s/v Rhapsody in Blue Delivery, Part 4 (of 4): Bittersweet

The final day of the trip dawned clear, warm, and calm.  The horn for the ferry docked just upstream of us woke us rather abruptly as it made its first departure from the dock at 6:00 AM, and we got underway early.  We headed out to sea with the falling tide giving us a fair-current boost, and turned north toward Georgia and our destination.

There was no wind, the ocean was calm and flat as we motored steadily.  The universe today was a very simple place.  But that calm gave us time for refection.  We had been so busy with the mechanics of getting the boat north, that we hadn’t really thought about what would happen when we got there. For Dan and me, it was a trip, a delivery, a job, and a chance to get to know some interesting people. But at the end of the day when we tied up at the dock, Rhapsody would have a new owner and Melissa would be temporarily homeless.

Dan and I sold our first home, a cute townhouse with an impressive view of Boulder, Colorado’s foothills, to a young woman for whom this would also be a first home.  Admittedly, it looked bleak compared to when she first saw it, now with all our rugs and furniture and artwork gone. She looked at the custom-made inset pantry and talked about bleaching the pine floors we’d installed, and asked how we could stand to part with our home. “But,” we said, “all the important stuff is coming with us.  Our friends, our memories, our pictures, our pets … what we’re leaving behind are just walls.”

“It’s a different kind of sheltering relationship with a boat, though, than with a house,” speculated Donna.  With a house, you somewhat take it for granted, because shelter is its only job.  In contrast, the boat shelters and protects you, but you also protect it.  You learn to understand its messages and needs (“trim my sail a bit, wouldja, it’s too loose and flagging, and I can get more speed from this wind;” “these waves are uncomfortable and if we keep bashing into them something’s gonna break, let’s turn about 15 degrees down and we’ll ride better and get there just as soon”) and that makes the relationship feel symmetrical, almost symbiotic, almost human.  Maybe this is also part of why boats are called “she” and not “it.”

I caught Melissa once or twice patting the mast reassuringly, giving the helm a little hug, and whispering “you’re a good girl” to the boat that had been her home, her teacher and companion in many sailing adventures.  They had grown together and had many good times and some tense ones, but now, like high school graduation, they were going on to new adventures … separately.

And like high school graduation, there was a sense of inevitability about it, and a sense that outgrowing this boat was a marker of success.  Because ultimately, Melissa had learned what she needed to learn from Rhapsody, but this boat was designed to be light and responsive in mild conditions; it wasn’t designed to be big enough or stout enough for her future plans of crossing oceans.

That didn’t make it any less bittersweet when the sea buoy and lighthouse for St Simons’ inlet came into view.  The wind that had been still all day, gently rose enough for one last spirited hour of sailing, Melissa at the helm one last time.  Then we were in the inlet, up the river, and there was the marina. Melissa docked gracefully in the wind and current – she knew this boat.  The broker met us at the dock to take our lines, and it was over.

Bittersweet Finale: Melissa's last sail at the helm of Rhapsody, on the way in to St Simons, GA.  Her new ocean-capable boat is currently getting its final touches at the factory and will be delivered next month.

Marking the End: the lighthouse at the inlet, St Simons, GA

s/v Rhapsody in Blue Delivery, Part 3 (of 4): Storms

Although we had planned a layover day in St Augustine, there was no “resting” involved.  Dan and Melissa hauled 2 carloads of possessions off the boat to her son Justin and daughter-in-law Jenny’s house, Donna and I did a lightning-fast tour of the Plaza, St George Street and Flagler College. That was enough, Donna said, to make her certain she wanted to come back and spend more time in the town.  Careful … that’s what happened to us too.  First time we passed through the town, we stayed for a day.  The second time, we were there for a week.  Then the third time, we stayed for the entire season, and we’re planning on being there at least through the holidays when we make our southward migration this year. (Do you see a trend here?) We brought Melissa’s outboard in for service, topped up the boat’s supply of water, visited Tony and Michelle’s lovely new-to-them historical house and Justin and Jenny’s newly-built house west of town, went out for a nice dinner, and prepared to get underway again early the next morning.  There was just two days’ travel to go.

