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.