Tuesday, August 24, 2010

August 24, 2010. Leland to Beaver Island, MI. 52 miles.

We heard on the weather report that there would be strong thunderstorms this afternoon, so we decided to leave very early this morning, to reach our destination before the storms got here.... We got up at 4 AM, and after visiting the rest rooms and readying the boat, we started our day.

There was not much wind out there, so we motor-sailed the whole way, with the much appreciated help of Otto. As Erika said, Otto is our new best friend. He is pictured here, below. The box he arrived in called him an "automatic pilot", but we had to give him a more personal name.

Liza and Toby went back to bed while Bill, Erika and I rotated: 2 on the deck and one below sleeping (or trying to sleep). Otto was a real life saver, since no one likes to drive with the motor running.
We arrived at Beaver Island and were docked and registered well before noon; we are staying here two nights. We were all a bit bleary eyed from getting up so early, so after docking we went for lunch and coffee, and have not done much the rest of the day. I expect we will go to dinner and do not much else after that!

We'll have tomorrow to explore the island and its town--there is a toy museum, another museum, some shops and a public beach. And the weather is perfect! If we had waited until a normal time of day to leave the harbor at Leland we could have sailed all the way here, as the sun came out and the wind picked up this afternoon. Oh well, you have to operate on the information you have at hand. We surely did not want to be out on the open water during a storm like the one we had Friday night!

2 comments:

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