Friday 081415– in Harbor Springs, Michigan

Weather/Sea   Sunny, wind 0to5, temp 65 to 80

Captain - John C. Kwak crew Chuck Livingston

I am now still in Harbor Springs but moved to the Municipal Marina for 2 days because it is cheaper. The slip is attached to a public boardwalk that is visited constantly by tourists. This is ok by me because I love talking to strangers about DUTCHESS. While moving here we took the boat for a short testing trip. The engine seems to be leak free but the Transmission is still leaking red tranny fluid. That will have to be worked on again. Still cannot find the source of the leak????

On Wednesday I had dinner with a wonderful group of people that I had met in Sault St Marie, they are Joey Arbaugh the lady that owns the trawler SIMBA, Mary Whitmore a friend of Joey, Mark Rondel and his wife and Joey’s brother in law. We had a very nice dinner of steak and all the trimmings with good conversation. This was my first social endeavor since leaving PYC and is very much appreciated. I discovered that Mary raises sheep and trains Border Collies, since I used to raise sheep we had things to talk about. I asked to see her sheep and dogs and we planned an outing on Friday.  Mary picked me up with a truck and the 4 dogs. Of course I made friends with the dogs immediately. She drove to the farm where she keeps her sheep and she did a training session with each dog, very impressive. I could have used one of these dogs when I had sheep.  We dropped off the dogs at her house and she drove me around the area. Very rural with mostly hobby farms, woods, dunes, some apple trees nice country in the summer, but beware of the winter! I got a little different view of Michigan from land rather than from the water. Thanks Mary!

Tomorrow, Saturday we plan to go to Charlevois City Marina MI if they have space on the weekend. I can only call tomorrow to reserve a slip. So we are started on our trip south on Lake Michigan to Chicago. Since Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that is totally within the USA, I took down the Canadian courtesy Flag.