Another beautiful day 🙂 We began our morning by checking out the farmers market in Frankfort. There was a collection of miscellaneous goods and eats to be had. Unfortunately, nothing really caught our eye (aside from some delicious looking pie). We made a quick trip into the local grocery store, Glen’s, and prepared for our trip to South Manitou Island.
It was a pretty decent sail with the wind at about 130 degrees off our port side. We sailed very efficiently with just the main pushed way over to starboard for quite a while and added in our genoa as the winds started to die off. Due to the angle of the wind, we were unable to utilize both sales in tandem fully deployed. We settled for a full main (with the traveler all the way to starboard) and about 30% of our genoa; cutting it off just before the mast to prevent any flogging due to the main sapping it’s wind. It was kind of a fun challenge to try and get the right combination that would get us the best speed in the relatively light winds of 10-12knts.
Our arrival to South Manitou Island was incredibly refreshing. There are no inhabitants on this island other than a few campers/hikers. With nothing more than a lighthouse (and a few supporting buildings) and a dock for the ferry that carts people to and from Leeland, the landscape is largely untouched. We anchored in a little cove that protects us from all directions but the east. As we were positioning ourselves to anchor, we could feel the warmth from the island and smell the freshness of the cedar forest as if it were a scent from Yankee Candle. It’s an amazing thing to come across such an undeveloped chunk of land and smell what the earth is meant to smell like. Especially for me, since I’ve spent the last ten years of my life living in major metropolitan areas.
Tomorrow it sounds like we’re off to Northport, MI,  to begin our exploration of Grand Traverse Bay. The weather looks like it might be a little unpleasant with thunder showers in the forecast. Oh well. It’s one of those 10 percent days, I guess 🙂