Stats for Sunday, September 23rd

Origin:  South Haven Municipal Marina

Destination:  New Buffalo, Michigan

Distance:  49.1 miles

Speed:  9.4 mph

Time on the Move:  5 hours and 13 minutes

 

Today was another case of “leave now because of good weather.”  It was also another “where in the world are we headed?”  Along Lake Michigan we learned to travel when weather would allow, and that also changed how we chose our destinations.  Knowing we had a string of good travel days coming up meant we could travel short hops almost daily.  Knowing there was nasty weather expected on the lake in a few days meant we needed to get where we wanted to be to hide until it passed.  As a result, we made longer jumps on the west side of Michigan, but we stayed in each spot longer.  We skipped quite a few places we would like to see, but it just didn’t work out.

Today the winner of the “where are we going” game was New Buffalo.  It set us up for a shorter hop to Chicago later in the week, and also the Steins so graciously offered us a slip we could use for free.  So, New Buffalo it was. We had beautiful weather to start our trip, but about halfway through we noticed white caps building.  They were mostly behind us, so we couldn’t feel the waves, but they definitely got bigger as we went along.  We almost quit at St. Joe, but decided to press on.  The current conditions were tolerable, but if they kept getting worse or the waves changed conditions, we would not have been happy.  Then, getting in to the channel in New Buffalo was a tad dicey.  Plus we had to tie up on our port side, and we weren’t really prepared with fenders on that side.  We also have a grill that overhangs on that side that we were worried would be in the way of the pilings.  In the end, we landed just fine.  Our slip was super protected and we barely felt a ripple.  Whew!

We explored the town a bit and were impressed by how many cute shops and restaurants there were!!

The next day we went exploring on the beach and back to some of the places we found the night before.  The kids were desperate to go back to a toy store we found and Mike and I wanted to check out the Beer Church.  And we went grocery shopping, of course!!

 

 

After a day of exploring we had an amazing spaghetti dinner and Mike cleaned the outside of the boat.  We went to bed uncertain if we were leaving the next day or not…surprise, surprise!!

Thanks for following along!  If not now then when?!