The forecast was for storms, so we decided to run this leg “inside” on the ICW.  Staying inside gave us many options to tuck in to shelter whenever the sky looked ominous.  But it also meant that we were going to be motoring all day, no sailing in those narrow confines, and one of us would be driving at all times, guided to deep water by following a zigzag series of buoys.  Very different from the freedom of being in the open ocean and letting the autopilot and the sails do the work!

Remember that “boost” we got earlier in the trip, taking advantage of the Gulf Stream current?  Today, that bill came due.  Currents were against us all day, carrying us south as we motored north like going the wrong way on an escalator, robbing us of a knot or more of speed.  But with four of us taking turns driving, the trip was easy and the passing scenery interesting as the clouds continued to build.

By mid-afternoon the sky was ominous and gray and we were looking for a sheltered place to spend the night.  We made arrangements with a small marina a couple of miles ocean-ward of where the ICW crossed the St John’s River near Jacksonville, just an hour or two from where we were.  They also had fuel, which was useful since our slogging progress against the foul current had used more than we’d anticipated for the day.

Then began the heart-thudding race.  If my life were a movie, this is where they’d cue the suspenseful music in the soundtrack.  Melissa’s “marching elephants” were gathering and circling us, the skies were rapidly darkening, and the big boats were headed for the relative safety of open water, where they had room to run from the storm instead of risking being pushed aground.  We could see the safety of the marina we were headed for, barely a mile away, but the currents against us grew stronger and our forward progress slowed even more, like one of those running-in-place nightmares.  The gathering storm wasn’t slowing, though.  It was looking like we were going to get very, very wet.  As if that wasn’t enough adrenaline, the needle on the fuel gage was looking up at the bottom of the “E.”  Would we run out of fuel at any minute and, adrift in a river too deep to anchor and not enough wind to sail, be helpless in the storm?  (We later learned that we had fuel, but the gage was acting glitchy.  Too bad we hadn’t known this at the time.  It would have saved us some stress.  Some, but not all; those skies were scary-dark!  And later we learned just how scary: this was what Melissa called a “level 5” thunderstorm – that’s pilot-speak for really big almost off the charts nasty storm – that dropped 2-4 inches of rain in parts of Jacksonville, and a tornado touched down less than 5 miles from us according to NOAA's summary report of the storm [pdf].

We tied up with the help of two sturdy dockhands just as the first fat drops of rain were falling.  Another drencher like we’d had on the first night, this time with lots of wind as well.  But this time we were all snug and dry and secure.  Bad weather like that is almost fun, seen through a pane of glass. Good food and a fair amount of rum and laughter completed the evening, and if the laughter was a bit shrill with released tension and the impending end of the trip, well, who’s to blame us? [to be continued]

Heading north through the Bridge of Lions on a cloudy day.  Today is the only day of the trip we would be "inside" on the ICW instead of out on the Atlantic.

Gathering clouds in early afternoon.

We had just tied up in the marina near Jacksonville when the thunderstorm hit; here's what that same storm looked like from the anchorage back in St Augustine, about 35 miles away.  (photo by Heather Alsobrook)

s/v Rhapsody in Blue Delivery, Part 2 (of 4): Company

We had made excellent time so far with the help of the Gulf Stream.  We were ahead of schedule and tired from the previous night's storms, so we opted to come in and anchor for a sound night’s sleep.  Besides, Melissa had had little experience anchoring with tides and currents while Dan and I had a lot; this was a chance to build that skill.  We could pass on our knowledge and reciprocate her help teaching us how to read thunderstorm clouds.

We called TowBoat U.S. for some local knowledge (information and guidance) on the inlet, since none of us had used it before.  Good thing we had -- there were some active dredging operations going on and the scene we saw on the river was very confusing.  Markers had been moved or removed compared to what was on our chart and the the water was scattered with buoys,  barges, and pipes.  The hints from the towboat guy were spot-on, and by following them, it was pretty straightforward coming in, and a short distance to the anchorage we’d selected.  But when we dropped the anchor, instead of swinging to the wind as a boat at anchor would normally do, the boat sat sideways.  Melissa was baffled, and assuming the anchor had failed to set, quickly raised it to try again, with the same result.

