Manistee, MI, to Manitowoc, WI

Monday, August 25 - We had planned to leave Manistee Sunday, but the weather wasn't good for traveling so we stayed another day. It was like having a day given to us! We caught up on some record keeping, reading, and laundry. We walked up to Flavors Restaurant for lunch and topped it off by splitting an ice cream sunday. Yum, yum! After that I decided I needed even more of a walk and walked back up to the fishing pier at the harbor entrance.

Wayne and I had visited the pier on Friday and things were really hopping down there then! This young duo posed with their catch.



People were bringing in loads of salmon and a fish cleaning venture had been set up that charged $2/fish for cleaning. Believe me, at the speed with which those guys were cleaning fish they were making money! I've never seen anybody clean a fish so fast.

On Sunday evening there wasn't as much activity going on, though there were still a lot of people out enjoying the day. I walked over to the public beach to enjoy the view of water, sand and shoreline. You'll notice a few brave souls out there in the 70 degree waters...


We've had three full days to see the sights around here. Manistee has some gorgeous old buildings downtown. In fact, the downtown business district is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places. Here's a parting shot of downtown Manistee on our rainy Saturday morning out for breakfast.

So, yesterday, Sunday evening, we checked the marine forecast to plan our travel for today. After a lot of studying and looking we decided that we had a shot at making the crossing from Michigan to Wisconsin. It seemed that Lake Michigan was going to have a good day for travel from Manistee north...and a rough day (at least out in the open lake part) for the south section. (Check out the marine forecasts for Lake Michigan on this website: http://www.weather.gov/os/marine/zone/gtlakes/lmopen.htm) We decided to stay in the upper part of Lake Michigan for the trip and go from Manistee to Kewaunee, WI.

I was up early this morning...checking the weather again. It can change so quickly! It still looked like a decent day: winds 10-15, waves 1-3. The direction of the wind was north or northeast, and that could prove to be a problem since the course to Kewaunee would have the wind and waves on our side, or "beam." That can cause the boat to rock from side to side and can result in a very uncomfortable ride. (See segment below where we crossed the Grand Traverse Bay...) We decided to go out and test the waters. If we felt uncomfortable with it, we'd head back into the Michigan shore and go to Pentwater for the evening.

We left at our usual...8:30AM. Golden Lily, Our Turn, and Blue Max all left out before us going to Pentwater. We wove our way through the maze of fishing boats out that morning and into the lake. The waves were rolling, far apart...and of the 1-3 variety. Fortunately they were slow and far enough apart to be tolerable. About 20 miles into the trip, though, we decided the waves might work with us if they were on our stern so we switched direction and headed in a more southerly path to the town of Manitowoc, WI. Then we surfed Lake Michigan! We ran the engines at around 1700 rpm's...a little faster than we normally go...and rode the waves. Our speed varied from 9.5 mph to well above 12 mph, depending on how we caught the waves.

It was a beautiful day and we didn't see one boat in the "big" waters. We did see depths of over 750 ft.! A personal best for us on the Segue.

We got into Manitowoc Marina at around 2:30...or, on their Central Time, 1:30. We were beat, though. Just the anticipation of crossing the lake, not knowing whether we'd end up turning back or not...and almost 7 hours of travel...we were drained. We checked in, plugged in, and took Lucy for a long walk through town. There's a farmer's market tomorrow morning beginning at 7 AM! Shouldn't be a problem getting up with this whole "central time thing" going on. Once we've loaded up on some fresh fruits and veggies we'll head out for Sheboygan or maybe even Port Washington. We'll see how the conditions are for travel.

We just polished off our first Papa Johns' Pizza since we got back to the States...and at 8:30PM OUR time, we're ready to crash. We'll be helping the farmers set up at 6 in the morning. :-)