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| Early morning in Mackinaw City |
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| Leaving the break wall at Mackinaw City |
We left Mackinaw on an absolute perfect summer morning. It was a little before 7:00 a.m. and the sun was just beginning to take shape in the sky. The wind was light, almost non-existent. The water was almost like glass, just the way we like to cruise. So our thought that morning was go as far as we could with our destination of Manistique, MI as our goal. This would mean a least a 9 hour day ahead of us. So off we went, first under the Mackinaw Bridge, which by the way absolutely took my breath away.
We have been across this bridge multiple times in a vehicle but never under it in our own boat. Check this off the old bucket list for the Lady J and crew. Once old Mac was mostly out of site Mike settled into the lower helm and I worked on a few things in the galley and the salon. I think I have said before that we have changed the way we cruise from always being on the fly bridge to now operating the boat from the lower helm in the salon. Mike can get up and walk around when the auto pilot is on and not have to be tied to his chair. I then too can work on any thing else that needs my attention. That is if the boat is not rocking too much. But this day it was perfect conditions for this. The auto pilot was a blessing on these long cruises in open water. I fixed us a light lunch and afterwards I actually took a bit of a nap.
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| This lighthouse was pretty much all we saw across the lake |
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| The fog rolled in |
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| BUGS EVERYWHERE!!! |
When I awoke the fog had rolled in. You could hardly see a 1/4 of a mile in front of us. Which is a bit scary when you are maneuvering a 15 ton boat around that does not necessarily stop on a dime. Oh and did I mention we were also inundated with these little bugs! Millions of them. (most outside, some though found their way in). So the last hour or so of cruising was a bit of a challenge for Mike, but as always he got us to our destination in one piece with out a problem. The marina that we planned to stop at only has 4 transient docks and we were number 4 of the day. Whew!!!! So glad that they could fit us in. Seeing that we chose to come the west side of Lake Michigan the marinas on this side are few and far between at least on the northwestern part.
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| The Lady J snug at the dock amidst all the fog |
The marina may be small but their facilities are brand new and wonderful. So we were set with water, electric and a place to tie up to. Which when we awoke Sunday morning we were so very thankful for because the wind had changed. Before 6:00 a.m. Mike woke up and was outside adjusting the lines to keep us from bashing into the dock. (He quickly came back in and went to sleep.) I on the other hand chose to get up. The wind had definitely picked up and needless to say we were staying here another day. The morning as most in port were filled with boat chores. Washing all the bugs off the boat, laundry, sewing flags, making adjustments to Mike’s new helm seat, oh yes and some bread baking. As we looked over the weather forecast for the next couple of days it looks like we might be here for a while so we decided to pace ourselves and leave a couple of things for later. We did though take a walk into town just to check out what was available and then strolled over to the break wall and small beach that was near by.
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| Sites around town |
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| You know I love me some flowers |
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| Okay I thought this was ingenious, an old TV console that is now a cat condo. |
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| The local Catholic Church |
We got to the beach and it was like “Geneva on the Lake, 2014”. For those of you that may not have been following us last year or just plain forgot we were stuck in Geneva on the Lake for 5 days because of storms and high winds. Well mother nature was at it again. The lake looked more like you were viewing the ocean. We did enjoy though hanging out on the wall just listening and watching the waves. Something neither of us gets tired of hearing. Although Mike did say we NEVER want to hear that on the boat because if we did that would mean we were going to hit ground.
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