Days 6 at port in Charlevoix

As I'm writing on day 6, an orchestra is playing in the park next to our boat, and over 100 people are gathered on blankets and lawn chairs to listen. It amazes me how happy everyone in this town seems! Ben says he feels like we're in disney world! We get such a magical feeling from this town, and we're sad that we're going to have to leave tomorrow. We really like the municipal marina here, and Hal, the harbor master, may be the friendlist we've met so far.

This morning we slept in late and eventually wandered over to the farmer's market, about 100 feet from our dock, where we bought carrot cake for breakfast. After breakfast, we explored around town for a bit, and then went over to the pier to wait for the Beaver Island ferry to come in. (We were supposed to meet our priest, Father Doug, on Beaver Island... but we never made it there due to the weather) We weren't sure if Father Doug would be on this particular ferry, but we were in luck! We were able to say hello to him and his mom, and apologize for not visiting on the island.

Now we were off to explore what Lake Charlevoix had to offer. Our dock neighbor, Mike from New York, recommended a restaurant on the lake in Ironton, called The Landings. We don't have anything like this place by our house, so we were eager to pull our boat in for lunch. Once we found the restaurant, we just pulled our boat up to the dock, got off and found a table! We were able to enjoy our burgers and margaritas on the patio just in front of the boat.

After lunch we continued about 8 miles down the lake to Boyne City and tied up fo

r about an hour. It was a cute little town, but didn't seem like much there other than ice cream shops... so we got some ice cream! Heading back to Charlevoix, the wind was strong, but it was the smoothest lake we've encountered yet on our trip.

Weather on Day 5: Sunny & Windy, waves 4-6 feet with possible water spouts

Weather on Day 6: Sunny & Windy, waves 2-4 feet

Day 5 at port in Charlevoix

Day 5 (wednesday) in Charlevoix was a day to catch up on fixing things around the boat and relaxing. We had a nice french toast & bacon breakfast, then headed out on a 2 mile trek to Ace Hardware to buy the parts we needed to fix the air conditioning!! For some reason we decided to walk instead of taking our bikes (we didn't know it was 2 miles at the time), so we had to stop for lunch on the way back at Pizza Hut, the only good option that far from downtown.

We spent the rest of the day reading (Dana) and fixing things (Ben), and finally enjoyed dinner on the boat! As much as I enjoy trying new restaurants, my favorite dinners are on the boat with Ben. This particular dinner, Chicken Fettucinni Alfredo, Salad & Bread with Olive Oil & Balsamic Vinegar was a bit more difficult with only one burner on the stove.

We did venture out for a bit to check out the waves on the pier. We were definitely glad we made the decision to stay in port today as we watched the waves crash up over the pier. We have one more day left in Charlevoix due to the wave forecast for tomorrow, so we plan to make the most of it! Check back soon! :-) Thanks for reading!

~dana

A few Charelvoix favorites

Walking along the channel to Lake Michigan

Had to try out the lights in the crystal clear water

Sunset in the marina

Ben tying bumpers upon arrival

Doing what I do best... looking cute and relaxing :-) haha

Park and downtown next to marina

Seapickle II at night

Pyramid Point outside the Manitou Islands

Ben's favorite place on earth... until we got to Charlevoix :-)

Manitou Islands in the distance

Anchored for lunch, facing east

Day 4 Frankfort to Charlevoix

We spent the morning in Frankfort lounging by the pool and hot tub waiting for the ac pump to arrive. When it hadn't arrived by 11, we went for a nice walk by the beach and down some more side streets to admire the beautiful Victorian homes. When the ac pump finally arrived around 3pm, we started out on the journey to Charlevoix. The photo to the left shows Frankfort from the harbor.

As we left the channel, we found the lake to be pretty rough for our 75 mile day. But when we rounded the corner of Pyramid Point, Ben declared he found his new favorite place on earth, a place we anchored for lunch to take refuge from the rough waters. It was gorgeous with tall sand dunes and crystal clear turquoise water that resembled something in the Bahamas instead of Lake Michigan!

We knew Charlevoix was going to be a magical place as soon as we entered the channel and spotted one of the Four Winns founders (or.. the godfather.. as Ben refers to him) homes & boathouse. We found the municipal marina easily and choose a dock right next to the park.

After tying up in slip #56, we changed our clothes, cleaned up a bit and walked down Main street before settling in at the Village Pub. It was a cute, cozy little place and looked like it was full of regulars. I had the whitefish and Ben had a rueben, a great meal to end a long day!

Right now we're relaxing on the boat, listening to the rain, and a karaoke bar across the street where everyone singing actually sounds good, and we are in heaven! Across from us, we can see the lights of downtown, the tree's lit with strands of light blue, and the old-stlye streetlamps illuminating the park. Down the way a bit towards the boaters lounge, we can see kids playing in the fountain and people walking around admiring the boats. After our very rough day on the lake with 3-4 foot waves, but that sure beats the 6-7 foot waves and water spouts in tomorrows marine forcast, so we are very grateful for the 3 days of relaxation ahead of us here in Charlevoix.

More to come about the wonderful city of Charlevoix tommorow!!