Current was to blame.  Water being far denser than air, the current was pushing the boat with far more force than the wind, so the boat was lying to the current, which was uncomfortably for us, exactly crosswise to the wind.  One of Dan’s Navy colleagues once told us that depending on the shape of the boat and the keel, it can take 20 or 30 knots of wind to overcome one knot of current in determining the direction a boat at anchor will point.  This was one of the cool things about the trip – the four of us came from different sailing backgrounds and experiences, yet each one of us taught at least one new thing to each of the others, and learned something from each of the others.  What I love about sailing – easy to learn, but impossible to master.  There’s always something new to challenge and delight you, and room to grow.

Melissa, Donna, and I had all first met online, so it’s not particularly surprising that our evening consisted of some Internet time along with an excellent dinner.  In an amazing coincidence, I checked Facebook only to discover that our friends Tony and Michelle had just crossed the Gulf Stream as they returned  from the Bahamas with their boat A La Mer (“to the sea” in French) … and had come in the same inlet that we had and were tied up no more than a mile from us. Our plans were to spend a day St Augustine where Melissa would offload most of her personal possessions from the boat to store with her son and daughter-in-law who lived there. Tony and Michelle also lived in St Aug and were bringing their boat to a mooring there, so we quickly made plans to sail together the next day.

And that next day was the one that will stand out in my memory as the perfect day on this trip.  We sailed blue water on pleasant breezes, and had company both human and aquatic.  Dolphins played in our bow wave, then hurried over to play with Tony and Michelle.  There were sea turtles, manatees, and (maybe) a distant whale.  We took pictures of A La Mer under sail, and they took pictures of us.  By midafternoon we saw the St Augustine lighthouse on the horizon, and a few hours later we were waiting for the next opening of the familiar drawbridge.  A few hours after that, we were at the familiar (oops, maybe a bit too familiar to us?) alehouse across the street from the marina. [to be continued]

The ligthouse at Ponce de Leon Inlet

A quiet anchorage ... we had it all to ourselves

Our dolphin escorts putting on a show for us (photo by Donna Ferron)

Dolphins bring out the enthusiasm in all of us.  Melissa getting a closeup dolphin photo and video.

Exuberant!

Our friends' boat A La Mer, homeward bound.

Waiting to come through the Bridge of Lions

Chillin' out at the end of this part of the journey, at the A1A alehouse across the street from the marina with Heather, Syd, Tony, Michelle, Kristopher, me, Grace, and Dan.  Melissa and Donna stayed at the boat to meet up with her son Justin and his wife.

s/v Rhapsody In Blue Delivery, Part 1 (of 4): Gulf Stream

After the remarkable collection of adventures that was our June, I really needed to just hang out at home for a while and appreciate the Chesapeake.  I announced that I didn’t want to go more than about 25 miles from Annapolis by land or water for a month.  Luckily, it didn’t work out that way for me; a sailing opportunity intervened.

A Florida acquaintance (now friend), Melissa*, had bought a new boat.  Part of the deal involved trading in her present boat.  But the boat was in Key Biscayne, FL and the dealer was in St Simons, GA.  No problem; we’ll sail it there!  Melissa invited Dan and me, and another friend, Donna, to come to Florida and help bring the boat north.

The boat: Rhapsody in Blue is a 2006 Hunter 36.  (Photo by Michelle Bennett and Tony Boldt)

Depending on our route, the trip would be around 400 nautical miles.  We allowed ourselves a week to get there.  That left enough time for weather or other unforeseen circumstances, but still meant we were going to keep up a pretty good pace.  This wasn’t cruising or a sightseeing vacation, getting a boat to a specific place on a schedule – a boat delivery – is a job, although we hoped to have a bit of learning and a bit of fun along the way.

We flew in to Fort Lauderdale late on a Saturday night, and Melissa proved herself to be a wonderful hostess as well as a competent and organized sailor.  The boat was ready to go, and our favorite provisions (as confirmed with lots of back-and-forth emails beforehand) were laid in.  We unpacked and settled in for a few hours of sleep before our planned departure on the morning’s tide.

Captain and owner Melissa

Donna was a weekender whose first overnight trip at sea was this one, but she had Coast Guard background

Dan took a lot of flak for being alone at sea on a boat with three women.

