A Great Crossing and Loop Closing

When the weather finally cleared on Sunday, there was a mass exodus of boats from Leland and we were one of them. There was still a lot of wave action but, now, not a lot of wind so it was a little rough. Here’s a view of the sand dunes on Michigan’s beautiful coastline along the way.

We arrived after about 6 hours on the water. This is the Frankfort Light at the mouth of the Betsie River.

We tried to stay out of the way of the numerous fishermen here and anchored out with a few other boats off the Municipal Marina in Lake Betsie. We had a peaceful night and at 8AM were ready to head across the Lake. The first hour or so was motor-sailing; the seas were rather rough but not that much wind. Poor Ginger even got a little seasick. Then the wind picked up and we remembered why we got into sailing in the first place!

We were headed W/NW and the wind was W/SW so it was a close reach which changed to more of a beam reach. It was sunny all day but cool, high 60s. It was just a really enjoyable sail, averaging 6+ knots. We were out of sight of land for about 2 ½ hours. It’s understandable that the early sailors thought the earth was flat – it certainly does appear that way when you can’t see anything but water!

After about 8 hours, we saw this familiar sight - the entrance to the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. The white buildings are the Coast Guard Station. At 3:42 CDT we officially completed America's Great Loop as this is where we began our trip. We both were feeling a sense of relief to know we accomplished our goal. Maybe we’ll have a sense of let-down later but not today.


We called to open the Bay View Bridge but had to wait for the 5pm opening of the new Ogden St. Bridge. Just as we were going through there was some excitement. A distress call came on the radio – a woman on a sailboat asking anyone in the area to come to their aid. They had lost power and were drifting into one of the large ore boats in the harbor. Someone nearby did get there in time and here’s the Good Samaritan towing the Jacinda Rose to the same wall we were having trouble tying to (the wind was pushing us away from the wall). We finally got tied up and were able to help Jacinda Rose dock along with a few others – no easy feat. She weighs 44,000 lbs. and with the gusty wind and no power – yikes. But no damage to either boat thank goodness.  Here’s the rescuer and rescuee:

Here are the freighters the sailboat was about to drift into:

After the thousands of miles we traveled on this trip, it’s amazing to realize that we’ve never had anything really traumatic happen. Although running aground and being pulled toward that long tow off Moorehead City, SC seemed pretty scary at the time!

We planned to head to Green Bay the next day; however, since the wind was west/southwest, we would have had to motor the whole way. We decided to sail to Menominee, our home marina, instead. And we had a brisk 2 ½ hour sail from Door County across Green Bay to Menominee, MI. Wow, two consecutive days of no motoring! It was rather odd to ask for a transient slip on the radio. They put us on our old dock, just farther out, in B-29 instead of B-20. Here’s B Dock looking toward shore.

This marina has great facilities. A very comfortable boaters’ lounge, wonderful separate showers, wifi, a computer for boaters to use – so many things we took for granted before we stayed at some really sub-par marinas. We even got a free bag of ice and restaurant coupons as visitors. We sort of feel as if we’re “home” already but one more little trip to go. We’re off to Green Bay later this morning where daughter Alison will pick us up. Check back one more time for the final wrap-up.