Week 10

 


Week 10
Sep 15-21 2025

Monday
We left Pentwater mid morning and traveled 37 nautical miles to Muskegon MI. The water was really nice right until we got to Muskegon lake. Then the wind picked up. That seems to happen right when we are docking! It was difficult to find a slip. No one at the marina is answering their phones! There are several marinas on this Muskegon lake.





On the way there we passed miles and miles of beaches and Silver lake state park sand dunes. We could see the dune buggies riding the dunes.


We went on another 4 mile walk around town. Muskegon is actually a city. The waterfront area is more touristy and cute. We went to a restaurant for dinner right down on the water. It's beautiful mid 80s today.





Interesting fact about Muskegon- it is known for making springs. Springs are the first firm of stored energy.  Springs are used in airplanes, cars, trains, etc.

Tuesday
We traveled 14 nautical miles to grand haven today. Grand haven was voted the safest healthiest and happiest place in America in the 2018 Gallup poll. It's a nice city. There's a coast guard station here. The canal is at least 23 feet deep making it one of the deepest on lake Michigan. Therefore it is a big commercial canal. No one was answering the phone or here to help us when we arrived at the marina.  It's past the summer season, so staffing is way down.


We walked to home depot and west marine to pick up some much needed boat supplies. We still didn't get everything. Our load got pretty heavy as it was.
A woman came to introduce herself. She is a gold looper and has a car here. She offered to drive us where we needed to go. It was so generous of her to offer! We hope to take her up on it and get some soda and antifreeze. The heavy stuff!!
The weather continues to be glorious- high 70s.
It's our 43rd anniversary so we went to a really nice restaurant on the river called Snug Harbor.  The food was fabulous.  
 
Wednesday
We had a leisure morning. We walked out to the lighthouse past the coast guard station.  Grand Haven is known as coastguard city given all their history with the coastguard station.  They even have coastguard days and a huge festival with thousands of people each year. It was over a 3 mile round trip of walking. The beach by the lighthouse is amazing. There's an RV park right beside it.




We taught our zoom our institute class to African students.


The gold looper woman who offered us a ride came and picked us up. We went to a grocery superstore Meijer. I felt like a kid in a candy store. We haven't been in that big of a store since Chocowinity. They even had our sodas! I love diet vanilla coke and Ed loves diet cherry Pepsi. They also had caffeine free! It's hard to find that. We bought 9 cases along with our other groceries. It was great to have a car. We did quick stops at home depot and west marine.
We got a surprise visitor later in the afternoon. We heard a knock and came out to find Phil Brown from the Salty side eye! We haven't seen them since the thousands islands in New York and Canada. They had some prop trouble and spent several days in the Georgian Bay but now they've caught up to us. So fun to see them again.
We went to dinner with Brad and Julie from Bad parents. We had a nice time with them. Then we grabbed Phil, Jenny, and kids and we all got ice cream. Another gal from the boat "Up next" came to join us for awhile. It was a very nice evening.


Thursday
We found a tennis court that was only a mile away, so we went to play this morning. It was a perfect morning for tennis.  After tennis, We left grand haven and traveled 26 nautical miles to Holland harbor. We decided to anchor for the night since the weather is so nice. This is a very posh place. The houses surrounding the harbor are ginormous.



Ed fixed and mounted the bow pads. Now we can sit more comfortably on the bow.
I put another coat of teak oil on the swim deck. It was so dry the first coat just soaked down in.
 
Friday
We left Holland and had a beautiful smooth cruise down to Saugatuck, 12 nautical miles. We cruised up the Kalamazoo River to get to Saugatuck. The water was almost glass. Saugatuck is a super fun ritzy place. It was voted the most beauty small town, in USA Today,  several years ago. There's more shopping here than anywhere we've been with the biggest variety of shops. We went with Phil and Jenny to the farmers market. We picked up a few things of produce.




I spent another hour scrubbing the decks again. Then Ed put on a top coat that is like a wax. It's supposed to help keep it cleaner. We will see. This non skid decking is so hard to keep clean!  We hate non skid decking and recommend fake teak decking.  
Saugatuck is the warmest place we've been since the Trent severn canal in Canada. It got hot enough for air conditioning. We're further south now so the winds are warmer. It was a beautiful day.



