South Manitou Is - Michigan to Frankfort

South Manitou Island

After going to the early morning Farmers Market at Elk Rapids which had good variety & quality (baking, veges., fruit & gift stalls ) we left in fog, mist & showers for South Manitou Island. This is a small island with a good looking anchorage that we thought we would like to stop at on our way south as a change from a coastal town on the eastern coast of the Lake. The water was calm and later the weather was sunny enough to enjoy the sights – the huge but smelly lighthouse inhabited by cormorants and the large crescent shaped bay as we approached the island. Unbeknown to us, as we travelled that afternoon, a water pipe in a cupboard in the front head (bathroom) started to leak and watered the floor and ran into the food storage cupboard as well. Thankfully we caught it early enough but it was a major job to mop up all the water and rescue all the packets that were inside the soggy cardboard cartons. Thank goodness for cellophane & plastic packaging inside the cartons. This saved everything except one packet of teabags. Colin repaired it by cutting off the old collapsing rubber seal and added a new piece of pipe. So far it is still holding. Ted had also had a problem with an alternator the day before when a bolt holding it sheared off and fell into the bilge. He had to stop, rescue the bolt and put it back together before we could continue. These incidents are known as 'running maintenance' or what the #@%$ has gone wrong now. The anchorage that night we shared with 2 small yachts & was the quietest yet with a full moon and no water slap on the hull.

We dinghied ashore in the morning to look at the light house that unfortunately did not open for tours until 2.30pm. We looked at the small historic village that once existed and is being restored. This had been a community of lighthouse keepers, men who manned the life station and their families - and even a school.

As we left the island we detoured to look at a ship wreck very close to the beach – a Liberian freighter that had run aground. We headed south towards Frankfort passing the large sand dunes lining the coast called the Sleeping Bear Dunes.