lake michigan sailing Archives

We visited South Manitou Island on our sailboat this summer and we absolutely loved it! We stayed on anchor in the bay but you can also visit via the Ferry for a day trip or camp overnight. Either way this is a beautiful summer destination!

South Manitou island is part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. You can read the story of how the Sleeping Bear Dunes got their name here. North and South Manitou islands are said to mark the spot where two bear cubs disappeared. The large dune on the Michigan mainland is said to represent the mother bear. There are two versions of the story but both describe a mother bear and her two cubs coming from the Wisconsin shoreline across the lake to Michigan.

South Manitou island is uninhabited and there are not many services on the island. You should be prepared to pack in and pack out everything you need. The Ferry runs from Leland. Round trip tickets will cost $45 per adult and $23 for kids 12 and under. You can find more information and book your Ferry here.

There are three campgrounds on the island and camping is not permitted outside of these campgrounds. All of these campgrounds have vault toilets, no water, no electrical. You will need a backcountry permit to camp on the island. You can find more information here.

The main attraction on the island is the scenery! From the lighthouse you can hike the main trail to a few specific things worth seeing.

ShipWreck:

First there is the shipwreck. The wreck of the Francisco Morazan is visible above the water. The ship ran aground in November of 1960 on voyage from Chicago to the Netherlands. The crew was saved, the owner of the ship was never heard from and so the ship sits just off the island to this day. There is a great lookout point from the trail where you will get nice views of the wreck. If you are visiting by boat you can get even closer but visiting the wreck from the water. We took our dinghy over to the wreck and drove all around it which was very cool! It has been taken over by a large colony of birds and it does not smell good when you do visit up close!

Old Growth Cedars:

The next stop if you hike further down the trail is to see the old growth cedars. This group of cedar trees are some of the oldest and largest white cedars in the world. Many of them are 300-500 years old! This was a really pretty portion of the hike! It was quite buggy while we were there so we didn’t stop moving for long! Be prepared and bring some bug spray or wear long sleeves/long pants.

Sand Dunes:

If you hike further you will get to the dune hike. This will lead you up to the top of the sand dunes where you will get amazing 365* views of the entire island. It seemed like the trail just kept going all throughout these dunes. We would have loved to keep hiking around this area if we had more time on the island. We stopped here and turned around as we had already hiked several miles more than we thought we were going to for the day and wanted to get back to the boat for lunch.

Ghost Towns:

You can also hike to the old Village originally settled in the mid 1830s. The village included a house, blacksmith shop, grocery store, barn and a railroad for the steamers to haul wood from the dock inland. We didn’t hike this way so cannot speak to how much of these things are left visible. You will see the signs for the village along the main trail if you are interested in seeing what’s left. You can also hike to the old weather station which again we didn’t do as we had already hiked quite a bit!

Lighthouse Tour:

There are tours of the lighthouse that run if you do want to walk up to the top. We didn’t do this but friends who did said the views from the top were great and it was worth it to do the tour.

The Water and the Beach:

The water is of course the other reason for visiting the island. The water is so clear and changes from turquoise to a beautiful deep blue as it gets deeper. We enjoyed taking the dinghy around the island, taking in the views. The anchorage/bay is a great place for paddle boarding or kayaking if you are traveling by boat and can bring these items with you. Lake Michigan does take while to warm up, we visited in early August and the water was comfortable in the low 70s for swimming.

Our course, taking some time on beach is also a must! The beach is a mix of sand and rocks so wearing some type of water shoe or sandal will likely make your beach walking more comfortable.

We would have loved to have more time here to hike further, explore and just relax and take in the views! Unfortunately we had to take our weather window and sail home so we only had two days on the island. While that is certainly enough time to see most of the main attractions more time is always better when your in such a pretty place!

Have you visited South Manitou Island? What did we miss? What are your favorite Lake Michigan destinations? Leave us a comment below.

When we bought our boat (SV Resande), we knew it was the end of the season and about 180 nautical miles from where we wanted to store her for winter. We bought the boat in Bower’s Harbor, near Traverse City Michigan but planned to store it in Muskegon for the winter. We closed on the boat on September 25th, and at that time we had never sailed on our own. The goal was to get the boat to Muskegon before they pulled the docks for winter in Bowers Harbor on October 10. We decided to sail down the first weekend of October.

Bower’s Harbor Marina, our starting point

Before this trip, our sailing experience included two sailing lessons with friends on their boat, a day sail on our boat with the previous owners, and one day sail on our own. In total maybe 7 hours of experience. In preparation, we had also been reading and researching as much as we could. We found the American Sailing Associations books to be helpful (ASA 101, 103). We had previous boating experience on Lake Michigan with the powerboat we owned prior to buying our sailboat. While we were nervous about the length of the trip, we felt we could safely make the passage despite our limited experience.

The Route

Bower’s Harbor is about halfway up Old Mission Peninsula so it is located in the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay. The bay is between Old Mission and Leelanau Peninsula. We first had to go around the Leelanau Peninsula, so we could start heading south down the Lake Michigan coastline to Muskegon. Assuming 5.5 knot average speed, we estimated this trip would take 32 hours of sailing.

