Wednesday August 18, 2021.
Temp: 75/55. Humidity: 56/89 %, Top Wind: SW8 mph, Precip: none! Hazy Day, Miles Traveled: 68
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We had kind of a long day planned – at least seven hours at sea, sir. It was another beautiful morning, with the sun decorating the morning sky with beautiful colors and the promise of another blessed day. We pulled our lines and tootled on out of our slip just after 7:00 and we were on our way.
The sunlight glowed against the hull of the SSBadger. Just one more day, and she’ll be puffing her black smoke and transporting people and cars across the lake again. I remember the last time we were here – it was quite a sight to see her coming and going, and maneuvering around to the dock.
The sun climbed out of bed and greeting us with the warmth and brilliance as only she can do.
The weather survey promised us something beyond amazement. 0.0 foot waves? SWEET!
And it was all true. The water was splat flat and amazing. Having Lake Michigan be this flat is like having the Atlantic Ocean be this flat. It rarely happens, but when it does, it’s a gift not to be taken lightly! What a beautiful day!!
Captain decided that since the water was so splendid, and we haven’t run the Girl over 1300 rpm for nearly 40 hours, it was probably time to clean her out. We got her up and going, and holy cow! Would you look at that? She was doing over 2700 rpm, and 25.6 mph?! Dude – that’s impressive for this old Bayliner girl! ☺️ Especially when she’s full of fuel on fresh water! He backed her down to about 20mph and we ran fast for about a half hour. She did good and seemed to like it.
Here’s our trail – just a blue streak across beautiful flat water!
After about a half hour, we slowed back down to our normal 1300 rpm, but then that was crazy because we were consistently going about 10mph. That’s weird, because normally our 1300 rpm results in about 9.2 mph. Maybe there is a clockwise current in the lake? I dunno, but we’ll be recording some good fuel mileage on this tank! For awhile, it was so still that the horizon blended the lake in with the sky.
While cruising along, we had good cellular service all day, so did some research. I found this little ditty about the Great Loop. Fewer people complete it in a year than finish the Boston Marathon, or walk the entire length of the Appalachain Trail, or reach the summit of Mt Everest, or swim the English Channel. Seriously! Isn’t that crazy?! And WAAAY fewer than that finish it for a SECOND TIME! But that’s us! We are doing something that very, very few people have done. We crazy, huh?
We passed by the entrance into Manistee, then we passed by the entrance to Muskegon. Those are two ports that we went to in 2018 that we decided to skip by this time. This one was Muskegon.
As we neared Grand Haven, there were more and more homes along the lake shore. Some really big and beautiful homes!
And here is our entrance into Grand Haven. All of the ports along the western shore of Michigan have these big breakwater jetties and lighthouses. Because this lake can be so violent, you are never more than about 20 miles from a safe port along the shoreline.
This was a neat old light house. Established in 1839, two lights on the south pier, both painted red, are connected by a lighted catwalk that also connects them to the shore and the Boardwalk, making the Grand Haven lighthouse one of the most photographed lighthouses in the Midwest.
Look at all those people at the beach today! Doesn’t anybody work on a Wednesday? WOW!
This was a nice wide and attractive channel into Grand Haven.
There was a big park all along the southern wall, and there were even cleats all along the wall. There wasn’t any power pedestals, but apparently the wall provides emergency security if you need to get off the lake!!
Here was our route today. The yellow part is where we went fast. We are making our way down the coast while the weather allows it!
We pulled into our slip and got all settled in. We heard a big horn blowing and looked outside and saw THIS! Holy cow! Look again at how Looooooooong this ship is!! Talk about a stretch limo! I am not sure what commercial product is up the channel from here or where that big kahuna is going.
We went for a wander around town. It’s a nice size little town with lots of shops and restaurants. We found the Grand Armory Brewing Company. This is who makes that Fluffer Nutter Peanut Butter Stout beer that I liked at the beer fest back in St. Ignace.
It is in a neat old historic building that dates back 113 years.
We enjoyed a couple of beers, of course!
Feeling the need for food, and the in-house BBQ restaurant wasn’t open today, we headed back to the marina. These flowers jumped at the chance for a picture.
We really were intending to go home and have some dinner. Bu then we saw this. Oddside Brewing. What? Another brewery? We better stop.
This too was in a neat old building, and it was huge!
In fact, it is an old piano factory, and this was on one wall. Their philosphy is to encourage a family fun and friendly atmosphere, so they don’t have any TV or monitors, but they do have games and long tables to encourage conversation.
After a beer (or two?) we headed home for some food. And eewwww – look at all the duckweekd floating around. I guess we better check the strainers after we get out of here!
While I was looking at the Great Loop facebook page, I noticed this picture that someone had posted from being anchored in Frankfort. Look! There we are!!
I fixed some tacos for dinner, even though it’s Wednesday, and how does Taco Wednesday even make any sense? But it was easy and I had all the right stuff. Then I wandered out to the amphitheatre area right here at the marina. There was a band playing ‘big band jazz’, and there were lots of people dancing and listening. It was really neat, but really hot in the sun, and then the band took a break, so I didn’t last long.
As the sun set, there were dozens of boats that came in the channel from the lake. They just kept coming and coming. Upstream from us is Spring Lake with a lot of homes, so I guess there are a lot of places for all these boats to go.
Well after sunset, at 9:50, we got to watch the Grand Haven musical fountain show. It was about a 20-30 minute show of music, lights, and water. It was fun that we could watch it right from Island Girl. The fountain was built in 1962 and has been doing nightly shows in the summer since then. It held the record for being the largest musical fountain in the world until 1998 when the Bellagio fountain was built in Las Vegas.
We are staying here another night to enjoy Grand Haven some more. It seems a shame to ‘waste’ a perfectly calm day tomorrow out on Lake Michigan, but why rush through places we’ve never been, right?