Rovinj the Great Lakes

Leland also known as Fishtown is a neat little town on the Lake Michigan side of the Leelanau peninsula. It has a small river that runs from Lake Leelanau into Lake Michigan. Along the river are several tourist shops, restaurants and boat excursions for fishing and trips to North Manitou Island. View from the restaurant down the river. View from a bridge just upstream of the restaurant which is on the right View from downstream looking upstream, restaurant is on the left in the back. View upstream from a bridge that was upstream of the falls There were some big boats here. Notice that the furthest away is still taller than the near ones. Near sunset. Clouds on the horizon prevented a sunset shot I spent a little time at a nearby beach looking for Petoskey stones with no luck. The nice comfortable evening did not foretell what was to come. Overnight the winds picked up a lot. I'm not sure when it started but when I awoke in early morning, the wind was howling and the boat was rockin...

Northport is a nice little town relatively close to Lake Michigan in Grand Traverse Bay. There were several sailboats sailing out as we were motoring in despite the fact that there was little wind. Town was nearby. When we left Northport there was a little wind coming at us. We didn't think that was too bad since after we got out of Grand Traverse Bay we were going to turn 90 degrees and then hopefully have a beam reach (wind over the side of the boat). It took longer than expected to tack out of Grand Traverse Bay and by the time we turned the corner the wind died, which was not typical of our trip. Winds usually have picked up in the late morning and die down in late afternoon. So we had to motor the rest of the way to Leland. A little surprising was how many other sailboats we saw doing the same thing, motoring. Only a catamaran was able to sail with reasonable success. The Lake Michigan shoreline on the north west part of the lower peninsula is very sandy and the further south ...

  We got in to Charlevoix late and barely got dinner before everything closed. On our approach to the Charlevoix channel we saw a freighter leave a calcite quarry. Much of Lake Michigan coast is sand but in the form of dunes that are pretty high. In a day or two we will be passing sleeping bear dunes. Entering the Charlevoix channel Entering through a draw bridge The next day when we left was the Gaylord Poker Run for boats. Boats were anchored and rafted the entire length of the little lake in the middle of the channel to see the competitors. The channel leading to Lake Michigan was filled with spectators and chairs reserving places. As we passed through the channel it was like we were part of a parade with people waving at us. When we got to the lake it was littered with boats of spectators. The entrance channel lead to a small lake surrounded by homes, condos and lots of boats. In the channel leaving Charlevoix. There were several boats leaving when we did to get positioned to w...

The municipal marina in which we stayed is right next to the Shepler's ferry that goes to Mackinac Island (note the two different spellings, the city ends in w and the island and bridge end in c). One of the directions that the harbor master gave us was to follow one of the Shepler's ferries to get to the correct marina. There was a different marina right next door with a different entrance. Shepler's ferry docks are by the blue striped awnings. We were tourists a little and walked down the beach to the bridge footings. It was not very far and there is a trail with information signs describing historic facts about the Straights of Mackinac, the many shipwrecks and the bridge. There was also a lighthouse to tour but again we were too late to do it. When we left in the morning the lake was pretty rough. We had usually had calm mornings that built up to rougher seas and higher winds that then diminished by late afternoon. We had good wind but the rough water made steering toug...

We did not have the storms that were predicted in Cheboygan during the evening. The historical radar in the morning showed that there were storms over night, but we slept though them so they couldn't have been too bad.  Coast guard ship docked across from the marina View from the seawall back to the marina, note the coast guard ship on the left and one if Michigan's many lighthouses. View of the post storm sky from the marina We got a late start out of Cheboygan since the trip to Mackinaw City was short. We had good winds but out of the wrong direction so we had to tack the whole way. We sailed almost the entire way, tacking back and forth across the desired bearing. This takes about twice as long but we had the time and because we had done so much motoring, it was refreshing to sail. Winds varied from 8 to 15 knots most of the way. The waves were low early but grew and the wind speed increased later in the morning/early afternoon. All was going well until we made the last tack...

It turns out that the things that I referred to as "gravel pits" earlier are actually limestone quarries. The one next to Roger's City is the largest in the world. Some pictures of the Roger's City Marina. Because storms with lightning were predicted, we left Roger's City early in the morning to get to Cheboygan before they started. Storms were predicted for 1 PM in Roger's City and 2 PM in Cheboygan. We thought that by leaving by 7 AM we'd make Cheboygan by 1 PM and beat the storm. The morning started out fine. We had decent winds from a decent direction. We started out power sailing and eventually went to all sail making progress fast enough to beat the storm. When winds got stronger, we reefed the mainsail. We started to see a darkening sky ahead that was not on the weather radar. We furled in half of the foresail expecting another storm like we had the second day on Lake Huron. The storm hit us hard. We saw lightning in the distance before the storm go...