On the Road Again - Finally! Saugatuck to Grand Haven June 30 to July 2, 2014

Waving goodbye at Tower

We were determined to leave Saugatuck no matter what. We were getting stir crazy. We were delayed for a few days due to wind and fog but we just had to get moving. We need to get moving if we want to get to the North Channel by 7/15. I know we are not supposed to keep to a schedule but this time we have to. We are pretty far south to make our target and still see some sites along the way.

Leaving Saugatuck -
entrance to Lake Michigan

We waited as long as we could in the morning, not leaving until about 10am because we were hoping it would tur.n into flat water for our first excursion. Kermit was nervous. It was fine. The nice folks at Tower Marina waved farewell.

Maeo and Paul Bates

Kermit was driving. Paul stood much of the time next to Kermit at the helm watching for obstacles and learning how the boat runs. Maeo sat in the corner at the back and I sat in the said bench facing back. It went pretty smoothly for our first trip!

Our target was Grand Haven. Only 40 short miles in that soup. We left about 10am and arrived about 2pm. We traveled with about 3 foot waves coming from the west off our beam - not the best way to travel but we handled it just fine. The water about 3 miles off shore is about 45 degrees. Contrast the cold water with hot air and you have the chance for fog. We found it! The radar works just fine. The wind picked up as the afternoon wore on but nothing uncomfortable. 

Despite the cold waves on the lake, the beach was filled with swimmers enjoying a sunny summer day. It was an odd contrast.

 We couldn’t get a slip in the municipal marina or any of the marinas closer to downtown so we got into Grand Isle Marina at $2.50 per foot – a huge expense. 

The guidebooks warn that the Grand River entrance to Grand Haven does not have a breakwall so swell from Lake Michigan come directly in to Grand Haven and making docking at the municipal marina a very bumpy experience if the weather turns bad and it did. It would have been rock and roll city while we were there. But we were safe from the worst of it while the wind blew every day with flags straight out, even inland. So we stayed for 3 days till it cleared a little.

We filled up with fuel when we arrived. 100 gallons on each side at $4.25 per gallon diesel, contrasted with $5.15 for gas. 

Grand Haven is famous for the dancing fountain light show at 10pm every night in the summer. We saw it last time and wanted to show Paul and Maeo. Grand Isle Marina is about a 2 mile bike ride from downtown Grand Haven. We took inventory and found enough bike lights to have a front light on Kermit's bike and a back light on Paul's bike. That will do. 

We had an early dinner and off we went to explore Grand Haven. Like most towns on the west side of Michigan, Grand Haven was a logging town. Situated at the mouth of the Grand River, loggers took trees from central Michigan in the winter, stacked them on the frozen river then ferried them to the coast at Grand Haven where they were turned into lumber and shipped to Chicago. We visited the Tri-City Museum to learn more about lumberjacks and the influence of lumber on Grand Haven. 

It was really hot. I mean sweat dripping hot. Quite a contrast to the cold wet experience on Lake Michigan. We wandered around a craft show, ducked in the museum for some AC. We were so hot we went to a local restaurant for some ice tea and a snack. We drank a pitcher of ice tea with some really good quesadillas as a snack. 

The light show is interesting but we agreed that classical music would have been better. 

Couldn’t find the ice cream that night but I found it the next day when I rode bike out to beach – it was called “The Pump” and had about 20 different flavors of soft serve that you could select in a cup and pump yourself - get it?. Then they had about 50 different toppings. The whole thing got weighed. I had pistachio, spumoni and chocolate with lots of different toppings then sat in the cool restaurant and wrote some blogs while enjoying the ice cream! 

Grand Haven has a state park right on the beach with campers and tents as far as the eye can see. It looks funny when coming in on the boat and even funnier when walking on the beach!Got sand fleas from riding bike to beach and walking around. We had to spray the bedroom.They have camping right on the beach because it is a state park – looks like of funny. 



We rode our bikes all over. We found Meijers while looking for Walmart then realized later that the Walmart was just beyond the trees. Just beyond the Walmart we found the movie theater and saw Jersey Boys one afternoon. Kermit and Paul fiddled with the sound system trying to figure out how to run the dvd players. No luck yet. 

The absolute best part? A visit from Becky Mikulka and Lynn VonBergen! Lynn called earlier in the day to say they were in Michigan City and could we get together. Sure!!! However none of us knew it was such a long drive. But it was worth it! We had a nice dinner on the boat and caught up. Thanks for coming!! I will figure out a way to get to Chicago to return the visit!!


The next day we took the dinghy out up the Grand River for a while to test how it runs with four people.We hope to keep up with Ron and the others when we dinghy on the North Channel. We should be fine!!