Next morning, we motored out the cut just as planned, and headed out to sea.  Just a few miles out we entered the incredible blue – that blue – of the Gulf Stream.  The plan was to use this strong north-flowing current to our advantage, adding a couple of knots to our boat speed.  There was another reason for staying away from land, as Melissa explained.  This was Florida in the summertime, and thunderstorms are a regular occurrence.  The land soaks up the sun’s energy and heats up, the air rises (convection), and ultimately the energy is released in some epic lightning shows.  But just a few miles out, the water maintains a more constant temperature, and storms are fewer.   That doesn’t mean there were no storms – the Gulf Stream has so much energy it creates its own weather – but the odds were better.  The forecast for this afternoon and evening was about a 40-50 percent chance of storms, but we were hopeful that they would be isolated enough that we could steer around them.  We watched the storms building over land as Melissa, an airline pilot by profession, taught us how to read the storm clouds, which she nicknamed “marching elephants.” Crisply defined ones that look like a head of cauliflower are building dangerously, but if the edges get wispy they’re collapsing and not an immediate concern.  She pointed out examples of both in the distance as the day went on.

You can see the clouds building over Miami, but it's blue skies out in the ocean where we are.

Here is the boost we got from the Gulf Stream: our speed through the water was 6.19 knots (I'm pointing to it); but our speed over ground at the top of the chartplotter is 8.8 knots!

Winds were light, the weather and the company were pleasant, and the miles slid past, with the autopilot doing most of the work.  I drew the 3 AM watch (my favorite, both because that watch includes the opportunity to see beautiful sunrises and the fact that being awake then is in sync with my biorhythms) so I went to bed early.  At about 2 AM I heard the boat creaking and groaning. I didn’t know fiberglass boats could do that, I thought only romantic historical wooden ships creaked and groaned, in novels and movies.  There was precisely zero chance I would fall back asleep with that, so I grabbed my foul-weather jacket and went to the cockpit, offering to relieve Donna early, since I was awake anyway.  What had awakened me were building thunderstorms, and although the winds were not excessive, they were kicking up waves in the Gulf Stream currents we rode.  Melissa and I shared the watch while pinkish lightning was flashing to our right, to our left, and behind us, impossibly bright in the dark ocean night.

Not a minute after Donna had retired, the sky opened, absolutely drenching us.  There wasn’t a lot of wind with the storm, luckily, but in the time it took me to raise my hood my hair and shirt collar were soaked.  “Have you ever been in a storm this bad?” asked Melissa.  “Um, yeaaaah,” I answered reluctantly, unintentionally sounding almost bored when I felt anything but, remembering a Navy trip with Dan on the Fourth of July underway off the Delaware coast where the lightning made the holiday fireworks look puny.  “And last time I was in a bad storm, I promised myself that I’d never put myself in that situation again.  Mmm hmmm.  Rrright.  We see how that turned out.”

A half hour later, the storm was over and the ocean was our friend again.  There were some distant flashes and rumbles, but the clouds were breaking up and between the breaks were a soft black sky and a billion stars.  We were easy company, sometimes quiet and sometimes chatting.  There’s something unique about being with someone else late at night when you can’t see each other’s faces, that inspires confidential conversation.

We continued to make good time as the night gradually faded.  Sunrise at sea is a visual symphony rising to a crescendo, although this one was tame due to the lingering clouds.  Or maybe I was just tired, and unable to summon the energy to appreciate it properly.  The day continued, we made uneventful progress, riding the Gulf Stream with the Florida coast just visible in the distance.  There were storms over the land, but none near us.  By mid-afternoon we faced a decision: continue on for a second night to come into the St Augustine inlet in the morning, or come in the Ponce inlet, anchor for the night, then continue to St Augustine the next day.   (to be continued)

Hazy sunrise at sea

= = = =
* Melissa had just recently moved aboard Rhapsody when she (along with several others) was featured in this 2011 post about new liveaboards.

Going Home Again -- The Rest of the Story (It Ain't About the Sunsets)

After Northport, the weather forecasts became iffy for boating, so we headed back to Melissa's marina in Charlevoix to do some land-cruising.  Shopping netted us a new glossy black pearl teakettle, a stack of books from what she described as her favorite indy bookstore, a pair of earrings and some art cards. Dinners consisted of local fish and chips, in a different restaurant every night.

