Just Like the Caribbean Only Different

Me and Maren, my cousin, left Detroit Tuesday morning to head up to Mackinac. We met up with Tim and Fast Tango to go on a cruise around northern Michigan for the next week or so. 

First stop was Mackinaw City for fuel and a slip to wait out a little blast of bad weather. I was able to snap this photo of some derelict ships on the hard. 

You know that sitting right there is someone's dream, waiting for them to drop their day job and make it happen. 

Cruising was the reason I wanted to start sailing, with an ultimate goal of sailing around the world. Dreaming this stuff up, you put together all these plans and ideas of how to make it happen. It's sad to see my fellow dreamers stuck, and there's a little fear of ending up that way myself. 

Not yet though, I still have things to see here in northern Michigan. First stop was Beaver Island. The place my mom used to visit as a kid with her family (and the place Tim took on three guys at once by clotheslining them with a pool cue.)

It's a quaint little island, and basically the opposite of all the insanity of Detroit. We did the touristy stuff like visit the beach...

 

This one is Bonner's Bluff. It's named after Patrick Bonner, the fiddler from Beaver Island. We learned about him in a traveling presentation about the work of Alan Lomax. If your an old-time music fan like me, you know the name Alan Lomax. He recorded folk music from around the country back in the 30's before it was all ruined by radio. 

We also visited a lighthouse...

I don't know any cool history about the lighthouse... (but it did get me thinking about how cool it would be to live in a lighthouse.)

We lived life at anchor...

Which is awesome by the way. I like to describe it as "having your own private island." It's definitely a hassle getting to land by dinghy, but I think it's worth it. Someday I will live this life full time. 

We had a great time at Beaver Island, reliving old memories (without the bar fights), seeing some nature...

and doing all the things that make a vacation a vacation. 

Until next time Beaver Island, my mother is dying to get back to you (and she's super jealous that I made it here first.) On to the next place in the Caribbean of the north.