White Lake Sailboats September 18, 2008

We pulled out of Ludington Marina a safe distance behind a carferry. Another beautiful day! With two sails up, we clipped along at 7 knots. Our destination is White Lake, about 37 miles south. In the late morning, shortly after Brenda called from Colorado to see how we were doing, the wind began to drop and change from east to southeast to south. We had planned to use our spinnaker again but the wind change cancelled that idea. Eventually when we got down to 3 knots, Debbie started one motor and later Tom added the second one. We hoped to sail all of Lake Michigan as we know we will be motoring most of the time on the rivers.

As we drew close to the canal into White Lake, four sailboats greeted us. Two came close enough to be photographed.

As we entered the channel to White Lake, out sailed another catamaran. The Skipper popped his head up and said, "How many times do you think this happens?" He was right. We rarely see other sailboats moving this late in the summer. This is the first catamaran we have seen anywhere.

Although Tom was running out of bread, we decided not to sail to the end of White Lake to look for a grocery store in Whitehall. We can get bread tomorrow or he can eat crackers! We dropped anchor close to the White Lake Yacht Club, where Debbie remembers racing years ago in the Western Michigan Regatta. The Lake is about 3 miles long which would add 6 miles to our trip. As we dropped anchor, a Corsair (trimaran) sailed by. Sorry no picture. Debbie was tied up at the wheel.

Spagetti and Asparagus for dinner. Tom had two helpings! Said he did not want to have left overs. The chef immediately said that reason will not work a second time!

A full-tummied man and his luck lady enjoyed the sunset from the foredeck.

Running to Ludington September 17, 2008

We passed the Frankfort Lighthouse just after 9 a.m. and headed south to find warm tropical waters. The wind was light as we motored out into Lake Michigan. After a few hours we raised the main and jib and chugged along at 5 to 6 miles a hour. Many patches of sand dunes appeared along the shore line. The sky was robin's egg blue. The waves were almost nonexistent.

Since the wind was from the northwest and over our shoulders, we decided to raise the spinnaker. Up it went and immediately became an hour glass shape. Then it wrapped around the jib. The ropes on the cover wrapped around the bright yellow, purple and blue silk. It was a mess. We stowed all sails but the spinnaker. Many minutes later we had it untangled. This one piece of material is not going to win! We put it up again and this time it flew like a big balloon in front of our ship! The third try was magic - at last.

For many hours and 43 miles we sailed south along the Shore passed Arcadia, Portage, Manistee and finally arrived at Ludington with only the bight purple, blue and yellow sail leading the way. About dinner time we put the spinnaker back in the bag and motored in to the harbor.

We decided to stay at the Ludington Municipal Marina so that Debbie's friend Mary Jo could easily find us. After a tour of Catrina, the trio hiked over to the House of Flavors and had a tasty pot pie, fajita salad and ceasar salad. We deserved some sweet after such a testing day so we both had dessert - ice cream! Hopefully, tomorrow will be a less exciting day!