Bowers Harbor to Muskegon sailing route — Our Route: Bower’s Harbor to Muskegon

We checked the weather forecast repeatedly the week before we left. We planned to leave Bower’s Harbor early on a Saturday morning. By Monday we were expecting to see gale-force winds from directly out of the south (on our nose). We planned to complete our trip in three days, which would get us into port at Muskegon before the weather turned. Given the weather, we decided to push a lot of miles the first day to set us up for a shorter day on Monday to beat the gales.

Day 1 Bower’s Harbor to Frankfort: 77 nautical miles ~14 hours
Day 2 Frankfort to Pentwater: 55 nautical miles ~10 hours
Day 3 Pentwater to Muskegon: 44 nautical miles ~8 hours

Day 1: Bower’s Harbor to Frankfurt, 77 nautical miles

We woke up super early to get this day started. This was our longest day and we were anxious to get going. We pulled all the dock lines and were off the dock by 5 AM. From Bower’s Harbor, we had to navigate past a few shallow spots near the small island just outside the marina. Once we were past those we could easily navigate north up the Leelanau Peninsula, working our way out of the Grand Traverse Bay. We made a quick detour to Northport, near the top of the Leelanau Peninsula to top up our diesel.

Ericson 39B — Ryan’s dad – our crew, sleeping on the job!

The entire day there was pretty much no wind. We had about 10 knots for about 10-15 minutes but other than that we motored all day. It was a cold and cloudy day with some sprinkles of rain along the way. We passed the Manitou Islands and the Sleeping Bear dunes, getting some beautiful views along the way. Since we were just motoring this was a very easy day. We were able to set ‘Old Ray’ (our autopilot) on a bearing and move about without too much intervention. We were relaxed, we cooked breakfast and lunch underway, using both our oven and our stove.
In total it took us about 14 hours to reach Frankfort. We arrived just before sunset so we were able to dock before dark. Once we were docked we enjoyed a warm shower at the marina and then closed ourselves in down below to stay warm and out of the rain. We cooked dinner on the boat and went to bed early.

Day 2: Frankfurt to Pentwater, 55 nautical miles

We slept in a little bit this morning, we were off the dock by about 7:30 AM. The wind was out of the north/northeast at about 10-15 knots at the start of the day, building to 15-20 knots. Since we were heading south, we could sail on a run/broad reach most of the day.

We hooked up a preventer line to keep from accidentally jibing. Due to the coastline, we had to jibe several times since we couldn’t keep the sails full on a true run. We would sail with the waves for a while then have to head out further from the coastline going parallel to the waves for a bit. The waves started at 3-5 ft and built to 5-7 ft as the day went on. The boat handled the waves really well. It was another mostly cloudy day, we did get some sun but it was still cold. In total, this stretch of the trip took about 10 hours. We had great speed over ground most of the day but probably added 8 nautical miles due to having to jibe.

We had to hand steer this entire day. ‘Old Ray’ couldn’t handle the weight of the boat under sail and the belt that drives it was slipping. We bought a replacement belt that will hopefully fix it, but for this trip, he was pretty much useless unless we were motoring. We also discovered our house battery bank had a bad battery. When we stopped the engine to sail, the Autopilot (which was barely working) only lasted about 20 minutes before flashing ‘low battery’.

Again we arrived before dark so we could dock with some light. We were physically and mentally exhausted from all the sailing. Since we are new sailers, everything isn’t second nature to us yet. We still have to really think about each step and each time we have to jibe or adjust the sails. After two long days, we were ready for a little time off the boat. We walked into town and enjoyed a beer and a burger at the Brown Bear pub. It felt great to be inside and to be warm at least for a little while!

Day 3: Pentwater to Muskegon, 41 nautical miles

Our final day! We had been checking and rechecking the forecast. The gales were supposed to hit Muskegon at about 2-3 PM. So in order to beat the weather we left Pentwater in the dark at 5 AM. The wind started off out of the west at about 10-15 knots so we comfortably sailed south on a beam reach for a few hours. We had a full moon and clear skies so we could easily see. Between the cold and the wind we were freezing this entire day! We had a beautiful sunrise and mostly sunny skies but it was still very cold!

Shortly after sunrise the wind shifted to more straight out of the south and picked up a bit. We continued sailing a bit longer then motor sailed on a tight close reach the rest of the way to help make time and get in before the high winds. We heeled to about 20-25 degrees most of the sail. Once we got used to it this became more comfortable. The heeling was something that made Erika nervous before the trip but by the end she barely noticed. We had 3-5 ft waves on our beam most of the day. They began building in the last hour of our sail and we could feel the wind picking up more. In total this day was about 8 hours.

It was such a great feeling when we finally made it! We gained a ton of experience on this three-day trip! We know that we still have a lot to learn! But we feel like we can officially call ourselves sailers!

We have more on our lessons learned from this sail on our post here

What resources have you found helpful in learning to sail? Any advice? Leave us a comment below!