Grand Haven!

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 134 - August 12, 2017

Patty is not known as a morning person, but she got this picture of sunrise a White Lake this morning!

White River sunrise

The weather according to SailFlow and Marine Weather would not normally meet our go / no-go parameters, winds in the high teens and waves two to three feet building to three to five feet, but the wind was from the north (and we were going south). From White River to Grand Haven is only 22 miles. The morning was better than the afternoon in the forecast, so we took off after one cup of coffee without breakfast, which we decided we could have on the way!

As has happened more than once, the conditions were nowhere near what was forecast. We were unaware of the wind and I doubt that we saw any three foot waves. But if we did, they sure look different from the back side than they do on the nose. Once again all we had to do was keep the bow pointed the same direction as the waves. We were seeing speeds up to 10-11 miles per hour on the downsides, and we averaged better than 8 miles per hour, making for a pretty short trip!

The entrance to Grand Haven was not nearly as rough as the entrance to White Lake, either. Once inside, the Grand Haven Municipal Marina is the first thing you come to. I was prepared by the terrible Active Captain reviews of the staff of Grand Haven Municipal Marina ("Five star town, one star marina"). The marina itself is nice enough. The rap on the marina here is the staff - nobody is home most of the time! True to form, nobody answered multiple calls on the VHF on 16 or 9, which is what the guides say they monitor. When I called the phone number, I got the answering machine. 

At Mackinac Island, there was always somebody in the office who answered the VHF and talked you in to your slip, and there were two people there to take your lines. Not so here. Fortunately, the marina does have numbers on the slips, and we had made our reservations with the great Michigan Parks and Harbors online reservation system, which shows you which slips are available and lets you pick your slip! I got slip 43, and so we went directly to our slip and tied up, without anybody taking the lines. It was calm enough, so it really was not a problem, but in different conditions, it could have been! When I went to the marina office, there was nobody there. It took me awhile to find a young woman with a marina staff shirt who was doing something on the dock, and asked if she could please check me in, which she did. So, I guess I will just have to add one more bad review of the Grand Haven staff to Active Captain. 

But wow, what a cool town! The Farmers Market was in full swing just a few steps above our slip. We walked the pavilion, and then bought quite a lot of stuff!  I first bought some teriyaki beef sticks and a package of fresh Polish sausage. We also got peaches, tomatoes, basil, a cucumber, and a loaf of asiago pepper bread. Our last stop was at the The Cheese People stand just outside the pavilion, where we bought three different cheeses: baby Swiss, creamy havarti, and applewood smoked cheddar, plus a bag of garlic herbed curds that are delicious! 

Patty buying our peaches!

The plum baskets were tempting too, but we passed!

Right above our slip there is also a very cool park, with a playground and a train exhibit, the Pere Marquette, including a locomotive, a freight car and two cabooses, complete with interpretive signs. I got this shot of the locomotive when I took Baxter up. It reminded me so much of the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie!

Pere Marquette locomotive at Grand Haven Marina Park

After lunch, I took the bikes down, unfolded them and we rode downtown. The main street in Grand Haven is Washington Street, and you can probably guess where we went first - to Kilwins, where we had our favorite Michigan ice cream, Travese City cherry, and replenished our fudge supply! A trip downtown would not have been complete without a stop at a local brewpub to try the local brew! Somebody recommended a place called Odd Side Ales, and I tried one of their IPAs, which I found lacking. I have had some beers that I thought were pretty good on the Loop, but not in Grand Haven! Oh, well!

We had pork tonkatsu with a baked potato and Caprese salad made with the tomatoes and basil we had just purchased at the Farmers Market (we already had the balsamic vinegar on hand). Doesn't get much better!

Fresh Caprese salad!

Another of Grand Haven's claims to fame is the fabulous light show that occurs on the hillside across the Grand River from the marina. We had an invitation to watch the light show from the fly bridge of Decisions, a Cruisers Yachts 37, on which Dave and Nancy, whom we had met at Mackinac Island, are doing the Loop. The show is dazzling, with ever-changing colored lights dancing on ever-changing streams of water from the huge fountain! Try as we might, we could not get a decent iPhone photo of the light show! The name of Dave's yacht, Decisions, I am pretty sure, comes from his former work: plaintiff's legal malpractice claims! Dave said he spent most of his career fighting judges who found his cases distasteful! But after practicing law myself from 1975 to 2013, and being in a general practice from 1975 until 1982, when I became a municipal attorney, I honestly believe he performs a much needed service for his clients!

Our plans for tomorrow include more shopping (From "The Erie Canal Song": "The gin was gittin' low")) and taking the trolley tour, which, amazingly, is only $0.75 for seniors! We are already starting to think about extending for another day here. This is a great little town, and we have really appreciated the time off from cruising we have taken so far!