North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Frankfort Michigan

Preparing for the trip

Captain Jerry has been making the final preparations to North Star, our 32 foot Cape Island down east trawler. We are anxious to leave our landlubber lives behind and begin our long awaited journey around the Great Circle. Join us as we travel 10, 000 kilometers: through the historic Trent Severn Waterway; the pristine waters of Georgian Bay; the North Channel of lake Huron; and hop from beach to beach on lake Michigan. We will visit Chicago and begin our trek along the rivers: Illinois; upper Mississippi; Ohio; Cumberland: Tennessee; Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Black Warrior. We will have transited through 68 locks at this juncture. We have chosen the inner route from Mobile Alabama to Tarpon Springs Florida and the shorter Ocheechobee Waterway to reach the East coast of Florida. We will skip over to the Bahamas to wait out the winter before heading North on the Atlantic Inter Coastal Waterway.
The 10 years of researching and planning are finally at an end and we invite you to come along on our adventure.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Frankfort Michigan

I was not able to post yesterday because we were anchored in Lake Charlevoix near Charlevoix Michigan and we had no access. We did not make it to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan because the waves were not cooperating. North Star does not like 4 foot waves on the beam. We changed course and made it to Lake Charlevoix which is quite nice. A sandy bottom and sandy beach, once the wind died down it was quite nice.
The coast guard came to greet us just as we anchored. They asked a few questions but they did not board us. They were interested in the boat and the Newfoundland flag. They were very courteous and pleasant, we did not see any weapons. A positive experience.
Today we set out early and arrived in Frankfort just after 3:00. It was a much better day for nasty old Michigan. We took pictures of the Lakeshore Park which has really high sand dunes but I will have to post pictures the next time we have internet access. We are at the Municipal Marina but they don't have internet but the public library across from the dock does. It is quite sunny so not a great place to blog from.
Tomorrow we leave early, at 6:00 A.M., to go south somewhere. We are anxious to have Lake Michigan behind us, we are not fans of the Great Lakes. Today we travelled for 9 hours because the weather was favourable and it calls for the same tomorrow so we will go as far as possible.
We are having connectivity issues with Virgin Mobile so we may not post for a few days.