And after dinner, cocktails and conversation and sunsets.  Those higher latitudes meant long lingering twilight and on several nights, incredible colors.

While we were in Charlevoix, we looked at the stone houses by Earl Young. He wasn't trained as an architect, but had an artistic eye and a love of local stone as a building material.  These houses are a local historical landmark (set of landmarks?); here are a few of my favorites.

So romantic!

Love the way the stone is set to frame that arched window and doorway.

Here's a closer view of the window.

Maybe this house would be perfect for a hobbit?

Even the low fences have incredible detail.

A day outing with the boat on Lake Charlevoix yielded even more houses:

Huge.  Just ... huge! 

One way in which living on a boat has definitely changed my viewpoint forever, is the size of house that seems "reasonable" to me -- and it's more like cottage or cabin than palace.

Yeah, more my style.  Waaaay more my style.  And it's in Northport!  And it's even for sale! (Good thing Dan and Melissa convinced me that I wasn't really cut out for living in that small town permanently, as I explained in my previous post.)  

Of course, settling into even the cutest house would mean giving up our life on the boat, and I can't call that a good trade.

But you know, "the rest of the story" wasn't about visiting our favorite nostalgic places.  It wasn't about shopping, or boating, or sunsets, or houses at all.  It was about connecting up with the people that made our time so special...and so memorable.

Good friend, and our skipper Melissa at the helm of her boat.

 On the way home we met up with friend Cindy, a former colleague of Dan's.  We'd stayed very loosely in touch via Facebook, but although she knew what I'd had for breakfast that morning, we hadn't had in depth conversations about the big changes in each others' lives, like retirement.

Catching up on 11 years apart -- it was gonna take a very big beer to cover all that time!

Cindy literally knew what I had had for breakfast that morning, as I had posted something about "farm-fresh omelette where the locals eat, along with a side of sassy waitress" as our final breakfast before leaving northern Michigan.

The folks at Judy's can cook, but setting up their restaurant's Facebook page, not so much.  I helped out, while my coffee got cold.  Check out their page now!   

It wasn't just catching up with old friends, it was our first chance for a physical meeting with online friend, fellow sailor and writer Brian.  For an extra couple of hours driving time -- plus however long it took us to cross the border -- we could detour into Canada where I could put a face to the name behind the funny comments.  We followed his directions to his marina, but then the confusion began.  His blog is named "Dock 6 Chronicles" but did the marina even have a "Dock 6?"

Harry Potter had "Platform 9-3/4;" Brian said he was on Dock 6.  But the sign near the marina entrance only gives directions for Docks 1 - 5.  Okaaaay... If you'll forgive the pun, this is not a good sign!

But then, waaaay out at the edge of nowhere, peaceful and quiet...

Found it!  Brian and his wife Louise are delightful people. He had promised an evening where we would get our fill of rum and history, and he delivered.  

My guess is that you glazed over and scrolled quickly past the sunsets and houses, and slowed down a bit as you got down to this last half-dozen photos.  See?  It really is all about the people!

Awwww.....

Thank you all for reading, and thanx for your concern!  

I have absolutely the best set of friends, Facebook friends, readers and blog followers anyone could wish for - ever!  I got so many expressions of concern after I posted "How Does This Story End?" that I'm completely overwhelmed and humbled.  Thank you all, so very sincerely, and I'm sorry to have alarmed you.  Please rest assured, it was just a moment of frustrated funk - we're not moving off the boat.  (And I did get those shoes!)  If anything, all your concern has reassured me that we are on the right path, and that one of the wonderful benefits of this life is the incredible supportive community of friends that seems to come along with it.  We're planning on heading south again this autumn, mentoring several ICW first-timers, so there will be more stories ahead!

At the same time, we're refinancing our rental property, and in the midst of requests for documents of our income and taxes came this request for the underwriters who were trying to understand our big picture, why we own several properties but don't live in any of them.  They asked me to provide a "brief explanation on the living situation on a boat."  Yikes!  Where to begin?

