I’ve been remiss in posting updates over the past two weeks. Since landing in HS we have taken on a sedentary land lifestyle! At first we took advantage of not needing to be somewhere at some time and slept in, walked to town for dinners and even took in a movie in nearby Petoskey (The Spy Who Dumped Me - hilarious!). We thoroughly washed the boat twice to remove any lingering salt spray including wiping down the engine room. It’s not an easy task contorting yourself like a pretzel but I managed to squeeze into some tight spaces. It looks much better and I (mentally) feel better for doing the job. It only took a day or two to recover physically and all of cuts and scratches have healed!

We’ve engaged the marina (Walstrom) to work through a list of more complicated projects and progress is being made on that front. The salon a/c unit is back up and running since quitting somewhere in upstate NY (the “control board” had a burned out circuit). We had the boat pulled and changed the transmission oil and filters, and compounded and waxed - it looks much, much better to have a shine on it. While pulled I had the props re-inspected, just to be sure, and yes, one prop had been dinged. Such is the casualty of traveling the Trent Severn Waterway. I had the zincs replaced because they had nearly dissolved in less than one years time! I attribute the rapid deterioration to salt water. There are a few more minor items but nothing serious. Right now we’re sitting in a slip near the travel lift without props. Props should be back on Wednesday and we’ll be able to continue exploring this gorgeous region by water.

We had boating friends from Chattanooga join us last week while we had access to our timeshare condo. It was their first time in northern MI and we tried to give them the grand tour from land and water. From water we toured Little Traverse Bay including Bay Harbor, Petoskey and Harbor Springs. We took a day trip to Beaver Island. We’ve always wanted to go to Beaver Island because, well, it’s there! It was a 35 mile run through Little Traverse Bay into the open water of Lake Michigan and across the Great Lakes shipping lanes. It’s about a 1 1/2 hour trip. The water was flat with little wind and hazy sunshine. We docked in St. James Bay and walked to town for lunch and shopping. The return trip had us on a crossing path with a Great Lakes freighter - 633 feet long and cruising at nearly 14 knots. We cleared their path ahead of them with more than a mile to spare.

From land we drove the Tunnel of Trees, M-119, from Harbor Springs to Cross Village and ate lunch at Legs Inn, a Polish - American restaurant known for its authentic Polish food and its unique northern MI architecture including upside down mannequin legs adorning the roof line. Charlevoix had its annual fine art festival and we drove along the Little Traverse Bay shoreline to see this years vendors. Later in the week we drove to Mackinaw City and walked the Lake Huron beach to take pictures of the Mackinac Bridge and to have our friends say they’ve been in Lake Huron! Every night we chose a different restaurant from which to enjoy dinner. And, nearly every night, we had Kilwins ice cream! All in all, I put over 300 miles on the car in less than a week.

Our schedule is slowly returning to our typical “up north” routine - enjoying the water, playing some golf, eating a lot of perch, whitefish, and lake trout and simply enjoying summer without the high humidity and temperatures of Atlanta.

Our next major cruising destination will be to Door County, WI. It’s about 110 miles from Harbor Springs or 55 miles from Frankfort, MI, which is slightly south from us. It looks like that leg of our trip will happen after Labor Day. We’ll be able to visit my mom and sister and brother in law there as well as catch up with some boating buddies we met along the way. No decision has been made when to head home.