Lake Michigan

September 11

Whereas the trip has been amazing, stunning and really really fun, not every day is roses and unicorns.  It is easy to forget that the good Lord has this very persnickety friend called Mother Nature who gets fussy from time to time.  Take a look at this.  We traveled ~35 miles in this mess one day:

What the video doesn't show are the lightening strikes all around us.  The admiral was not impressed but hung in there.  She did ask questions like "what happens when lightening strikes a boat?".  Please don't fact check my answer of "Lightening never strikes a boat because it is not grounded".  It seemed like the right thing to say at the time.  Funny story, everyone made it to port that night safe.  There was a very large docktails at the marina clubhouse.  When we waked in someone yells: "And there goes the Shorebilly blowing right by us leaving us in our misery." The rest of the room chimed in "yea,  we saw them on AIS (some said Nebo) as they went by."  Others were saying "you need to slow down and enjoy the world the way the rest of us see it."  It was a little embarrassing but quite funny.

Docktails After Traveling in the Storm

Northeast Lake Michigan

The Northeast corner of Lake Michigan is unlike any waterway I have had the pleasure of boating in.  The waters are crystal clear, blue with long sandy / rocky beaches.   

It is truly like being in a tropical paradise.  When ashore we could walk for miles, search for colorful stones, play in the water and let Yudee run and run.  When the lake is behaving, it is an absolute delight to be on.  There are times when the shear magnitude of beauty overwhelms you and it is hard to take it all in. 

Interestingly, such brilliant colors in the water are not all positive.  Apparently, Lake Michigan is this way due to the Zebra mussel.  The zebra mussel was introduced into the lake via cargo ship's ballast discharge some time after 1959.  They are a filter bivalves that consume algae and nutrients required for others in the lakes ecosystem. They also grow in the spawning grounds of multiple fish species. In short, they are consuming the very resources the lake needs to thrive.  But, on the positive side, it leads to stunning waterways!

The towns that dot this portion of the lake are fantastic and cute.  We visited Petoskey, Charlevoix, and Leland.  It is hard to say which of the those was our favorite.  They were all different but also all very nice.  Town pictures never really capture the quaintness of a place so we didn't take many of those.  

One of the more interesting towns, however, was Leland.  Leland historically was a fishing community and holds that heritage close.  In the center of the town was a dam with Salmon swimming up stream.  We caught some good pics of the salmon in the air.

Prior to this trip, I never knew there were Salmon in the great lakes.  Turns out, they were purposely introduced into the ecosystem.   A small invasive salt water fish called alewives entered Lake Ontario in the 1870s.  These spread to the other great lakes after the Welland Canal was opened in 1931.  By 1950, the species dominated the lakes crowding out other native fish like trout.  The problem grew to the extent that millions of alewives would wash up on shore yielding a public health hazard and rendering the lake almost unusable.  In 1966 Salmon were introduced to eat the alewives.  It worked!!!  The alewives population is under control, the Salmon are flourishing, and the trout are coming back.  Cool!  Now, if only the Zebra Mussels don't ... never mind.

Leland Fish Market with Dam for Salmon

Charlevoix is a really nice town and if you are looking for a vacation spot on Lake Michigan, I would recommend this.  

In addition to being cute and wonderful, the town is known for its Mushroom Houses.  A high school drop out named Earl Young became a master builder by taking the rocks out of Lake Charlevoix and fashioned these into houses that looked like they were built for garden gnomes.  So off we went and signed up for the golf cart tour.  In addition to the large stones,  all of the buildings had wacky roofs that twisted and bent.   Some roofs were thatch and others cedar shingles.  I think you can click on any of these pictures to enhance them.

This is the actual mushroom house where all Earl's creations get their name.  He designed it to look like a mushroom both inside and out.  The inside apparently has a chimney in the center that all rooms open up to which is supposed to represent the mushroom stalk.

  

But the greatest thrill of all in Charlevoix was Tim and Jean.  These are Raleigh friends that timed their trip to Machinac Island to coincide with our arrival at Charlevoix.  What great friends.  Even though we only had time for lunch together before they had to head on, it was great to see them.