I vaguely, and probably inaccurately, remember a Sunday School story of a patient sage.  A cynic came to him, thinking to embarrass and mock him and said, "I will convert to your religion if you can teach it to me in the time that I can stand on one foot."  But instead of being angry, the wise man took the challenge seriously and replied to the mocker, "My religion?  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. All the rest is commentary.  Go now, and study."  (If anyone's got a better grip on this story than me, I'd appreciate more detail.  Jesus?  Hillel?)

Being neither patient nor particularly wise, I can't imagine how to explain life afloat succinctly.  I mean, I've written thousands and thousands of words about living on a boat, but brief?  Winston Churchill famously said, "Forgive me for writing such a long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one."  How do I "briefly" describe living on a boat? "Three parts magic, ten parts boredom, one part sunsets, one-one-hundredth of a percent panic?"  Certainly I'd best steer away from the cliches that only other boaters understand, "A hole in the water into which you throw money;" "A way of going somewhere very slowly at great expense and considerable discomfort;" "Imagine taking a cold shower while wearing your clothes and tearing up hundred-dollar bills;" "Keep the stick up, the water outside, and yourself inside."  Maybe I should just forward to the underwriters the wonderful turtle cartoon I got from my friend Steve. (You all saw this one earlier, "Why Liveaboards Don't Get Invited To Do Sailboat Races.")

If nothing else, trying to distill it into a one-liner has helped sharpen my appreciation this life. So, "Imagine exploring the country in a luxury RV ... living on a boat is kinda like that, only a boat has a much greater coolness factor.  It is more romantic, uses wind instead of fossil fuel ... and it floats."

You Can't Go Home Again ... Can You? ... Well, Maybe ... But Then Again ...

In 2002, we lived in a pretty-but-ordinary house in a suburb of Lansing, Michigan and had medium-stress careers -- Dan as a professor at a community college, me as a supervisor of 25 research scientists.  Every Friday afternoon at 3:00, Dan would show up at my office in an already-packed car and we’d make a quick getaway.  It was a 4-hour drive north to where our sailboat waited patiently on its mooring in front of a boatyard in a small town on Grand Traverse Bay.  Every summer weekend we made the trek, and recharged our mental batteries in this slow-paced, natural haven.  When we weren’t sailing or just relaxing aboard as we bobbed on the gentle waves or swimming in the clear cool water, we were touring the surrounding cherry orchards or vineyards or the historic lighthouse.

Our haven was the little town of Northport, Michigan, latitude 45 degrees, 21 minutes north – closer to the North Pole than the equator.  It’s a quiet town of only 600 permanent residents, with a small-town- America vibe, a grocery store, a liquor store, a hardware store, a couple of shops and restaurants, a marina and a boatyard.  It’s still the hailing port painted on our stern, and we remember it fondly.  We had heard vague news of it over the years; that its business had declined, it shrunk even more and almost vanished, then slowly began to recover as artists “discovered” it, but circumstances hadn't lined up for us to visit again after we left 11 years ago.

Until last month.  Our good friend and fellow boater Melissa has a pretty nice life - a house in Florida where she spends the winter, and a boat in the Great Lakes where she lives aboard in the summer.  This summer she was going to be exploring our old stomping grounds in northern Lake Michigan and invited us to join her on her boat for a week.  Brand new places to explore for her; a bit of a nostaligia tour for me.

Some things were as we remembered them; others were changed, evolved in unexpected directions.
====

I started getting excited on the drive up; cue the old James Taylor song, "...deep greens and blues are the colors I choose..." just as I remembered. 

Coming over the hill, my first glimpse of the Great Lakes, a.k.a. the "Sweetwater Sea" in 11 years.

We met Melissa in the charming town of Charlevoix

The marina was familiar, as was the street behind it.  

A fair amount of wine and lots of catching up filled the evening, then next morning we were underway.  Melissa's a former sailor who traded for a powerboat; I couldn't get used to the idea that a "good boating day" was flat calm, without the wind that we need to keep our sailboat moving.  Nor could I get used to the speeds she took for granted.  (On the other hand, with those white canvas triangles (sails) we have, the cost of fuel is not nearly as much of an issue for us as it is for her.  Tradeoffs, tradeoffs.)

A good day to be a powerboat.  Note the sparkling blue water, and the flat seas.

