Turn out the lights.  The party's over.

Cleaned up, packed up and put away.  The season ended when I walked away at 3:00pm today.  The boat is all ready for the storage barn. 

It was a great summer.  One of the best for boating on Lake Michigan in several years.  Warm, sunny and calm, more days than not.  Time to tune up the table saw and make some sawdust during the winter months.

On the bright side, it's only 30 weeks to launch day 2013!

See you then.

The weather forecast kept me close to home last weekend.  The boating season is rapidly coming to a close.  The leaves are turning and temperatures cooling.

Arriving at the marina Friday evening, the still flag promised a flat lake for the morning...as did the NOAA forecasters.

So up at "dark thirty", I ventured out into the harbor channel and sensed a "motion in the ocean".  Could it be the forecasters made an error?  Well, the horizon is still horizontal.  I just couldn't capture that effect in a pitching boat.

The sun rose and the fishing went from poor to poorer.

I actually caught a couple small "eater" fish (salmon and steelhead) but couldn't get much to bite so I called it a day.  This may be the last trip of the season.  Notice the horizon remains "skewed". 

Back in the harbor, the Pere Marquette barge passes while I wait for the gas dock to clear.  This is one of the former railroad car ferry boats that has been cut down into a barge.

I spent the afternoon packing up the dinghy and plan on changing the oil in the motors tomorrow.  Like I said, it's all coming to an end.  Maybe one more week...maybe not.  The weather seems to have changed now and isn't very good for boating.

Friends Marge and Jerry Bekes came up for the weekend.  It's always an interesting time when they visit and this weekend was no different.  The lake forecast was excellent and we looked forward to fishing Saturday morning.

Saturday morning came and we ventured offshore in search of some fresh salmon.  To our surprise the lake was a bit "lumpy" once we were a few miles out. In spite of the less than ideal conditions, we had a fish on as the sun cleared the horizon.

Fishing wasn't exactly "on fire" but we did manage to land every fish that struck and ended the morning with 5 fish, 3 steelhead, 1 salmon, and 1 lake trout. 

The wind chased us off the lake after a few hours so we did what people do in the wind...go fly a kite.  Our guests arrived this weekend with a handful of kites to fly, so off to the city beach to launch the craft.

I had the special "fish" kite.

And we all took a turn flying the aerobatic kite.  That was actually fun.

It was a beautiful day to spend a couple hours on the beach.  An evening trip to Manistee for dinner finished the day.  Sunday's lake forecast wasn't good so we decided boating wasn't going to be part of the activities and slept in and had a leisurely breakfast downtown.

Kathy's boating season ended this week.  I'll still participate in the water sports for a few more weeks. 

Because of other plans today, we had just a few hours for activities at the marina so we could be cleaned up and on the road by noon.  The lake was manageable this morning with just a one foot chop as the sun rose over the Ludington dunes.

On a normal day, we are just beginning to fill the cooler by this time of the morning.  Today was a different story.  The cooler was full at this point and we had all the fish we wanted to clean.

Action was fast so there were no photos taken (kind of dark anyway) as we both handled the rods and net.  With the cooler full, it was time to head to shore and put a lid on the weekend.

The total for the day was six fish landed.

An outstanding Labor Day weekend.  Near perfect weather for the water sports.

Here we are, the end of "summer" and another Labor Day holiday weekend at the marina.  We arrived Friday evening and walked over to the park to enjoy the sunset and watch the Badger set sail.

As the ferry boat made its way out of the harbor, we were treated to an exceptional display of color.  It grew from yellow to orange to red, more vivid with each passing minute.

Saturday morning, we left the dock before dawn to attempt to catch a salmon in the nearshore waters as the sun rose.

That plan failed so we moved a few miles offshore and found the fish there to be a bit more cooperative.  Total catch for the morning was four king salmon and one coho.

The northern edge of the weather system that was Hurricane Isaac was near Ludington all day.  We ventured out in the dinghy for an evening view of the sunset.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the rosy sky provides a backdrop for some evening anglers.

The line of clouds provided a dramatic evening scene.

And again, the evening passengers on the Badger are treated to another Lake Michigan sunset.

Sunday found warm and breezy conditions so the boat remained tied to the dock.  Sailboats were the vehicle of choice with today's winds.

A little early morning fishing from the dinghy, lunch at the brew pub, and finally a swim in the harbor to cool down.  It is unusually warm for September.  I don't remember actually swimming in the harbor this time of year in the past, but it is warm.

Yes, it is warm.  Kathy actually got wet.

Tomorrow, we'll try to get out for a couple hours of angling before heading back home.

The kids were here for a few days camping, so I took the opportunity to be at the boat while they were in the area in case they wanted to fish some.  The forecast wasn't the best, but this morning saw "fishable" conditions so I called Brian at the campground and invited him out to give it a try.  He decided to come and Shanna stayed grounded.  She isn't the most seaworthy human on the planet, so a bumpy lake was probably not where she needed to be anyway.

Brian and I ventured out and found the lake to be as advertised, a little choppy but not terrible.

It didn't take too long and we had some action...fish on!

We saw this guy on the harbor lake "trolling".  I'll bet he hates it when the fish want a high speed presentation.

Anyway, we had several bites but only managed to get two fish to the boat in a couple hours of fishing.  If I remember correctly, we left 5 fish in the lake that hit a lure.  Not the best percentage but at least we got on the lake when the forecast was questionable.

Small craft warnings are posted for tomorrow so I expect a day to sleep in and catch up on some boat maintenance.

A week ago while on the vacation cruise, Kathy complained about the dirty, ratty looking USA flag on the boat.  We happened to be near a marine store at Petoskey so I replaced that ratty old flag.  Unfortunately, it appears the new flag didn't travel nearly as many miles as the boat did last week.  I just noticed the flag staff was void of my new flag.  Another donation to Davy Jones Locker.

Anyway, once again, Saturday morning found the flags snapping in the "breeze".

I took a walk along the harbor channel to take a look at the conditions.  It really didn't look all the nasty as Big Sable Point tends to protect the near shore waters near Ludington harbor during a north wind.  Boats were trolling near shore and in the channel as the north winds blew away the warm surface waters bringing salmon near shore.

As I walked along the channel, this angler landed a nice salmon.  He was casting a Little Cleo spoon.

My boat stayed tied to the dock.  Conditions need to be real nice for me to go out.  Fuel is just too costly to go out on the lake and be tossed around by the wind and waves trying to catch a fish. 

The kids came up and we spent the afternoon browsing the craft/art fair in the park downtown.  While there, we ran into Kathy's cousin Deb at the show.  That was a surprise.  They wandered down to the marina in the evening and we all had a nice visit.

Sunday morning saw calm winds so we headed out the channel at dawn accompanied by dozens of our fellow fishermen.

Just a short distance outside the pier, Kathy takes the helm so I can get lines in the water.

And in short order, we have one, then two, then three fish on.  Brian and Shanna handled the action as we landed all three fish.

Unfortunately, that was the end of the action as the sun rose and the fish scattered.

After a couple hours, we ran back to port and headed to the fish cleaning station for a few pictures...

...and the dirty work of cleaning the catch.

All in all, a successful weekend.  With the current weather and water conditions, it will only get better in the coming weeks.  We just need the weatherman to help us out on the weekends.