Days 91 – 93; August 22 – 24: Arrived Harbor Springs around 1:45 pm after about a 5 hour run to beautiful sunny weather (67 degrees) and a gentle breeze. A couple hours into our ride, we had about 30 minutes of 1-2 foot waves and 15-20 knot winds on the bow, but it calmed right down as we turned the corner around Sturgeon Bay heading south. Beaver Island gave us lots of protection from the wind and it was an easy and pleasant ride to reconnect with Puffin at Harbor Springs. Many loopers go to Petoskey, which we hear is also lovely, but larger than Harbor Springs. Tony and Shirley had been to Harbor Springs some years ago and really loved it, so we followed their lead. It was absolutely beautiful, very friendly and super relaxing with all we needed at our finger tips.
Harbor Springs takes its name from its deep water harbor, known as one of the finest on the Great Lakes, and from its beautiful springs that can be seen bubbling up in water fountains and garden water features throughout the village. Most impressive were the well tended flowers in the parks, on the streets and at literally every one of the gorgeous Victorian homes on the water. As parts of the USA sizzle in the heat, the coast of Michigan is hovering in the mid/high 60’s to lower 70’s during the day and dropping to the high 50’s/lower 60’s at night for great sleeping weather. We can certainly see why people love to summer here!
Had a little corn hole game in the park with Tony and Shirley. Gary’s experience carried the Z’s to a victory, but a good time was had by all. Harbor Springs boasts a very active downtown with great shops, restaurants, art galleries and even a movie theater. Farmers Market is on Wednesday (perfect since we were out of veggies) and Saturday with offerings of flowers, fresh breads, homemade granola, veggies, turkey various ways, jams & jellies, pies and pastries, cheese and more. The grocery store was about half mile away, which we walked to and carried our goods back in our canvas bags, only to find out from David sitting in the Chamber of Commerce Information booth right there at the marina, that the grocery store would have come and picked us up and dropped us off! Oh well, the walk did us good!
Wednesday was mostly overcast and a little spitty but it didn’t dampen our spirits. Time for a good book and catching up on other things. We enjoyed a great dinner with Tony and Shirley at the ‘New York’ followed by a movie. I promised not to reveal the movie we saw as it may threaten Gary and Tony’s “man cards” …… we’ll just leave it at that!
Thursday was looking to be a good travel day with no rain and only light winds in the forecast. After a BOD call in the morning for Carol, we were off to pump out the black water tanks, refill the fuel tanks (first fuel since Brewerton, NY so we avoided the much higher Canadian fuel prices) and head out to Charlevoix around noon. Puffin planned to stay a few more days and enjoy the bike trails.
Charlevoix is about a 2 hour run where we plan to anchor out and grill some of those nice fresh veggies from the farmers market and enjoy the sunset. We anchored in well protected Oyster Bay in Lake Charlevoix – super quiet and calm. Only noise is the kids playing on the beach in front of one of the houses, the seagulls and a bit of home building in the distance. All good! Blessed!!
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