Our first stop was the vibrant “big city” of Traverse City, 45 minutes by car or 3 hours by boat. We remembered it as a tourist town; it has lots of recreation and cultural opportunities and is influenced by 2 colleges.  The main street had some shops and pubs that we remembered and some intriguing new additions.  We checked them all out and definitely made our contributions to the local economy.

The main shopping street is a mix of old buildings and new ones.  Some places, like our favorite brewpub from our time here 1998-2002, were familiar, as was the kitchen store and a bookstore.  Several other art shops and clothing stores and restaurants were new.  We did our best to visit them all!

This wonderful pocket park or plaza was in an alley on our way back to the marina.

Lighthearted - I guess that's the college influence.  Random public contributed art: yarnbombing a tree.

Closeup.

Even the water fountain got into the yarnbomb act!

After eating, drinking, and shopping our fill, we headed for Northport.  I wasn't sure what to expect. Along the way, we passed forlorn "Gull Island."

Sorry, this isn't much of a picture ... but then again, this isn't much of an island.  Some time in the middle of last century, if I recall the story correctly, a guy decided to try to build a house on this tiny private island that previously had been home only to nesting birds.  But the birds proved so aggressive in defense of their territory that he deemed the island uninhabitable, and the project was abandoned.  Only the chimneys and ruins remain.

Finally we came to the town of Northport, nestled in a curve of the hills.

Approaching Northport by water.  The collection of sailboat masts marks the municipal marina.

We pulled into the marina and settled in behind a newly-expanded breakwall.  The marina had gotten a major upgrade, new seawall and bathhouse, and was lovely, though almost unrecognizeable.  Directly in front of our bow was a farmer's market that seemed to consist almost exclusively of cherry products.  Our lunch consisted of freshly-baked cherry scones, then we picked up several bags of dried cherries for later.  There was cherry juice, cherry jam, cherry wine, even cherry salsa and a guy selling lovely wooden cutting boards and bowls made from ... you guessed it ... cherry wood.

Newly-improved marina boardwalk was just concrete sidewalk in our day.

Next, we went for a walk around town.  Of course, we needed a photo in front of the first "Northport, Michigan" sign we found, which Melissa graciously snapped.  

We made it!  We're ba-a-a-a-ck!

In fact, I got pictures of myself in front of every sign  reading "Northport" that I could find.  (I  won't bore you with all of them, I promise!)  But I loved the remodel of the post office.

No "Northport" sign, but I just had to sit on this bench in front of one of the artsy shops, since it matched my shirt.

We noticed many art studios and new shops.  We walked the half-mile or so to our old boatyard.  The walk seemed much shorter than it had 11 years ago; maybe its because we're used to walking those kinds of distances now that we're living on the boat and traveling full time.  Or maybe its because there were a bunch of new cottages filling what used to be wooded area along the road.  Hmmm...  Anyway, the good folks at the boatyard remembered us, and we spent an hour or so chatting and exchanging news: they bought out the boatyard next door; this guy retired and that one was still driving his meticulously-restored shiny red 1966 Mustang around town; the guy who kept his century-old wooden boat on the mooring next to ours moved to New England; and many more tidbits.  

When we got back to the boat and settled in for the evening with some cocktails, I was still on my nostalgic high.  "I could come back here..." I mused.  "What?!! Are you crazy?" burst from both Melissa and Dan at the same instant.  "Nice place to visit ... but why would you want to live here?  What would you do?  You'd be bored in a week!  And that's during summer!  There's nothing here!"

And when I stopped seeing what I remembered, and started seeing what was really there, I realized they were right.  There's such a thin line between restful and suffocating.  I didn't need undiluted calm, quiet relaxation, now that I no longer had a stressful job to need a break from.   I didn't need the comfortable everyone-knows-everyone-and-looks-out-for-each-other familiarity of a small town when I had the ongoing community of cruising liveaboard boaters for support, online and in physical "real life." I could go home again  ... that is, I could bring my body back to this place ... but I wasn't the person who fit there anymore.  That sounds sad, but it isn't; the baby bird doesn't fit back into the egg, either. 

Foggy misty morning in Northport

We had more adventures and a few more pictures, but this post is long enough, so I'll save them for Part II.