Today was incredible!
The kids slept in until it was time for breakfast... egg sausage English muffins. Then we cleaned up and prepped to head out. Its only 28 miles to Manistee so if the weather cooperates, we plan to take our time and enjoy the ride down at a relaxing pace.
At 10:30 am, we pulled out of our slip and repositioned to the fuel dock to add 150 gallons of diesel and get a pump out. As we pulled out around the pier of Frankfort, the waters were quite calm. Under one footers. It was 63-65* and sunny with a 4 mph N wind. PERFECT!
So we set our route and adjusted the speed to 11 mph and took our sweet time heading south. I love to travel this way. We spend time relaxing on the bow, Tyler takes a turn at the helm, Scott gets to relax. Its so much fun! We continued this way the entire trip to Manistee.
Around 12:45 pm, while we were passing Portage Lake, I pulled out snacks for a charcuterie lunch. On the way, we started talking about the remainder of our trip and I shared concerns about what a busy day Sunday would be because of a prior commitment we have in the afternoon. We talked through different options and wondered if we should try to make it home Saturday instead of Sunday, changing our plans one more time. Unfortunately both of our last two spots are new to us so we had no way of choosing which we'd prefer. So we decided to stick with the plan and check in at Manistee and then decide based on how it looked and how we felt.
We arrived to the Manistee channel at 1:32 pm and tied off in slip 26 of the Municipal Marnia around 2:00 pm. We haven't visited here before so we were eager to see what the town and waterfront had to offer. It didn't disappoint.
We took Coco for a walk through town and found a Dairy Queen for a mid afternoon treat. While on the way, I got a call from our marina in Pentwater confirming our stay for tomorrow and I asked if he had room for us Friday instead. He said he did. So just like that, we decided to get a little further south today to stay over in Pentwater.
We finished up our walk, stopped in to check out with the confused office staff, and then untied.
We pulled out of our slip at 3:10 pm and by 3:26 pm we were rounding the pier and on plane at 32 mph. The weather has slightly changed... 70* with 7 mph winds out of the WNW. The waves were still under 2 feet and it was very comfortable. We travelled the 37 miles to Pentwater, arriving at 4:30 pm. Made our way up the channel, found the Snug Harbor Marina and were tied up in slip 7 by 5:00 pm.
The kids were hoping for some down time to just relax so they hung out at the boat with the dog while Scott and I took a walk through town. We were on a mission to find supper... something we hadn't had yet this trip. We checked out the supermarket, various restaurants, and finally decided on the very well reviewed Pentwater Pizza & Grinders where we ordered grinders, chicken wings and Fred Bread. Yum.
After dinner, we turned on Captain Ron - an older but now favorite movie of ours ever since our trip aboard Heavenly this past winter.
Then the kids did their showers while Scott and I relaxed on the back of the boat. Another beautiful evening!
I'm so grateful we got to see both Pentwater and Manistee. Both are fabulous towns that we will certainly return to enjoy!
