18-Jun-2021 Friday Petoskey City Marina, Petoskey MI to Betsie Lake, Frankfort MI (79.5 nautical miles 91.5 statute miles)

44°37’36.5″N 86°13’52.8″W
44.626812, -86.231333
Elevation: 579 feet     Elevation change: 0 feet
States (1): Michigan

Along the Way

It can’t always be sunny. The morning started with much needed rain. Today is ‘Doable’, not ‘Desirable’. We usually don’t do ‘Doable’. We did today.

The Windy app said it was 2 feet waves 3 seconds. Mary said it was 4 feet waves 3 seconds. It was particularly rough crossing shoals and rounding points. Lake Washing Machine (Lake Michigan) did not disappoint in its reputation today. Fortunately the rain passed and the wind laid down some after we rounded Traverse Bay.

I decided to skip they lighthouse pictures today and take pictures of sand dunes instead. I have to say again today, upper Michigan is beautiful.

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Sleeping Bear Dunes rise as high as 460 feet above the lake and cover 4 square miles.

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There is a ‘walking path’ from the top of the dune to the shore. If you can super zoom in on the below picture you can just make out a few people near the top of dune, some in the path and some along the shore. I think its highly doubtful that you make the trek to the bottom more than once in your life.

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Empire Bluff

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Betsie Point, Lighthouse and Dunes

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The Frankfort harbor has breakwater walls about .4 mile long. It really helped for entering the harbor in the wind.

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Good Night

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Floccinaucinihilipilification

Sleeping Bear Dune is named after an Ojibwe legend of the sleeping bear. According to the legend, an enormous forest fire on the western shore of Lake Michigan drove a mother bear and her two cubs into the lake for shelter, determined to reach the opposite shore. After many miles of swimming, the two cubs lagged behind. When the mother bear reached the shore, she waited on the top of a high bluff. The exhausted cubs drowned in the lake, but the mother bear stayed and waited in hopes that her cubs would finally appear. Impressed by the mother bear’s determination and faith, the Great Spirit created two islands (North and South Manitou islands) to commemorate the cubs, and the winds buried the sleeping bear under the sands of the dunes where she waits to this day. The “bear” was a small tree-covered knoll at the top edge of the bluff that, from the water, had the appearance of a sleeping bear. Wind and erosion have caused the “bear” to be greatly reduced in size over the years.

Drolleries and Yuks

What do you call a bear without any teeth?
~A gummy bear!

Which type of bear is the most condescending?
~A pan-duh!

I’m Pondering This

Someone told me that I should write a book. It’s a novel concept.