Yesterday we went under the Mackinac bridge in rain and 3 to 5 ft. waves. The forecast was for 2 to 4 ft. waves, but that extra foot makes a real difference particularly in the Straits of Mackinac (under the bridge) and going through Grey's Reef, which always seems to kick up bigger waves than elsewhere. Kathy really doesn't like heavy waves and she was sorry she said we should go out in it. I intentionally cut the inside of the huge marked channel corner to take a few miles off the the trip and stay out of the big shipping channel where 1,000 ft. freighters have to go. Going into 10 ft. deep water instead of 100 ft. deep doesn't seem like much of a big deal after the Trent Severn Canal System where the controlling depth is 7 ft. Then today, we went out in 2 to 4 ft. forecast again, and it was fine.
We stayed last night in the Petoskey, MI marina where we had planned to stay longer to visit some cruising friends (the Stones of "Loose Stones" live here), but the marina was full, so we went on to Traverse City. We'll stay inn Traverse for 4 days, get the Enterprise 1/2 price weekend car and go see the Stones by car and some wineries. Petosky has a very nice touristy downtown with lots of nice shops.
Traverse City is a tourist mecca in Michigan with a nice downtown right on the waterfront next to the municipal marina where we're staying. You can walk to the downtown, the farmer's market tomorrow, the free bands playing, an antique wood boat show, a free outdoor movie in the park on a gigantic blowup screen, etc. The view in other direction from our boat is Grand Traverse Bay. Very nice!
They also have a steam train ride around the downtown park next to the marina here.
John S. would love the train. I think it's a propane fired steamer and it can pull 50 people easily.
Here's the engine. It looks like a 4-4-2 John. It has a 3 pipe steam whistle that sounds like the big ones used to.
No comments:
Post a Comment