(Not to mention any names, but note to family members who spoke boastfully about pulling off just such a rendezvous but instead flew off to Europe .... you were smoked by a couple of hillbillies from the south!!!!).  Jean and Tim, we love you and thank you for making such a huge effort.

Just a gorgeous sunset so I threw it in ....

While in this part of the country, Jimmy Buffet passed away.  We celebrated his life first by going to a pub and all having a Margarita.  Everyone at the table said a separate toast to his life.  Mine was "may he be with his cheeseburger in paradise".  The bar put on his songs and we all sang them together.  It was really nice.  Following that, we went back to the marina and had a feast of fresh caught salmon in his honor.

Rest in peace Jimmy.  Thank you for all the great memories.

Wisconsin

The Michigan side of the namesake lake is stunning, no doubt.  But loopers have an endless debate of which side (Michigan or Wisconsin) of the lake is actually better.  Whereas I don't think there have actually been any barroom brawls over it, it has been an endless source of debate on the looper forums.  Given the speed and range of the Shorebilly, we thought ... why not do both???  Our strategy was simple, the first third would be Northeast Michigan.  The middle third would be Wisconsin.  The bottom third would be back to Michigan.    We picked Door County Wisconsin as our goal.  The trip looks like this:

The plan was simple:  Look for a good weather window, swing by South Manitou Island and then cross.  We would then play in Wisconsin for a week and upon a good weather window shoot back.  The day came where the winds would die down in the afternoon making for a nice crossing.  South Manitou looks like this.

That cove on the East side looked like perfect shelter for the AM allowing the winds to die down for the crossing.  We took off into the lake with the perfect plan.  As Mike Tyson once said; "Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the mouth".  Our mouth punch came when we got to South Manitou.  The cove offered no shelter from the waves.  Yudee was the only one who could make it into the dinghy.  The Admiral said "NO".  Now we were stuck being 15 miles into the lake already and still 50+ ahead of us.  The Shorebilly is much more stable at speed than at rest so the decision was made (actually, by the Admiral) to head into the teeth of winds with steady 4+ foot waves.  We were taking the waves at a 70 degree angle which was just about perfect and whereas comfortable would not be the right adjective, it was also not painful.  Here is a video:

 The great news was that about 30 miles across the winds did die down and the lake became nice.  

Door County, Wisconsin

We LOVED Door County.  The people were your classic mid-western pleasant.  The towns were fantastic and the waterways pristine.  Sisters Bay is known for their "goats on the roof" of Al Johnson's Restaurant.  Yes, real goats on real roofs.  The roofs are made of grass and the goats "mow the lawn" up top.  So, dial in the chart plotter and guess where we went .....

That town and the next one, Fish Creek, were simply fun great places with a very strong Norwegian influence.  

But at last we only spent 3 days in Wisconsin before heading back.  Looking at the forecast for the next week, the winds were projected to climb into the 20+mph range after our third day on that side with little guarantee we could cross back.  Running down the southern western shore would not be bad but would comprise more city landscape (i.e..Green Bay and Milwaukee) than we desired.  A good weather window opened so we shot back across.  Interestingly,  we caught right back up to the rest of the fleet we had been traveling with.  We are the only boat we are aware of that attempted to cross the lake twice.

You ever wonder how deep the Lake Michigan is?  The answer is REALLY DEEP!

Closing with a really good note:  The crew of Never Home is scheduled to return September 19th!  Their plan is to rent a car and visit the places they were forced to miss (i.e.. Mackinac Island, Charlevoix, Leland....) and then get back on the boat.  Once the locks below Chicago open back up, AGLCA has organized us into Flotillas of 17 boats.  I am the Flotilla leader for October 4th.  Never Home is in that group!!!  We will be cruising together again! YEA!!!  

To quote the famous philosopher Porky Pig:  "Th-th-that's all, folks!"

Stay safe and with love,

Terri and Aubrey