Hello South Haven, MI!

The weather could not have been more perfect when we left Holland, Michigan and headed south to our first stop in our 2024 voyage, South Haven, Michigan, We cruised at a breathtaking 7 1/2 kn about 3 miles off shore and navigated the rather narrow breakwater passage into Southhaven without difficulty. We are staying at the Municipal Marina on the south shore of the river. The marina's a little tight, but the assistant manager showed up to grab a line and we really had no difficulties. After tying up and powering up, we walked into town for an early and very good dinner at Taste restaurant, the closest restaurant to the docks.

On our first full day, we met some other loopers staying at our marina, Freebird with Ed and Maureen. They are on a big Carver with a homeport of Chatanooga and they're doing a very leisurely loop. They are quite knowledgeable about the rivers as they have cruised up and back to Lake Michigan on multiple occasions. We received a much needed education about the rivers in anticipation of our voyage in the late summer. We took them to dinner at Taste and had a grand old time.

On the day following, we splashed our dinghy, fueled up and headed up the Black River. It was a really beautiful trip with an unbelievable number of boats and marinas on both banks for several miles. We also took a little cruise out past the breakwater on a gorgeous day with Lake Michigan acting like a kitten. The photos from our dinghy day are below:

Friends Good Will sails

South Haven breakwater

Katie and the lighthouse.

One of our warm days in SH

South Haven Lighthouse

Our favorite boat name today.

There is a great maritime museum here in South Haven. This bark (below) sails out the channel several times a day to Lake Michigan and back. We followed it back to the Lake Michigan Maritime Museum, and spent a very pleasant afternoon visiting. It has a great interpretive display about Great Lakes steamers and tourism. It also houses several Coast Guard rescue boats and a variety of other historic craft.

The Maritime Museum

Steamship South Haven

Steamship dining room

and place setting.

Vintage Sears outboard

Katie and a lifeboat

Friends Good Will sloop

complicated rigging

The weather was not very cooperative during our visit and we experienced several days of strong winds and some slight swells into the marina. It was also cold with highs at times in the lower 60s and lows in the upper 40s. We learned that summer probably doesn't show up in this part of the Great Lakes until about July. Having said that, we also had a number of really nice nights up on the flybridge, watching the parade of boats up and down the Black River, as well as several unusual vessels, including a converted Ford Mustang (see below).

We ended up extending our stay by an extra four days because of weather. There were high winds that lasted whole days at a time and really kicked up Lake Michigan. They gave us a chance to go on some bicycle rides and also to catch up on maintenance and repairs in South Haven. This really is a nice little resort town with a compact and very nice downtown featuring lots of shops and a few good restaurants. We tended to favor Clementines a restaurant in a historic building with a lot of atmosphere and some really outstanding onion rings.