Long run up to North Manitou Island

 Saturday, May 27 -- Ludington to North Manitou Island (75 miles)

We spent the morning working on the blog, as the marina WiFi was working much better than it was yesterday. Janet did a bit of shopping in town and we got underway at noon for a long run up the coast to North Manitou Island to anchor for the night. It was dead calm for much of the day, with a few stretches of light chop, and again too cool to ride up on the flybridge. 

Sights along the way included the lighthouse at Big Sable Point, 

Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club,

the lighthouse at Frankfort,

a kid flying a kite at the top of a sand cliff just north of Frankfort (you have to look closely),

and the lighthouse at Point Betsie.

Once past Point Betsie, the Sleeping Bear Dune comes into view. It is almost two miles long and 465' above lake level at its highest point. 

Here is what it looks like from five miles away,

and the high point at the south end from about half a mile offshore. If you look closely you can see people climbing up and down the dune. 

About ten miles north of Sleeping Bear Dune we pulled in to the western shore of North Manitou Island about a mile north of the island's southern tip to anchor for the night. We chose this spot based on the Windy app, which indicated that it would be blowing out of the north and then the east overnight, although the winds were predicted to be light. We anchored in about 15' of crystal clear water about a quarter mile offshore. That is the boat's shadow on the bottom (and the photographer's). The burgee is for the Vermilion Yacht Club, which is our destination for July 3rd, and used to belong to John's father. 

It turned out to be so calm that the boat just drifted for the first few hours and didn't really pull on the anchor until evening. At one point we had drifted back over the anchor line, which had turned back on itself. 

We chose a stretch of shoreline where there was a sand avalanche (correct term?) thinking that climbing it might be a fun project in the morning. We didn't see another boat or person when we chose this spot, but once we were anchored we noticed a guy and a kayak on the beach about half a mile south of this sand avalanche. He was probably no happier to see us than we were to see him, but we didn't bother each other.

After we anchored we saw this downbound freighter passing the dune at Pyramid Point.

We grilled a steak for dinner, then sat up top to watch the sunset, which exhibited some very strange "sandwich" sort of effects. 

We have noticed the lack of much bird life on the water we've traveled so far. Mostly we see just an occasional seagull. Boating in Florida we see a plethora of birds of all sorts and variety. And despite the water clarity, we didn't see a single fish in the water the entire time we were anchored out. Apparently the water is just too cold to support much life.