Well, finalized the sale of the boat today.  Future plans are unclear.  Just going to step back from the slipped boat for the time being and go do something new for a while.

In the meantime, it's time to head south and look forward to our cruise to Aruba.

It's been a whole three months since I posted here.  Maybe that was because things were pretty dull in my world.  Not much to crow about.

During the last few weeks of the boating season, we took a drive up to Sleeping Bear Dunes with some friends.  That's a lot of beach.

I guess I don't remember how far it is down to the water, but somewhere around 300 feet rings a bell.

I'd think I'd take the beach the couple miles back to Empire before I'd climb that 300 feet.

Back in Manistee, we enjoyed the passing of the freighters behind our boat.  We were there for three or four of these events.

There's nothing glamorous about those ships, unlike a cruise ship.  These ships are all banged up, dented and rusty.  Looks like they see a lot of abuse.

The fishing from late August to the end of the season was poor due to unusually high water temperatures off the Michigan coastline.  We never ventured out again.  It was hot and sticky so after spending MANY days on the boat this season, I completed the fall service and put it in storage a couple weeks after Labor Day.

I think we've discovered the resort and vacation atmosphere is more important to us than the fishery anymore.  We missed being in Mackinaw City even with all it's annoyances.

So...with the boat in storage, I made some sawdust and created a quilt rack for Kathy.

I took a day and wandered through the fall in-water boat show on Lake St. Clair.  It was entertaining.  I picked this one out as what I would have left with.

It's a 40 foot Sea Ray Sundancer.  Completely different from the open deck Sundancers of the past.  I don't have to worry about ever owning one.  Way too many $$$$.

Before the cold weather set in, I drove over to Manistee to inspect the boat and polish the hull sides.  That's a long hard day to make the drive and get the polish process completed.  It's why I only get the sides done.

The deck gets all dusty over the winter anyway so there's no point in doing much work on that.  They left plenty of room between the boats for me to work on the hull.  That was nice.

The drive home was about perfect for fall color.  It made the drive much more pleasant.

That closed the book on anything boating this year.

Plans for next year are completely undecided.  We've talked about some alternatives to boating for a year but those plans are yet to develop.  The next scheduled boat ride is a 9 day run to Aruba.  That should be a real nice trip.

I'll let you know.

Project is complete.

The flash photography brings out the grain much more than it actually shows.  I'm happy with the result.  If I made another one, there's a couple changes to the plan that I'd make, but this is real nice.  Mother will be pleased...and that's what matters.  Now I just need to schedule delivery 600 miles to the east.

So I can toss my Amish hat and put my captain's hat back on.  Once our unsettled weather passes, I'll wander back toward the boat for a few days.  After all the rain, I'll need to bail out the dinghy.

We've had a couple weeks now to enjoy Manistee and kind of unwind from a lot of days on the boat...maybe too many, really.  Too much of a good thing turns sour eventually and I think we were approaching that status.

We've had some decent early morning fishing.  Here's a shot of the sunrise one morning AFTER we were done fishing.

Our cooler had three nice fish in it and that was all we decided we wanted to keep.

After that outing we went home for a few days.  I returned to do a little solo boating/fishing because the forecast was so perfect.  It took me a little longer to find a couple fish on my first day solo.

But I boated a couple nice fish.  The cooler is about 3 feet long for reference.

The following day, I was able to coax a couple more to the landing net.

Since arriving in Manistee, I've fished 5 times for maybe 12 hours and I've had 11 fish on and boated 10.  The one I lost was due to a broken line when a couple lines tangled.  The largest has been 23 1/2 lbs. with the smallest probably around 15 lbs.  Each fish gives us about four meals so we've got plenty in the freezer to keep us fed for a while.

The city has a real nice cleaning station at their ramp and beachfront park.

The marina has no cleaning facility, so I have to use this place, which makes for an inconvenience, but on the other hand, there's no mess, odor or wasps around the marina that are common anywhere near a cleaning station.

So during my hours around home, I've been plugging away at the bookcase/display shelf that I started back in the beginning of June.  I'm amazed that I've made so much progress on it.  I guess that's what happens when there's no 9 to 5 job to interfere with all the fun.

The project is all complete, just waiting for the finish to cure so I can do the final assembly.

I made a pedestal on casters to be able to move around the project to get the light to shine where I need it.  It helped a bunch.

So after some appointments this week/weekend to honor, I'll make another run to the boat.  We have some friends scheduled to arrive in two weeks so I need to stay on top of the fishery.

Seems incredible that we're on the downside of the boating season.  We've been a lot of places this year with the boat.

It's been a fun and interesting year...so far, and fortunately, no incidents outside of the rodent infested dinghy.

