Saturday in Northport, Sunday on the Move

 Woke Saturday morning to witness a remarkable sunrise. The air was still, hardly a ripple on the water. Weather report was for variable lite winds. We decided to pull up anchor and take a slip in the Northport Marina.

 

 The water was so clear we could see our anchor chain and our reflections.

The mosquitoes and other bugs were horrendous. We woke in the morning to find dozens of spider webs filled with hundreds of dead bugs .

This area had its own populations of ducks, some of which I could not identify.

We were going to stay another day, but there was no room so we left Northport and headed out Charlevoix.  The people that run this Marina are great. They helped us get in and out of the slip. I highly recommend you stop here if you get a chance.

As soon as we were back in Traverse Bay and had sails up I went below and made Eggs with bacon and had the Cinnamon twists from the Bakery.

We sailed 90% of the time today at 5kts + we pulled in the jib as we came close to the point and took down the sail to motor through the channel.

Had to wait for the draw bridge to go up, we were in front of three other sail boats. I don't like to wait for bridges to go down on land, but waiting for them to go up is a little more nerve wracking.

Just inside Lake Charlevoix there are two house on the left that are quite unique. The gardens on the second one are a show case for an avid gardener.

We motored around for a while and finally settled on this spot to drop anchor. There are no houses in front of us, though there are some a little further down.  Right now with all the boat traffic it is a little rock and rolly but there is a good breeze so looks like we will stick here for the night then head on north.

Part two - Friday Island to Northport

Tom  for went for a dingy row, before we secured, and headed out for Northport. Winds seemed very light, but we had our hopes up  we could do some sailing today.

Once we got out into the channel we put up the main sail and did a little motor sailing for about an hour then the wind picked up and we put out the wisker pole and sailed wing to wing at about 5+ kts. WE WERE SAILING - NO MOTOR  HAPPY DANCE.

Right about here my camera batteries finally died.  I started to work on my knitting project. I want to make a Market Bag out of cotton yarn to carry things in on our foraging expeditions. I was proud of the fact, I got over six inches added on when I realized that it was twisted. As the sun was setting I was unknitting six inches.
  Tom and I are  catching up on a lot of reading. I finished Reading the OED: One Man, One year 21,730 pages by Ammon Shea. If you love words then I highly recommend this book. It was great fun reading.  I started reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson.  We have been fortunate have access to libraries to use Internet, and I have been donating the books that I have finished.

Camera working and we are approaching the Leelanau light. We are still sailing and maintaining our speed, but the sun is getting lower in the sky.

I love sunsets. We dropped anchor outside the Municipal marina. The stars ---- it is amazing the number of stars we are unable to see in our urban environments.  We will be staying in Northport on Saturday so I will have local pictures to add. Then we are off  to Boyne City- and North

South Manitou Island to Northport Friday

The next few pictures were taken at the Frankfort Municipal Marina. They are left over from our down day on Thursday. I finally got a picture of the Mink that was running in the rocks in front of our boat.                                                                               

 

The water was reflecting the blue on the side of the dock- I think it is a pretty neat picture.

Back on the Island and this is sunset - cloud formation looked a little like a big giant bird.

Sunrise and sky has cleared up, water still, only the sound of the gently swish of waves on the shore, and the cry of the gulls.

We took the dingy over to the Light House. I need to thank the park rangers stationed there. Regular tour hours are in the after noon and it was 10am. He gave Tom and I a tour along with a father and son who were camping on the Island. Now that the fog is gone the climb was worth it.

The beach has long rows and mounds of thousands of shells.