St. Ignace to Bay Harbor

Day #690; Loop Miles to Date = 8,256

We had a longish travel day leaving St Ignace as we traveled west through the Mackinac Straits, and then south down to Bay Harbor on the lower peninsula of Michigan. We found that the wind forecast had understated the conditions that we encountered, and our first exposure to Lake Michigan was not quite as comfortable as we would have liked. We rocked and rolled a bit coming through the straits and especially when we turned to the south. We hugged the shoreline for awhile, which helped to mitigate some of the roll that we were getting from the south. But...all in all it wasn't the worst day we've had on the water, and we arrived at Bay Harbor by mid-afternoon.

But first, some additional pics of Mackinaw Island, etc.

The streets filled with bicycles, as cars are not allowed on the island...horses provide the only other allowed means of transportation. This picture doesn't really show it, but the main street was just packed with people. And after the peaceful anchorages and small towns of the past few months, it was rather an assault to our senses to have so many people to wade our way through. We found Mackinac to be just about as touristy as we anticipated, with T-shirt shops and fudge shops dominating the retail offerings.

Ok...this looks like a long way to fall when you make an error in judgment...

We decided that these guys had just given up after a few hours of walking around.

And you could rent your very own "accident waiting to happen". We chose not to.

Some spectacular homes on the island.

The parking lot at the restaurant where we had some lunch.

Delivering luggage to the hotel.

Some views of the Grand Hotel...it really was quite something. We walked around the property, sat on the famous porch, and wandered around the lobby area. It was right out of a movie set as anticipated.

Our view of the Mackinac Bridge on the way out of St Ignace. No bright blue skies this day.

 

 

So now we find ourselves at the Bay Harbor Yacht Club...a spectacular private club right down the road from Petoskey. Our friends on Job Site are members here, and were kind enough to arrange for us to stay here for a few days...and they left us their car to use while we are here! It is a beautiful facility, and we are most grateful for their hospitality. We plan to camp out here for most of this week, and will tour some of the neighboring towns by car (Petoskey, Charlevoix, Harbor Springs, Boyne City, etc.) So, instead of visiting these places by boat as we thought we would, we'll see them all by car like normal people...it should be a nice relaxing week.