Grand Haven

Monday, September 15, 2014

Stats:

Whitehall to Grand Haven.  7:30 – 12:30.  30.4 Nautical Miles.

The weather report was a little iffy but not tooo bad so there was nothing to do but stick out noses out of the channel and see for ourselves.  Jeff pulled up the anchor with quite a bit of difficulty as the chain was covered in velcro type weeds.  He had to stop every few cranks on the windlass to pull gobs of salad off before proceeding.

After Jeff’s morning calisthenics we got out there and, hey, it was pretty good.  Hurray!  Cruising alongside Perfect Balance again, we made great progress on our short trip to Muskegon where we were supposed to pick up the new chip we had ordered for our chart plotter.  The ride was so nice we really wanted to keep going.  Finally a good travel day and we had to stop!  

While chatting with Chad on the phone (from S/V Longer Days, a local boater we had met way back in Mackinac) Jeff mentioned our dilemma and Chad very generously offered to pick up the chip for us and drive it down to Grand Haven, the next little harbor.  Fellow boaters are great!  Love it!  So we were able to keep going for a bit. 

We stopped in Grand Haven, a great stop with an awesome free wall that we tied up on beside the boat Perfect Balance.  It was cold and rainy, which was disappointing as this is a sweet little town and I wanted to explore.  Of course, we got out there as much as we could, did some boat maintenance and rested a bit.

That evening we went to the local pub for dinner with Jim and Mimi.  This pub encourages patrons to leave graffiti on the walls.  It was pretty full but Jeff found a spot on the rafters.  Chad, his wife Lee-anne and their baby boy Hobie met us there later and brought us the required chip for our plotter.

Tomorrow, if we’re lucky with the weather and with our chart plotter up and running again, we’ll try to make the longer run to St. Joseph, about sixty miles.