Day 68 - Thu 4 Aug 2016
Docked - Harbor Springs, MI

[photo: Melissa Welke, one of the street musicians performing downtown]

It was strange getting to sleep late and enjoying it. I got up before 0700 and Diane followed at 0730. We got the adapter back from Steve and we cast off just after 0800. The initial ride was quite smooth as we motored at our high speed of 12.5kts. Once we crossed the mouth of the very wide Grand Traverse Bay, however, the long fetch allowed the waves that were quartering off our starboard to get big and choppy.

Fortunately, we got through that part in less than an hour and had a great ride the rest of the almost 4 hours to Harbor Springs. Along the way, we got a hail on the VHF radio calling the "northbound PDQ passing Charlevoix." It turned out to be Vagabond, another PDQ 34 like ours, with Charlie and Sue aboard. We had met them with the beginning of the PDQ Flotilla on the Erie Canal. As we signed off our brief chat, we were hailed by Errante, a Nordic Tug with Bob and Linda, whom we had met at Quebec City last year. The long-distance cruising world is a small one, for sure.

My initial call to the marina in the morning indicated that it would be unlikely they would have a spot for us. I decided to take a chance and hailed them on the radio anyway. They did find a spot after all and we got plugged into the A/C right away as it was already over 90F. I went to the office to pay and hit the showers. Diane had a nice lunch of home-made chicken salad ready, and afterwards we walked through the very nice and upscale little town. There were no trinket and T-shirt shops here that we could see. It was really hot outside, but we enjoyed the walk and the window shopping.

One place caught Diane's attention, and while I rested in a huge wooden chair bantering with the male proprietor, she found this neat piece of 'art.' It is a wooden frame enclosing a thin glass rectangle with water and fine colored sand inside. Tilting it allows the sand (over quite a long time) to form a new design. She bought it with the money my Mom gave us for just such an eventuality before we left. Thanks, Mom!

I have to comment that this marina has some very large and extremely expensive boats visiting. It isn't expensive to be here (our dockage was $45 for the night), but for some reason, there were almost no boats that didn't look pretty new and nice. Usually, you find at least a handful of boats that are rather old and not kept up all that well, but not here. Back at Diva Di, the A/C was a fine place to be for reading and relaxation. Supper was the last of the pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and the rest of the veggie stir-fry.

Neither of us had any special chores today, so we spent time after supper reading, me in the now comfortable breeze on the flybridge, and Diane inside. Just after 1900, we walked back into town for Street Musique. They had about 5 different musicians (solo or bands) playing around town and we stopped and listened to all of them. One location was near an ice cream store that had a person in a moose costume. He saw us dancing a waltz that I had requested, and came over to cut-in at the end. Everyone, including the duo, thought that was great.

We particularly enjoyed the last stop we made. Melissa Welke loved getting the kids involved playing maracas, snare drums, and hand drums. Diane and I each played the drums, too, when the kids were not involved. To our surprise, Melissa lives near us in FL for the winter and plays many Thu nights just a few miles from our house. We will have to check that out.

It was after 2130 when we got back to the boat. Thunderstorms tonight will bring much cooler temperatures tomorrow. We plan to move just a few miles to the S to visit Petoskey.