Traverse City, MI & the Bay

September 10, 2023

The day started with a leisurely five hour cruise from Charlevoix down to Traverse City over a glassy Lake Michigan. There was essentially no wind and no waves. We had a really easy docking at Duncan Clinch Marina in the A3 slip and then Shirley, Kathy and I walked through town, shopped, ate lunch at Poppycocks, and went to docktails on Ottysea with the crews from a number of other boats, including Loving Life. We passed Seahorse en route to Traverse City as they proceeded to Leland. We would not see them again on the loop, a sad farewell to Robert and Dee.

Mark Torkelson came down to pick up Shirley in Traverse City several days later and we all went to dinner before their departure . We flew out for a weeklong stay in Minneapolis, leaving the boat in Traverse City. Upon returning to Traverse City we waited out some bad weather and spent some time with the crews from Lake House and Bandit. We emptied the Cherry Republic store and stocked Katie B's pantry before leaving Traverse City. Concerns about the Illinois river, and the fact that the Corps of Engineers had not yet opened the first lock somewhat clouded our stay in Traverse City. The Illinois river had been closed to boat traffic since June for repairs and upgrades to the first four river locks. The locks were scheduled to reopen on October 1 and a huge backlog of commercial and recreational boat traffic was waiting to go through the locks. Commercial traffic takes precedence over recreational boating, meaning that there would be substantial delays for loopers to clear through the locks. The core of engineers would only commit to one or two openings a day to accommodate the hundreds of loopers waiting to enter the Illinois river. To accommodate the crowd, our national organization, the AGLCA, proposed a plan to have flotillas of 16 boats begin each day and proceed through the locks together. We were placed in flotilla 7 meaning that we would start down the Illinois River seven days after recreational boat traffic was first permitted through the locks.. There were other stipulations as well. Because of the number of boats that would be transiting the river system, we were asked to be ready to go in the morning regularly between 5 and 6 AM and told that once we started down the river that we could not stop or rest for more than an overnight stay in an anchorage or marina so as not to obstruct the flow of boats behind us. Additionally, river water levels had been lowered making some anchorages inaccessible. Also, the few marinas on the river were about to close and/or stop providing fuel and water. The more we considered the situation. the less this seemed like recreational boating. As the AGLCA made contingency plans for flotillas boats to proceed down the river, we came to the decision to leave the boat in Michigan for the winter and resume our loop in the spring of 2024. We were lucky to find a space at Eldean Boatyard in Holland, Michigan. Our cruising goals changed and we decided to visit some additional towns on the West Coast of Michigan on our way to Holland and a long Looper time out.