even came across a snake sunning itself in the middle of a path! 

We decided it would be a nice day to visit Ben's cousin Mike and his family aprox. 20 miles down the shore in Long Beach Indiana. Pier Pressure returned just in time to help us shove off.

Save our spot for us!

 We had a great leisurely cruise down the shore to Long Beach! We slowed down around Michigan City to watch a sailboat regatta for a few minutes, then continued on to meet Mike and Nora on the beach.

Ben's cousin Mike, Wife Nora, Daughter Ella, and Baby Evan

Ella taking a time out from playing to have a snack

Ben and Mike kicking back and enjoying a great day!

Back to boaters to catch another great sunset

and moon rise!

A Perfect Memorial Day

Our friends on "Not Now" raising the flag

Rafting up outside Boater's Beach

Hanging out with friends on "Pier Pressure"

Memorial Day on Lake Michigan was a perfect hot and sunny day... the only negative was not being able to cool off in the water, which was still only 54 degrees! We were visited in the morning by our friends Joe & Miranda, on their Four Winns 268 "Serenity Forever." They had trailered up for the weekend from Indianapolis, and enjoyed the first day of hot weather on the lake! After breakfast and a few errands, we enjoyed lunch on the dock with our friends from "Pier Pressure," "Nauti Kids" and "Not Now."

After lunch we headed out to boater's beach for the first time of the season. Since the water was so cold still, we decided to raft up and hang out on the boats rather than wade to shore. We had a great afternoon - full of sun, friends & fun! Since it was 90 degrees and the lake too cold, we headed back to the marina after a few hours to hang out in the pool and grill some cheeseburgers for dinner.

A quick nap and cleaning up, and we finally went home for the night... all in all a perfect day :-)

Lake Michigan - Our last gorgeous day of 2010 season

Hopefully watching these videos this winter will keep our spirits up until next boating season! Enjoy!

2010 Boating Season Part I

Day 16 - 150 miles to home!

We left Sheboygan, WI around 11am Sunday, ready for our 150 mile journey home! We were lucky to have a beautiful day, and a flat calm lake to greet us.

We made a stop in Port Washington after about 25 miles to fuel up. Gas here was 40 cents cheaper than Sheboygan, and we found it to be a really cute little town that we plan on going back to visit!

About 3 hours into the trip, we stopped for lunch outside Racine, WI. This is a typical lunch on the boat for us!

Ben was pretty excited when we passed Milwaukee, as it seemed pretty close to home!

We followed the shore all the way to Chicago, and then turned to cut across the lake back to Portage.

Back outside Burns Waterway, Ben's parents met us in their boat, Executive Decision, to film our entrance back home! Thanks Bill & Kathy! :-)

Entering the channel back to our marina was both exciting and a little sad. It was nice to be back in familiar waters, and we had never realized how good we have it in Indiana on the southern tip of the lake! It seemed like we had the warmest and best water conditions around, and also the best marina friends, whom we missed! :-)

This is Seapickle II back home in her slip

And me enjoying some Summer Shandy back at the marina!

Our 150 mile journey home took about 7.5 hours, and after a couple hours of talking to family and marina friends, we were ready to get home! But we are already planning the next trip! Look for a post soon on the summary of our trip and the lessons we learned along the way!

Miles: 165.7

Time: 7hrs 21min

Fuel used: 74.6Gal

Avg Mpg: 2.22

Total Miles: 941.3

Total fuel used: 453.9Gal

Total Avg Mpg: 2.07

Day 1 The Journey begins!

The day we have been waiting has finally arrived! After a year of planning, and three days of careful packing, it was time to leave port and head north. Our goal was to get to the boat and be ready to go at 6a.m. and we came close! We arrived at 6:20a.m. and met Ben's dad, Bill, who helped us load the rest of our gear and film our departure. We left Portage Harbor at approx. 7:20a.m. and headed northeast on the lake with the gps set to Muskegon . The day started out rainy with calm seas, and progressed to much rougher seas. By the time we reached Saugatuck waves were reaching 3ft, and hitting 4ft at Grand Haven!

We reached Muskegon in about 5 hours, where we stopped to see the Tall Ships and meet a fellow Four Winns forum member Cap'n Morgan. Thanks for the open marina slip tip! After touring the Tall Ships it was time to have lunch on the boat, fuel up and complete our trip to White Lake, a little over 10 miles away.

Entering White Lake was very beautiful and peaceful. The lake is 6 miles long, with White Lake Municipial Marina at the very end. We pulled into slip #44 on our port side and a marina attendant was there to help us tie up and tell us about the area.We unloaded our bikes, connected to shore power, and discovered our AC Pump stopped working!! :-( Lucky the forecast called for a cool evening.... and we made plans to try to get a new pump in the morning.

