The Caribbean ??

August 18, 2013

The Caribbean ??

Well not quite.  But it looks almost the same, except with pine trees.  It is 80 degrees and no wind.  We’re here on probably the best 2 days of the year. It is beautiful here! The water is crystal clear and warm enough to swim in.  We’ve spent the last 2 days anchoring off South Manitou Island, off the shore of Leland Mi.  This 9 square mile island is about 18 miles off the shore.  It is part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. The island is almost uninhabited. 

There is a light house and a few buildings, a campground, and a very low key museum. The museum is all about the many shipwrecks around here, the lighthouse keepers over the years and the islands past few inhabitants. There is also a small ferry that brings visitors over for day use.   

Tonight there are 3 boats anchored here in the bay with us– that’s it.  Kind of a strange feeling! Two of the 3 boats here are flying a “looper flag”.  It makes us realize that there are going to be a lot of loopers heading down that river from Chicago on Sept. 1.  When doing the loop there are definite times to be in  locations for the climate.   Chicago  the beginning of Sept. is a good goal.

Spending the night dependent on an anchor chain is an experience.  We were worried about the anchor dragging so we kept waking up all night to check on it. If it came loose (which it didn’t) we would have drifted out into the shipping channel. Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep!

Not much stress here.  Bill made coffee in the morning on the barbeque on the back of the boat with a percolator (do you even remember what that is?).    Dinner was barbequed on the back of the boat.  That barbeque is coming in real handy!  We spent the day walking on the beach, swimming and boating around with the inflatable.