Miles today: 75.6
Avg spd :18.5 mph
Travel time: 4hr 43min
Total Miles: 345.5mi
Fuel used today: 39.1gal
Avg mpg: 1.93

Day 3 Whitelake to Frankfort

Waking up this morning we were excited to see the wind had stopped and the sun was shining! Today we were due to depart Whitelake and head for Frankfort almost 100 miles to the north! We had a lot of miles to cover since we were already a day behind due to the poor lake conditions yesterday. We finally got our a/c pump ordered this morning from West Marine in Traverse City and are having it shipped overnite to Jacobson Marina in Frankfort. Before leaving for our next trip, we topped off our fuel tank at the municiple dock and headed for the channel hoping to have more success than yesterday. Needless to say, it was a huge relief to come out of the channel and see flat calm seas!

After covering about 50 miles at a nice pace of about 27 mph, we decided to anchor just off of the sandy shores of Ludington in about 20ft of water to have lunch and take a quick break. As we packed up after lunch, we noticed some light chop forming, and this eventually turned into 3 footers once we rounded Big Sable Point. This was not at all suprising considering rough seas seem to be the theme for this trip so far.

Both of us were feeling pretty drained by the time we reached Frankfort, but excited to see a new port. After tying up, we headed straight into town for dinner at Dinghy's (a restaurant Dana had picked ahead of time) for their "famous" bbq ribs!

They were delicious and Dana only dropped one

rib on her white shorts which is really good for her!

After dinner we changed into our bathing suites and headed to the beach. It was beautiful...the scenery, the crystal clear waters, and the water wasn't even too cold!

On our way back to the marina, we decided to walk down some side streets to admire some of Frankfort's beautiful old victorian homes. (side note from Dana: When I met Ben, before he was obsessed with boating, he was obsessed with old Victorian homes! So one of our favorite pastimes is visiting old, historic towns and just walking the

neighborhoods to take pictures of old houses. I especially like it because it gives Ben motivation to work on our old Victorian when we get back home!) We were amazed to find block after block of well kept victorians with perfectly manicured landscaping.

Our walk was followed by ice cream at Kilwins (Butter Pecan and Traverse City Cherry) and relaxing on the boat. We had some planning to do. High winds and waves in the forecast were causing us to reconsider our itinerary, especially the long trip over open seas to Beaver Island. We basically had one day to get to a port we could comfortably stay in for at least 3 days, and hopefully not upset our plans too much! We chose Charlevoix due to it's proximity to Mackinac Island and Traverse City, and also because Lake Charlevoix is a huge lake, with a few other ports to explore. We've also heard a lot of great things about the town, so we're getting excited about spending more time there. Now all we have to do is wait in Frankfort until our a/c pump arrives, and make the 4 or 5 hour journey to Charlevoix!

Miles covered today 99.5
Total time 4hr43min
Fuel used 50.0gal
Ave mpg 1.99!!

Day 2 Whitelake to....Whitelake

We had a nice, peaceful morning in White Lake beginning with breakfast on the boat. Dana made french toast and bacon, and we enjoyed breakfast outside in the quiet morning. There were only a few boats in the municipial marina, including 3 who were halfway through the great loop and having a "fantastic journey." After breakfast, we got back to trying to find an a/c pump.

Without success, we decided to journey on our bikes to the lakeshore to check the lake conditions, since the NOAA weather report was calling for 3-5 foot waves. White Lake was about 6 miles long, so we figured we could manage it, and end up at the lake eventually. We found out this was a bad idea when 40 minutes later we realized the trail had curved and we were riding away from the lake! We aborted this mission and turned back around. It was still a nice bike ride though.. and we needed to burn offsome calories from all the good eating we've been doing!

On the way back to town we stopped off at a neat little sandwich shop called Pekadill's and enjoyed a nice lunch.

After debating back and forth, we decided to try to make it north at least to Pentwater. We loaded up the bikes and got ready for travel. Cruising through White Lake on the way to the channel, we were optimistic. It was hard to belive that Lake Michigan could be that bad considering White Lake was flat calm with little wind.

Entering the channel though, we could see boat after boat in front of us turning around mid-way out of the channel...we should of taken this as a bad sign. The channel between White Lake and Lake Michigan is a very narrow steel lined channel and it got really hard to control the boat the closer we got to the lake. Considering at that point it would have been too hard to turn around without smacking the wall, we went for it!

Bad idea. As soon as we were out of the channel we immediatly hit a wall of water followed by 5-6 foot waves one after another! We made it a couple miles before deciding to turn around and head back to White Lake. We were in a bad postion since turning around in waves like that can be dangerous. If one were to hit us broadside in mid turn we could roll. I was looking for a calm spot to turn around when a huge wave hit the bow, sending it skyward quickly followed by the bow diving into a deep trough. Shortly after I looked over to see Dana putting on her life jacket and handing me mine. We battled the waves a little longer until I found a good chance and in a quick motion poured on the throttle and cranked the wheel starboard before the next big wave hit us.

Whew! We successfully turned around, but now we had to try to get back in the channel, which might be even more dangerous. And to make it even worse, as I was concentrating on not crashing the boat against the steel wall, Dana pointed out in panic that 2 kayakers were trying to enter the channel right next to us! It's hard enough to keep the boat from hitting the wall, but now we had 2 people we could barely see above the waves to look out for. We had a few scary moments when the boat pitched sharply to the port side, but soon we were back into the calm. We learned our lesson. When boats bigger than ours are turning around and it looks too bad to go out, it probably is. :-) At least we gained some more lake experience. We will continue on our visit to White Lake in the next post. Thanks for reading!

Miles: 15.5
Fuel used: 7.9gal
Avg mpg: 1.96
Total time: an eternity