Michigan: Frankfort to Manistee

Day: 59
Travel Time: 3 hours
NM today: 25
NM total: 1280

We awoke to the sounds of our neighbor boat, Time Out, starting their engines in preparation for their long ride to Ludington 50 miles away.  Even though we didn't have as far to go, we knew it was time to start our day.  Clark threw on his clothes quicker than I did and got a chance to wave goodbye to Gail and Mike as they pulled away.  By the time I came out of our boat, they were long gone.

The waters were rough last night due to the wind.  I'm not sure when they settled down, but settle down they did.  Just before we left Frankfort, Clark managed to capture this interesting picture of the morning sky.

Sky over Frankfort, MI

We arrived at Manistee just over three hours later. to see the shore fog covered while the skies off shore were clear.

Hazy entry to Manistee

As we turned into the inlet to Manistee, we were greeted by a surprise as we have not seen such large vessels in quite some time.

Shocked to see this guy inching his way down the canal into Manistee

Huge vessel going through drawbridge

We later learned that the big vessel delivered coal to local industry.  Even slow-moving people said they walked faster than the boat moved through the canal.

After the excitement of the 'big boat', we got our bikes out to tour the town.  Several self-guided tours are available in town including the historic building / museum tour which we saw part of on our bike ride through the area.

Manistee Train Station Building is now a Dentist's office

Historic Museum (Annex)

In Historic Museum we found the engine from a tug boat

After we paid our $1.00 each admission to the Historic Museum building, the guide told us that it was just the annex building holding all the items that weren't considered "worthy" of being in the main museum a few blocks away.  We found items of interest though like the tug boat engine shown above and this old U.S. flag shown below.

Notice anything different about this flag?
 Like the number of stars for instance?

After we left the museum we carried on down the road to the 1st Street Beach.  We saw the lighthouse at the entry to the inlet from afar and then headed back to the boat to go see the inland lake by dinghy since we couldn't find a view from town itself.  Our new friends from New Zealand were anchored out in the lake but when we came by to say hello, we found their dinghy gone as they had gone into Manistee to look around.

When we got back to our boat, we decided that it desperately needed to be a bit cleaner, so I set to cleaning the windows while Clark took care of some routine maintenance and boat cleaning before we ate dinner.  After dinner we knocked on Ariel's hull to ask Robert and Corinne to join us for ice cream at The Flavor Store.  Their friend Marty who is traveling with them at present joined us as well.

Tonight, for the second time on this trip, I asked Clark to turn on the air conditioning to take the high humidity out of the air so we can sleep tonight.  Even after my shower I was miserably hot and sticky.  The air conditioning did the trick!

We have a long trip tomorrow of about 40 NM.  Our target destination has a homecoming weekend this weekend so the chances of getting into a marina are remote.  If need be, we'll anchor out near the marina instead of getting a slip.  We can always get to shore using the dinghy, but we won't be able to bike around town.