Blind River to Petoskey, Mi

We left Blind River and crossed back into the US, entering at Drummond Island, Mi. There was a strong temptation to turn back and spend another week or so in the North Channel. It was so much fun it must be illegal! Upon arrival at Drummond Island Marina we cleared customs with no problems and our five boats borrowed a vehicle from the marina and drove into town for a dinner to celebrate Jim Benjamin's birthday, (he is Golden Lily). The next day we left to run to St Ignes Marina, just north of the Straights of Mackinac. It was quite windy but on the nose so we ran well. The marina at St Ignes is only two years old. It is beautiful, surrounded by a break water made of white rocks, most of them larger than our boat. The water is the clearest we have seen. We enjoyed a day of rest and ate breakfast out with the group. There was a hardware store close by so I was able to get repair parts for the galley faucet which has dripped for the past week. I also got a new ground fault outlet to replace the one which went bad about a week ago. Muriel and Carlie and I took a long walk the last night in St Ignes and got to see some of the residential portion of the town. On Monday we crossed to Mackinac Island and went to the Grand Hotel for the lunch buffet. The food was great. Five courses with everything imaginable. The deserts were outstanding. I ate so much I was uncomfortable the rest of the day. After lunch we took a horse drawn carrage tour of the Island. This took the rest of the day. We stopped to see the butterfly conservatory. Their butterflies were magnificant! All were alive and we went into the room with them to see and photo them. Muriel was in awe of the gardens everywhere in the island. We got back to the boat at dinner time but no one felt like eating so the ladies went back to town, about a block away, to shop for gifts for friends. Later I met them for a slice of pizza for dinner. During the night Monday the wind backed to the south and the boat began to roll. There is no protection from the south at the marina on the island. Tuesday morning we planned to leave for Petoskey but the water looked so rough outside the marina we had second thoughts about running the Straights of Mackinac with the wind blowing against the current. Several locals advised us to go ahead. They said that the next night would be much worse in the marina and the straights would not be a problem. Southern Comfort went ahead and left. We watch as they turned out from the marina and we decided to go too. As we left three other looper boats decided to follow suit. It was a bit rough but overall it was not a bad ride. We would do it again. By the time we got through the straights and turned south the wind was from the east and we had some shelter from the land. Petoskey is an affluent little town with many magnificant summer homes along the coast. Chip from Ithaka calls it the "Naples of the North." He says many of the people from Naples spend summers at Petoskey. Muriel got up early today and got the laundry done. After breakfast we walked the downtown with Chip and Michelle and topped it off with lunch about 2:00pm. One of the boats rented a car so Muriel plans to ride to a WalMart about five miles away with them.
We will leave here tomorrow to go to Charlevox about 18 miles down the west coast of Michigan. This begins our run down to Chicago, about 390 miles away. We plan to spend a couple of nights there before we move on again. I am not attaching any pictures because I am using the old computer again until I can get the software on the new computer to run our Alltel internet card.