Lake Michigan's many faces

Hello Vicarious Loopers,
After 6 days and nights in Ludington, we moved on to Pentwater (above), then to Whitehall (White Lake), and tonight we're in Saugatuck. While that doesn't sound like much (less than 100 miles), we've seen and experienced the wide varieties of Lake Michigan! Needless to say, we like the calm face best!
You may wonder how we know where we're going. Jack is our navigator (and deckhand). Although we have a general Loop route, there's a lot of planning and figuring that goes on to determining the weather conditions, the wave heights and wind directions, as well as the latitude and longitude and our 'waypoints' to make sure we get to the next destination. For the latter we have many maps (large ones, you can see), and the GPS (that we've named "Gert"). Many boats also have radar; not us. Although he sets the waypoints in Gert every day, we often need 2 pairs of eyes to see the markers, buoys, and crabpot and fish line markers, as well as the jetties and lighthouses which mark the channels leading to the inland lakes along the Lake Michigan shore.
Binoculars are another mandatory part of our equipment on the bridge daily. Gert gives us our speed, our latitude and longitude, our map, the depths, a line to follow, and our direction, as well as the distance traveled. When we have to backtrack (like the day we turned back when our water pump broke), we were able to follow our 'cookie crumbs' line of dots, marking our path back to Manistee. And each day we follow those 'cookie crumbs' from the marina or anchorage back to our route on the open water or river.
Ah, Pentwater... a small town, small marina, and short distance from Ludington. But it was great to actually get a day when we could travel!
Going on to Whitehall on White Lake was another story: waves that were supposed to be 1-2' went to 4+' when it was too late to turn back, so we rolled and took spray over the bow... not an 'Eschaton-friendly' day, for sure. We were really glad to enter the channel and make our way across the smaller and calmer White Lake to the marina. On entering the channel, we saw this lighthouse, now back from the water's edge a ways (moving sand dunes). It looked familiar: we remembered seeing it in 2002 when we traveled by car to Ludington, and walked along the jetty, dreaming of the day when we would come here by boat!
Our friends Liz and Steve on Shingebiss will 'cross their wake' tomorrow at Grafton IL. That's Looper-speak for completing the circle. They will still have 600 miles UP the Mississippi to reach their home on the river at St Paul MN. They had the AGLCA gold burgee (flag) sent to the marina at Grafton, signifying their completion! Congrats!
We are now traveling with 3 other boats: Hal and Cheryl on Mas Bueno from Chattanooga, John and Barb on Scoperta from Jamestown VA, and Jim and Cathy on Merried with Her from New Matamoros OH. After our rough day on Saturday, we had dinner together(above) in Whtiehall. And tonight we celebrated Jim and Cathy's 41st anniversary together here in Saugatuck.
Here's Eschaton, Mas Bueno, and Scoperta tied up at Whitehall. Merried with Her was already there when we arrived, and glad to see us, as they were the almost only other boat in the marina.
Just how rough was the water? Check out the breakers on Lake Michigan as we entered the channel at White Lake. This is not the biggest they can get, but surely the biggest the Eschaton will travel in!
And this is Mas Bueno as we traveled today on the nearly mirror calm water. Umm.
We are nearly 2/3 of the way down the Michigan coast, and still seeing these massive sand dunes. This has been a real surprise to us... we're not talking dirt here. This is sand.
We are looking ahead to Chicago and entering the river system... trying to time our travel with the nearly impossible-to-predict Lake Michigan. Tomorrow we have another 1' waves-day, so we know we can travel. Hopefully within a week we'll be in the rivers. Then it's the Illinois, the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee, and we're back at Cuba Landing, 'crossing our wake.' Doesn't seem possible! Total mileage as of today: 4320.

Be safe, know God is with you, and keep in touch.
nan and jack