Leland, MI

Thursday, September 9, 2010

045-1.500 N
085-45.780 W

Ahoy from wind blown Leland, MI!

All that I can say is that I'll be glad when we get to the western side of Lake Michigan as we've been pinned down in Leland for 3 days with intense gales bashing the coastline. We were also pinned down in Charlevoix with similar weather, so it will be nice to get to the Wisconsin side so that we're shielded by the land instead of having 60-300 miles of open water for the winds to blow over and build waves.

We left Charlevoix on Labor Day with a flotilla of other boats that also needed to work south. Crossing Grand Traverse bay was a bit bumpy as we had well over 20-25 kts of wind funneling down the 30 mile long bay, and that can generate some fairly steep waves. After we rounded the point things smoothed out due to our proximity to land. We made it into Leland by mid-afternoon where we found a bunch of boats that had been stuck there for well over a week. Some had tried heading S, but turned back when the found 6'+ waves on the nose when they cleared the point S of Leland. As I write this, some of those boats have been here for 10 days! The locals keep telling us that they can't remember weather like this at this time of the year. Let's hope so, because this sucks!

As soon as we got in we prepped the boat for the gale that was due the following day. That basically means doubling line and, in our case, to keep us from being crushed onto the dock. Once the winds start blowing, it's almost impossible to make adjustments due to the force of the wind. As predicted, the following day the winds grew and grew all day long until we had gusts of 46 kts (53 MPH) and the seas were running 10'+.

The graph to the left shows the winds growing over a 24 hour period and a 43 kt gust going through. The graph below shows the seas at a buoy N of us which had seas to 15'. Note that the low wave heights were due to the buoy being shielded from the land when the winds were out of the S. Needless to say, most sane people didn't want to be out in this! It got really bumpy in the marina when the winds switched to the W and we lost protection of the land and the waves rolled right in the entrance. Thankfully the winds veered to the NW and things smoothed out, but it took a solid day for the winds to get down to 20 kts.

Leland is a nice, quiet town with lots of shops and galleries. One of its claims to fame is Fish Town, which used to be a center for fishing back in the 1800s. Now it's primarily shops, but it's quite quaint.

We had a wonderful time getting together with a group of boaters that we had met in Mackinaw City. Warren and Kristen Baumann had us over to their home on Suttons Bay and we were joined by Michael and Laurie Park. Talk about a wonderful group of people and the food was great too! We've just met some of the nicest people on this trip.

Tomorrow we'll head 63 miles across the lake to Green Bay on Wisconsin side. The forecast looks perfect for getting across, but I'm afraid that we won't have enough wind to sail (arghhh!). Oh well, one step at a time.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser: The Leland marina is absolutely wonderful with some of the nicest facilities that we've seen. They've got a great boaters lounge and the bathrooms are absolutely sparkling!

Log ID: 1385