We had a busy day here in our new port of Manistee.

After a day converting cruiser Play Dough into fisher Play Dough, we hit the water at about 6:00 am to see if we could find some "real" fish.

We got out on the lake and enjoyed a calm day.

That's the kind of water I was hoping to travel on for the past month.  Of course now that I'm "home" the lake lays flat.  Go figure.

The best news was that my fishing turned into catching,,,twice.

This salmon was a hefty 23 1/2 lbs.

Not outstanding fishing, but it's a start.  I had no idea really of where to start here but ended up with a couple nice fish.  I haven't seen this size since leaving Ludington two years ago.

Nice to know I can still catch a salmon.  Like riding a bike...

A freighter entered the channel here this morning before we left the slip.  It made the outbound trip in the afternoon.  It's as close as you can get to a freighter without actually being on it.

The freighter appears at the bridge just upstream from the marina.

Squeezes through one of two drawbridges here on the river.

Passes by the back of our boat within maybe 50 feet.

And continues toward Lake Michigan.

It was interesting to see how maneuverable a big ship like that actually is.

Here is a time lapse of the whole event.

So, all in all, a successful day.

Picking up where I left off...

Wednesday.  It took me a while to get up and moving but Kathy convinced me to set up the dinghy and try a little fishing.

So out the harbor channel I went to a calm Grand Traverse Bay.

I had caught a few smallmouth bass off this channel in years past so I set up to troll a crawler harness over the rocky shoreline.

It wasn't 5 minutes and I had my first fish.

Not real big, but a little fighter.  I went through several crawlers and caught a few more until I tagged into a real nice fish.

I think I boated a half dozen before I was out of bait.

Time to go back in.  I met several boats leaving the marina.  It was a good moving day.

We spent the day with our friends and had dinner at the Dockside Inn on Torch Lake,  We ate on their patio overlooking the clam river.  It was a good time.

We had planned to leave on Thursday, but once again, wind forecast and rain south of us prevented a move.  It was calm in the bay so I took advantage of another opportunity to catch some more of those Traverse Bay smallmouth.

I started small.

Then a little bigger.

 And bigger!

That fish probably went a good 4 pounds.  I caught maybe close to a dozen smallmouth before I gave up.

After kicking around all day, we enjoyed a rather spectacular sunset.

Friday morning and it looks like I have an opportunity to complete the southern migration.  Up early and off at 7:00 am...destination Manistee.

The route on the GPS indicates a run of 107 miles.  Being in Traverse Bay, the first 30 miles will be north to get out of the bay.  The exact opposite direction I really want to go, but that's the way the road has to go.

Out the Elk Rapids channel into the bay.

Out past Mission Peninsula.

I'm only a mile off the shore and it's DEEP here.

Yes...over 600 feet in East Bay.

I rounded Grand Traverse Point and finally was heading south past Leland and the Manitou Islands.

I had a following sea and it was only about a one foot chop much of the trip.

Through the Manitou Passage I'm just over halfway.

Passing the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore.

And Point Betsie just north of Frankfort.

I passed dozens of sailboats on the way south.  Last weekend was the Chicago to Mackinac race and all those boats are headed back to the south end of the lake now.

Four hours after setting out this morning, I'm approaching Manistee harbor.  A little over 100 miles in four hours is a pretty good run.

Safely inside the harbor entrance on my way to Manistee Municipal Marina about a mile up stream.

The marina is a modern facility that's only a few years old.

After gassing up, I was assigned to slip #26 which will be our boating home for the rest of the season.

We have plenty of room for the boat and the inflatable on our dock.

There is one little issue.  Because of the extreme high water (at least compared to a few years ago) the docks are VERY low to the water.  The step over the side of the boat is all of three feet high if not more.

We can get on via the swim platform until I put the fishing equipment on the boat.  I'll need to make a step to get us a bit higher on the dock.

We have enjoyed watching a multitude of boats passing by.  It's been entertainment which is one of the things we thought we'd like by being slipped here.  So far, no disappointment on that feature.  There's always a boat going by, although this is a Friday and lots of weekenders are arriving.

We even got a bridge opening to let the sailboat Brassy pass.

That boat was at Harborview in Ludington for a few years while we were there.  It's the former "Sassy" that was a major Mackinac racer back in the 1970's.

Looking toward the west is the gas dock and more of the river channel leading to Lake Michigan.

So here we are at Manistee.  Tomorrow we'll transform the boat into a fishing machine and maybe even get out of the lake for a try at locating a salmon in a day or two.

It's been a bit of a struggle all year coping with the weather in our travels.  It feels good to finally be situated in a home port where it doesn't matter if we leave the dock or not.

Time for a LONG nap.