For dinner we met up with some people we met on the Trent Severne Vinnie and Maria. Their boat goes much slower than ours and we were in a hurry to pick up Elise, so we left them when we got to lake Huron. They live in grand Rapids though. They just got home yesterday. They're finished for the season. They drove over here, 45 min, just to go to dinner with us. We talked for hours! We have so much in common with them and had that instant connection. Truly wonderful genuine people!
 
Saturday
We traveled 21 nautical miles this morning to arrive in South haven, MI. This is a bigger place and really nice. The water was pretty smooth in the beginning only 1 foot waves. The wind picked up so the last 45 minutes waves were 2-4 feet.



Our first order of business was doing the laundry. The weather was cooler and rainy. We got a little break at dinner time and went to dinner with Brad and Julie from Bad Parents. We had a very nice time. We were going to walk out to the lighthouse but it started to rain and we had to wait in the marina lounge for awhile before we could get back to the boats. It rained hard off and on the rest of the night. We just watched a movie.

Sunday
We tried to get an Uber to church this morning. There is a branch right here in south haven. We couldn't get one and ended up walking the 1.8 miles to church and got there right on time. It started to sprinkle the last 10 minutes of our walk.



It's a small branch. There were probably about 50-60 people there. It's always fun to attend church wherever we are. We sat next to a couple who are visiting family here. They're from Centerville! Small world. He offered to give us a ride back to the marina. We are so grateful for all the kindnesses that are extended to us.


It was rainy till later in the afternoon. Then the skies cleared and it was beautiful. We walked out to the lighthouse. South haven had a big industry of lumber and fishing. The coast guard had an auxiliary unit here that was run by volunteers.
After dinner we went on another walk to town and explored other parts. We walked across a draw bridge right before it went up. We went to old harbor Town that was so cute. This has been a very nice place to stay.






See you next week....



YouTube Links:


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 1 America's Great Loop on LoveMeFender

Image
Dear LoveMeFender friends:   This BLOG is meant to be our personal journal for our great loop adventure to be shared with close friends and family.  You can also follow our adventures on YouTube where we will try to post a video every week or so. Search @LoveMeFender on YouTube.  Again, the intended audience is family and friends  mostly.   It is not intended to be entertaining or to go viral so beware of boredom. Tuesday Got all loaded, look at the pictures to appreciate how much stuff we were taking! First miracle, we got a bigger vehicle! The biggest one they had at the time Ed got a reservation was a 5 seater. This a cause of stress. But when we got there they had just gotten a Durango in, so much more space We had only been gone 6 hours when, Elise texts she has a leak in her basement! Thank goodness for awesome ward members who came to the rescue! 1 am drove through wicked thunderstorms. It was like driving through a waterfall!! We coul...
Read more

Week 2

Image
Week 2 July 21-27 Monday To answer the cliff hanger: we made it through the night without the anchor coming loose or "dragging". See the anchor track pic.  We didn't get much sleep. Between the heat, worry, and checking everything we were up a lot. We discovered the battery hooked to the inverter died at At 6 am, so we turned on the generator to charge the battery for the spare fridge, and the air conditioner. We got a couple of hours of decent sleep and then pulled up anchor to go back to the marina. We spent the whole afternoon running errands and gathering all the things we think we will need to get us through a week. We got a new anchor chain bid for $1275. We are leaving tomorrow and won't have a car any more. We will be relying on our scooters, so we won't be able to buy more than we can carry in a backpack. We did our first laundromat run. It's so much easier than when I had to use one almost 30 years ago, when we were living in our motorhome for a co...
Read more

Week 3

Image
Week 3 July 28- Aug 3 Monday We survived the night and the thunderstorms. Our radar and radio antenna makes us 25 feet tall and is a giant lightning rod. I was a little nervous. We pulled up anchor at 7 am. Today is a long cruising day. We headed up the Chesapeake across the Potomac River and across the Virginia border into Maryland. The winds were higher around 20 and the waves 3-5 feet. I worked on my personal history for an hour. I have 2 projects of history I brought with me. We cruised 7.5 hours to the Patuxent River and up to Solomon's Island. We docked at the Zahniser's marina. It has really nice amenities. We were able to do laundry and go for a swim. It's a little bit cooler today, high 80s and a little less humid. The cruising was really pleasant temperature wise. We traveled 70 nautical miles today. This crazy bird was just hanging out on the dock almost right outside our door for hours! Tuesday This morning we did some chores. Ed cleaned out all the sea strainer...
Read more