Mackinaw City July 22, 2016

THE Donald (Trump) kept this Donald up late last night watching his convention speech, so I slept in a little late today. A shower was the first order of business, then coffee. I perked a pot of Traverse City Cherry and then sat outside talking with Art. About 8:30 I got Kerry up and she joined us outside with her tea. It was a very pleasant morning.

We left Mackinac Island at 9:40. We passed the Pearl Mist cruise liner as we left. It came in last night after we went to bed. This is at least the third time we have seen this ship on our voyage. It was 6.7 miles to Mackinaw City and took us one hour. So far we have traveled 594 NM.

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island

The trip was pretty rough which was a surprise, since the winds were forecast to be light. The wind and current must flow through the narrow stretch of water under the Mackinaw Bridge. That plus the wakes from all the ferry's made it a bouncy, rocky trip. As usual, I had a bunch of water under the engine when we arrived.

We were so pleasantly surprised with Mackinaw City. It is our first time here, and we are totally impressed. The marina is right downtown. It is nice and modern. Kerry liked the laundry room that had three washers and dryers and no one in it. She made short work of our laundry.

We walked downtown while the laundry was washing. It is one of the nicest downtown's we have been in on this trip, if not the nicest. It is totally modern, clean and thriving. There is a great ship's store, fish store, tons of eateries and gift shops, hardware store, etc. All withing easy walking distance. We got a pizza for lunch and took it back to Annie to enjoy.

There is another marina here too, a state DNR marina, called Straits. I rode to it on a bike loaned by the marina. It is beautiful, has great floating docks and was almost empty. Most people use the city marina where we are it seems. I passed the icebreaker ship Mackinaw on the way, which is now a museum.

Kerry spent the afternoon writing her military memoirs for Anne. I sat up on Annie's top deck and smoked a cigar. It was really warm, too hot to do any boat work, even though it was a beautiful summer day. We finished our shopping in the late afternoon. I bought a little loon bird statue for my pilot house. I think loons are really neat.

Art and Janet came over for cocktails about 5:30. They arrived from Mackinac Island about 1:30 this afternoon. They brought some delicious Georgia cheese and summer sausage as a treat for us to enjoy. We visited for a couple of hours. You know it is a good happy hour when you take an intermission and then continue!

While we were enjoying cocktails a fellow boater walked up and showed us a picture she had taken of Annie while we were passing the DeTour Light. Ann Marie was her name, and she is on the beautiful Mainship Trawler named Hydrophilic. She and her husband John and also going to Petoskey tomorrow so we said we would have to meet up for cocktails. That was so nice of her to do that for us. Wow. John is a chemist and hydrophilic means attracted to water.

We would like to stay here another day, but the weather is good for traveling tomorrow, light and variable winds, but not Sunday. 15-25 knot south winds are forecast for Sunday. Art said they are not going to Petoskey tomorrow, but might join us Sunday. I thought no way that would happen because of the weather, but then he reminded me that if it is rough he would put his boat on his trailer and drive it to Petoskey! I had to chuckle at that, which was an alternative I never considered. The trip tomorrow should be about 50 miles.