Frankfort (Port #13) ; Aug 14-18

We arrived from Leland on Monday, August 14.
Monday night we visited new friends Bill & Deborah, who we had originally met in Bay Harbor, then again in Leland.
Bill & Deborah are from Gross Pointe, but keep their sailboat at Bay Harbor.
They are a wonderful couple we hope to stay in touch with. We spent 2-3 hours on their boat.

We spent Tuesday getting chores done prepping for the visit of our daughter Ashley & 1st mate Dave Lyman. Mike also got a much needed haircut, turning his Round Mop back into a Flat Top (Pat – I told the guy #2 on the sides & blend in the top. He did an ok job). Had to bike 2 miles to the shop & 2 miles back.

Ashley & Dave arrived about 3pm on Tuesday.
OMG – They arrived in Ashley’s 2nd car, the ole 1988 Dodge Omni that they had driven to Michigan in December. They flew into metro AP, got the Omni out of storage in Waterford (it started right up after 8 months) drove the Omni from Waterford Michigan to Frankfort Michigan, and plan to drive the Omni back to Oakland later this week. The car is an eyesore, but you can’t argue about it’s dependability, it just won’t quit.

We went for a walk to the beach & then dinner.
Nice to see the exuberance of youth again in our playful daughter.

Wednesday was beach day, we unloaded the dinghy and took it out on to Lake Michigan to the nearby beach.

Thursday was travel by Omni day. We had planned to go Looping from Frankfort to Manistee then Ludington while Ashley & Dave were with us, but very high winds (25mph w/ gusts to 40mph) grounded us. So we drove the Omni to Manistee & Ludington. The Omni has no rear seats, so we had to improvise by using the Gettin’ Looped beach chairs, a going away gift from lifelong pal Dave Noffert (I apologize to my safety friends at FCA for this careless activity).

The day in Manistee & Ludington was rainy/windy. In Manistee we dropped Nellie off at the local Casino (no she did not win big, no bigger boat).
Ashley, Dave, and I had lunch in Manistee and walked the downtown. Jonell & I will now skip Manistee and go directly to Ludington hopefully on Saturday after Ashley & Dave depart, if the winds die down as predicted by Sailflow. Manistee was another nice northern Michigan town. It is along the Manistee river which is relatively narrow, but apparently still sees large freighter traffic (would have liked to seen that).

After Manistee, we took the Omni to Ludington, home of the Badger car ferry which travels from Ludington to Manitowoc Wisconsin. Ashley & Dave purchased ferry tickets for their return trip home. They wish to take the northern route from Michigan back to Oakland. The car ferry will take 10-12 hours off of their trip.

We then went for a walk on the VERY LONG Ludington breakwall, and climbed to the top of the North Breakwall Lighthouse.

Lighthouse Breakwall Slow Motion Video compliments of Ashley   https://youtu.be/7IfugMszHWs

We ended the night back in Frankfort with a nice dinner, strolled the downtown Frankfort, watched a BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW after dinner, checked out the courtesy room at our Jacobsen’s Marina, and got back to the boat on a  “calm before the storm” peaceful dock walk before the winds kicked up again at night.