We were much more organized this morning and pulled out of the slip at 9:05. Our goal was to go 44 miles to a marina in St. Joseph MI.

Taken by our friend Tom – he and his wife have a boat that was just two slips down from the one we had, so they saw us off this morning.

The forecast had called for waves 1-3 ft with winds out of the south. We knew it could be an uncomfortable trip, but very doable. Unfortunately the waves were closer to 3 with a bigger one every 10 seconds, so we were up and down and slammed around. We thought we had the dinghy securely fastened on the lift but less than half an hour after we got out on the big lake the dinghy started trying to come off again. This time we caught it early enough that we were able to get it back in place and tied down with even more lines in 15 minutes. (Idon’t think our dinghy wants to make this trip with us -it keeps trying to run away).

There are lots of sand dunes along the shores of Lake Michigan and not much else except ….

Cook nuclear power plant.

Finally when we were just a few miles from St. Joseph the water calmed down and was a very pleasant ride the rest of the way. 

The pierhead and lighthouse at the river mouth.

We had made a reservation at a marina that’s part of a resort hotel so we are able to access all the amenities of the hotel. And there’s a very good restaurant in the hotel so we were able to have a nice dinner there.

We had no problem getting into the slip, but it seemed to take forever to get the boat tied up so I could get off and on easily and safely. I definitely could use longer legs!

And then we had to figure out yet another way to secure the dinghy – ugh 😒

While we cooled off after all that work we checked the weather forecast for the next few days – it’s not looking good so we’re opting to stay put for a couple of days. We hope that we will be able to get to Chicago Sunday. In the meantime, we will try to get a few things worked on and maybe even go to the pool – life is tough!