Tuesday 081815– in Leland, Michigan

Weather/Sea   Cloudy rainy, wind 5to10, temp 65 to 75

   Captain - John C. Kwak crew Chuck Livingston

We are in Leland MI in one of the Harbors of Refuge that Michigan has built along its coastline. The Marina is newly rebuilt with a beautiful club house. This is a small old fishing town and they still sell fish. There is a fish smoker next to the marina and I bought 2 lbs, yummy. Went for a long bike ride, what else is there to do! We see the houses as we ride and this place is more middle class rather than the ultra-rich places like Harbor Springs, a nice change to see. They placed us on dock #1 right behind the fuel dock, luckily only one boat came in for fuel. The next morning they asked us to move to #10, but before we moved we did pump out and got diesel. Pumped 37.56 gallons at $2.72 for a total of $102.17. We have now bought 208.3 gallons of diesel and averaging .81 gallon per hour over 256.5 hours running. Total fuel cost so far is $650. Not bad for pushing a 34,000 lb boat thru the water from Poughkeepsie.      

We were last in Lake Charlevoix in Irish Marina for 2 days. The Municipal Marina in downtown Charlevoix was full so we moved out of town to Irish. We had a nice long bike ride to get to town but Charlevoix was well worth the trip. The State dug a canal from Lake Michigan to Lake Charlevoix and made it into a very safe harbor of refuge. It has 5 marinas with great services.

The trip from Harbor Springs to Lake Charlevoix was short 18 miles only 3.5 hrs. We left late because of fog in the morning and arrived at the Marina at 1430. The trip from Charlevoix to Leland took 6.25 hrs. and was 34 miles. We motor sailed a little but then lost the wind again. If this sounds like same story every day well it is. Better than storms though.

Talk about storms, Wednesday we are still in Leland because of 25kn winds gusting to 30kn. That we could handle and sail except it is out of the SW exactly the direction we need to go. Pounding into the waves is no fun and it slows us down to 3to4 knots. We double tied the boat to the dock because again we are the first boat behind the break water. The lines are stretching tight as we rock. We hope to leave tomorrow if the weather cooperates.