After showering and relaxing a bit, we headed into town in search of pizza. We ordered a deluxe pizza from Big Johns and walked around town while we waited. Back at the boat, we enjoyed dinner and relaxation.. and headed to bed at 10pm, beat up and tired from the long day on a rough lake

Day 1 Miles -154.9

Moving time -7hrs 9min

Fuel used- 77.7 Gal

Average Mpg -1.99!

These Are The Days I Live For

We were lucky this 4th of July weekend to have perfect boating weather all 3 days... and we made sure to take advantage of it! We somehow managed to have no weekend plans for once, so we were able to spend Friday through Monday at the Marina. There's just something so relaxing and carefree about Marina life... it's like being on vacation, but only 15 minutes from home. We didn't plan much for the weekend, other than being out on the lake, hanging out by the pool, eating all our meals off the grill, and installing a fuel flow meter (for Ben). Friday night we enjoyed a lake perch dinner at the Marquette Yacht Club.. which I highly recommend! It's nothing fancy and only open on Friday nights, but the perch is delicious!

Saturday we spent the day out on the lake with our friends Sergio & Lisa. Our first stop was boater's beach, where the boats were lining up side by side. Not too much longer later, the shore was reaching capacity and the Seapickle II was getting blown side to side by the wind. After one close call with a neighboring boat, we decided to head down shore to more open waters.

We anchored outside the dunes national lakeshore (chesterton, in) and enjoyed an awesome lunch provided by Sergio & Lisa. Sergio even baked a pineapple rum cake for Lisa's birthday... and we ate it while floating on our raft. This is the life! haha

Sunday brought the 4th of July and fireworks on the beach in Ogden Dunes. It was crazy to see so many boats anchored out all facing someone's house on the beach! I guess it's a resident there who puts on the show and a big party! Definitely one of the better fireworks shows I've seen... with patriotic music and everything... that's a must for me :-)

We finished up the weekend washing & waxing the boat, and enjoying the sunset at boater's beach. Everyone had gone home for the week... so we had the beach to ourselves. My favorite kind of night :-)

Spending 3 days at the marina has made Ben & I even more excited for our trip in August! We were sad to leave Monday night, but look forward to next weekend for the Gary Air Show, Chicago Loop Cruise, Navy Pier Fireworks, and meeting some new Four Winns friends!

~dana

Maiden Voyage to New Buffalo Michigan!

Today is our maiden voyage aboard the Seapickle II, and we are loving it!! We spent the morning and early afternoon shopping and preparing the boat for the trip. The weather did not cooperate as well as we would have liked, but after buying a new fleece from Bass Pro Shop in Portage, it was time to head out. We left port ok, and started down the channel to the song "Into the Mystic" from the Swell Season concert, as is our tradition for the beginning of every journey.

Turning out into the lake, we quickly learned that the marine forecast we checked earlier in the day was not quite correct. The lake was very choppy and rough... not a smooth maiden voyage at all. It was mostly one to two footers, but by the time we hit Michigan City we were hitting three and four foot waves. We took turns at the wheel, with our average speed at about 24 mph until we reached Michigan City, and once it got too choppy, we cut the speed down to about 8 mph the rest of the way. Our total trip time was about an hour and a half.

Once we arrived in New Buffalo, we found the marina and slip #13 without a problem, but due to recent heavy rainfall the current of the river was very strong. The first time we tried docking... we hit the dock on the starboard side... second time we hit a pole... but the third time we made it ok! Dana learned how to tie up dock lines correctly and did an excellent job.

We worked up an appetite battling waves for over an hour, and Ben started to set up the grill for the first time! We had been very eager to try it out and grill our first meal. Unfortunately... our planning did not include checking to see if the grill had an igniter nor bringing any kind of lighter or matches... so it was time to try out that microwave!! After a delicious dinner of hot dogs and goldfish crackers, we set out into town to do a little exploring. New Buffalo was actually our first trip together when we started dating (just about 4 years ago), so the walk into town brought back some good memories for both of us.

At the Sweetwater Boating store (the only store still opened by the time we arrived), we picked up a floppy straw hat for Dana and a Cruising Memories Boaters Diary to record our journeys in.

After stopping for coffee and hot chocolate at the South Bend Chocolate Shop, we finished off the night reading and relaxing in the boat. We're looking forward to coffee and a nice breakfast in town in the morning, before heading back to Portage.