Port #12: What Can We Say About Leland?

Great Loop II Date: 8/18/2014

Day #19 (Monday): 55 miles (693 total miles)

Locks: 0 (2 total locks)

Port #12:  Leland, MI

Who would have thought it?!?!?  The weather predictions turned sour once again.  Everything we read about Washington Island, WI recommended going there only in fair weather.  Washington Island would not be a choice anytime this week.  Staying at Beaver Island was not a good option either.  We had to make a decision; risk it or play it safe.  We always take 'safe' so staying on the Michigan side of Lake Michigan was our only choice until weather improved.

Todd and I deliberated about which of three ports we should chose.  Our options were Charlevoix, Grand Traverse Bay or Leland.  Going to Leland would get us farther down the coastline and give us the opportunity to move on to Manistee, MI when the weather cleared.  From Manistee we could cross Lake Michigan to Sheboygan.

I’m pretty sure EVERYONE has heard about our experience in Leland September of 2010.  We darn near became residents because of back to back gales.  I was a bit depressed even thinking about seeing that village again, but decisions had to be made.

We had hoped for following seas to Leland and 1 foot or less waves.  Neither materialized.  As soon as we took our heading to Leland after passing the tip of Beaver Island we were taking mostly 2 foot waves on the port forward quarter beam with a few confused waves smacking us squarely on the port beam.  The crew gutted out the bumpy, rocky ride.  Once we were within a few miles of land, the wind shelter settled the waves and allowed the crew to regain some equilibrium.

The only sun we saw until well after we got to Leland.  See that little light patch close to the middle of the picture?  That's the sun shining on Beaver Island.

Large sand dunes run along most of the Western Michigan coastline.  These are just north of Leland.

The dunes are very tall and very pretty.

This is the rock wall protecting Leland Harbor.  The office is the building with the red roof.  It takes both of us with binoculars to identify the entry into unfamiliar harbors.  We're familiar with Leland from our last Loop.  However, looking at the picture, without a chart it would be hard to identify the opening to the harbor.

The clue to the opening is in the markers at the end of each rock wall.  The red marker (in the left circle) will need to be on the right side of our boat.  The green marker (in the right circle) will be on the left side of our boat.  The arrow marks the opening which is shown on our chart.

I didn't have a picture of the chart so this is an overhead photo from Google with the channel markers and route direction.

This is what it looked like as we rounded the corner of the wall.

Coming into Leland Harbor, we had two Looper boats ahead of us:  El Nido and Blue Moon.  We docked next to another Looper, Takes Two.  After everyone was settled, the tradition of exchanging boat cards took place along with talk about where we’d been and where we were going.  There was mention of docktails however that didn’t materialize.  Leland has a lot to offer with Fishtown and other shops as well as a grocery near the harbor.

There's OB on the left (with the red ball on the bow) and Takes Two on the right (Cheri and Gerald).  Takes two was a huge 49 foot DeFever.  The bow rose a good 10 feet above the waterline.  Walking by it was amazing...great ship to take out in the ocean.

El Nido on the left (Bob with his dog Duncan...taking the loop by himself) and Blue Moon on the right (Sharon and King).

The same harbormaster that was in Leland during our 2010 stay was in the office to check us in.  She mentioned they would not keep us as long this time.  We hoped for good luck!

We did much the same things as we did before; visited Fishtown, went through the shops and bought cheese curds.  Leland has added a wine store, so we checked it out, took in the wine tasting and bought 2 more bottles of wine.  We ate dinner at The Cove in Fishtown and never made it to the Blue Bird.  The dinner was over priced and not as good as we anticipated.

The Leland weather station.

See the water on the rock?  That's the kind of day we came into in Leland.

Fishtown....the big draw in Leland.

The weather prediction looked good for an early morning departure on Wednesday, giving us only a one day layover in Leland.  The other Looper boats planned departures for the same morning only all were going to different ports or anchorages: Takes Two was off to Ludington, El Nido was going to Frankfort and Blue Moon to an anchorage in Portage Lake near Onekama.