East Tawas, MI August 8, 2016

It was a beautiful morning in Harrisville. No loud music last night, no spider infestation. It was cool, 53, so sleeping with a blanket and open ports was perfect. It was a very quiet morning in the harbor. The ducks got up first. QUACK Quack, quack quack. You know how they do - the first is the loudest quack then the rest taper off. That always cracks (quacks?) me up. Then the geese starting honking, and finally the seagulls added their voices. It was kind of neat really.

Breakfast was melon and Rosemary's breakfast bars. We were off at 7:55 for East Tawas. The trip was 31.5 miles at an average speed of 8.4 knots. We arrived at 11:45. We have traveled 213 nautical miles since we started home from Leland. Tomorrow we plan to go to Harbor Beach, 50 - 60 miles southeast. We will leave early again. Our next two ports should be about 30 mile travel days.

The trip today was very nice. We had a following sea with 1' waves to push us along. I enjoyed seeing mile after mile of sandy beach and all the homes along the lake shore. Many appear to be older cottages but some very nice ones are creeping in also. We bought fuel and got a pump out here. State marina employees cannot take tips, and this is a state marina. Kerry asked if we could make a contribution to their pizza fund. The young lady attendant said no, but if they found any money on the dock they would use it for that. You know what Kerry did then, of course.

The permanent dockers were most friendly to us when we arrived. Very chatty and informative. And they loved Annie. This is the third port in a row where we have pulled in and someone came by so complementary about Annie that we invited them on board before we were even fully tied up. She sure creates a lot of interest. And to think I thought everyone would think her an ugly duckling when I bought her. Amazing.

The only negative thing I could say about the marina is that it is a huge walk to get to the shore where the bath house is located. It must be 500 steps. They are starting a big project to build new docks much closer to shore which would be nice. The dock attendants gave us a dock as close to shore as possible because of Kerry's hurting knee.

The town is very nice. We came here in large part because there is a Ben Franklin's store here. Kerry loved them when she was growing up and wanted to shop one again. She ended up not buying anything, but I spent $.99 on some small wire-ties.

We had lunch at Mr Jerry's Sports Bar across from the store. I had whitefish fingers that were very good, better than our fish the other night, per Kerry. 

The downtown has a lot of legitimate businesses, by which I mean businesses other than t-shirt and souvenir shops. I took the opportunity to get a haircut while Kerry shopped. After that Kerry read and napped. I cleaned air conditioner filters, checked oil and filled the water tanks. Dinner will be Kerry's delicious chopped salad on Annie.