Michigan -- Like the Florida Keys

. . . Only Colder

"Don't mess with Michigan,"
this mute swan seems to say. We
blinked first in the staredown.

Or so said a T-shirt we saw recently. And actually, that’s not far from the truth. We really, really like Michigan, just like we really, really like the Keys. It’s the eight months of cold weather here that drives us southern riff-raff away.

What we like about Michigan are:

Safe, convenient places for boaters to stop – The State of Michigan runs exceptional harbors of refuge. We think it's the only state with such a system. 

Along the Michigan shoreline of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, Michigan Harbors of Refuge (MHR) have been set up almost every 20 miles or so to help boaters escape storms on the lake. Some MHRs are just a safe place to anchor. Most MHRs give boaters the option of anchoring or going to a reasonably priced marina. 

The marinas are usually older, but kept in great condition. That said, the docks and boaters’ showers at the Leland Township Marina were brand new.

Fisherman on the Grand Haven entrance pier.
By our count, he has seven rods.

A Fishing Paradise – We had no idea what a fishing paradise Michigan is. It turns out that fishing is the state’s fourth major industry, after auto manufacturing (#1), farming (#2), and timber (#3). 

Fresh or smoked whitefish and trout can be bought just about everywhere. Also, salmon. Yes, salmon! The states surrounding Lake Michigan stock it with three different varieties of salmon. Everyone who owns a boat goes out to catch a salmon or two or nine -- the legal daily limit – and quite a few people in Michigan own boats.  We were surprised at the increasing volume of fishermen, women and families on the water the farther down the coast we went.  

Serious Michigan fishing boats bristle with rods, like porcupines.

Even the little boats have multiple rods. This boat has eight.

Many of the municipal marinas have elaborate fish cleaning stations, with four long aluminum tables, overhead hoses to keep them washed off, and a grinder for bones, skin and other discarded fish parts. 

We thought the Pacific Northwest was the only place that produced salmon. At the marina laundry room, we talked with Ludington boaters, Glen and Yvonne, about our surprise to find salmon here. They kindly gave us a nice slab of fresh salmon that they caught the day before. Delicious!

Fishtown, part of Leland, Michigan, is one of the last Great Lakes towns to still use fish tugs, like the Janice Sue. By 1905, fishermen began to replace sail-powered fishing boats with motor-powered boats with large cabins. The motors and cabins allowed fishermen to fish longer in the year and in a larger area. In 1958, the Janice Sue was launched as the first steel-hulled fish tug to be used in Fishtown. Before that, they were wood.

Fishtown still has a thriving commercial and charter fishing business. Its tourist business is thriving, too.

Clean lakes, clean towns – The Michigan waters in Lake Huron were clear and Caribbean blue-green. The deeper Lake Michigan waters are dark blue, sometimes teal-colored where the bottom is sandy. Both lakes are really clean, as are the lakeshore towns – no trash, little graffiti, lots of murals instead.

What is this, you ask?  It's the beautiful, clear water of Lake Michigan taken while the boat was sailing at seven mph. We could look down 35 feet to the bottom. Although the photo doesn't show what we saw,
we hope you get the sense 
of how gorgeous the water is. 

To quote another T-shirt, Lake Michigan is unsalted and shark-free. Take that, Florida Keys!

Charlevoix, the town of petunias, has the flowers planted everywhere. Its municipal marina is next to downtown restaurants, retail stores, and yet more fudge and ice cream shops.

Great beauty -- So many parts of Michigan are beautiful. We'll only mention one outstanding one -- Sleeping Bear Dunes. A few years ago, viewers of ABC’s Good Morning America voted Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as the “Most Beautiful Place in America.”  Although the national lakeshore stretches 35 miles between Leland and Frankfort, the dunes continue all along the coast down to Grand Haven.

The glaciers that carved the Great Lakes deposited glacial sands on plateaus high above the shores. 

The Sleeping Bear Dunes rise up to 400 feet from the lake, varying in color from

light beige to reddish brown. People go there from all over to hike or bike the trails, 
enjoy the miles of lakeshore, sea kayak the lake, learn more about the nature 
and history of the area, or just relax in a beautiful area.

A lot of interesting things to see --

The S.S. Badger prepared to leave Ludington on its first of two trips of the day. The Badger is the last coal-fired passenger ship operating on the Great Lakes, traveling from Ludington, Michigan, to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Launched 62 years ago to ferry rail cars, 
it now carries cars and passengers exclusively.

A Charlevoix visionary and developer, Earl Young, had an idea to create a neighborhood of unique homes. Most homes looked like imaginary mushroom houses that fairies might live in. This mushroom house was on Round Lake near the marina and, like most of them, has slightly rounded rooflines and a native stone fireplace. Of course, petunias are everywhere.

A flock of mute swans seems to hang out around Frankfort. Beautiful as they are, they aren't native to the U.S. and are considered an invasive species. They look too pretty to be invasive, but maybe someone, sometime said the same thing about Canada geese.

We are not doing Michigan justice with the few things that we've written and shown. There's much more to the state that's worth seeing.

What were they thinking?!

This Frankfort, Michigan, convenience store offered one-stop shopping to make life easier for its customers. At this store, you can buy beer, wine, liquor, live bait and tackle and guns and ammo. It beats the Canadian-government-run liquor store with a dock to make it easy for boaters to buy booze and then go drive their boats around.

Mast Down Again

In towns along Lake Michigan, we've run into lots of other Loopers trying to work through weather windows to get to Chicago soon. We all want to miss the fall winds and waves that build on the lake. The other Loopers are in trawlers or powerboats and can travel farther, faster than we sailboats can. (It is sort-of sad to see them cry at the fuel docks as we put in our 12 gallons of diesel versus the 200+ gallons they buy.)

By early next week, we will reach Chicago and stop a couple of days to have our mast lowered again. With our mast down, we'll leave Lake Michigan to enter the Calumet-Saganashkee Channel, the start of the river system that will take us home. 

The sunrise became a fireball when we left Frankfort with Mike and Cindy on Aurora.