Harbor Springs to Bay Harbor – Aug 10

Quick update from yesterday.
Good News, Bad News day.

Good News
We met an awesome new couple of friends, Oat & Rosemary Whitney.
Originally from Ohio, currently live in Denver, and boat on Lake Michigan every summer.
They were a wealth of knowledge for us on our upcoming plans for the west coast of Michigan.
Oat also is a big time sailor, having completed the Chicago to Mackinac Race 2 times.

Bad News & Good News
Thursday was a planned travel day from Harbor Springs to Bay Harbor.
Our departure from Harbor Springs was delayed due to an electrical issue with one of the 50A power cords. We lost line 2 with no power after going to the beach on Wednesday and returning to no Air Conditioning. We called the Irish Boat Shop (with name like Murphree, I figured they were ok) and scheduled service. They had to order a connector which did not arrive until noon Thursday, the tech Ryan arrived about 3pm, and we were under way at 5pm. Many thanks to Harbormaster Mike Johnson at Harbor Springs, who let us stay way past the 11am checkout, even with the next customer waiting for the slip on the courtesy wall.
Irish Boat Shop repair tech Ryan was great , explaining to us what he was doing, showing us the bad ground in the 50A cable & corroded wiring in the Y-splitter. I now know how to do this boat task too.

Back under way with a late 5pm start to Bay Harbor (thanks again Ryan, he is now following the blog).
The good news is that it was just across Little Traverse Bay, 6 miles away.

Bay Harbor claims via Motor Boating magazine, that they are one of the top 10 boating destinations in the USA. First impressions don’t support that, need to do more discovery in this bay & area. I expected grand homes & mega yachts, what we have seen so far is really nice homes & boats similar/smaller than Harbor Springs.
We were assigned a very nice slip next to the fishing charter boat – but it looks like the charter guy is good at his job.

Oh by the way it’s the only marina so far with cable TV, 30 stations (we have had several marinas with no air stations & only Netflicks or radio at night).

Bad News
During our tie up at Bay Harbor, I wrenched my back badly – heading off to my first chiropractor visit in my life this morning. Dock Consultant Jerry made the appointment and will be taking me to the Doc (1st marina with a “dock consultant”) .
Joe, Michael, Kurt, Rod, Nellie – I now feel your pain, don’t know how you deal with it.
Jake – get that degree right soon, I may need you !