www.iFourWinns.com

My wife and I recently returned from a 16 day trip on Lake Michigan in our 268 Vista! Our goal was to take our little 268 from the southern tip of Lake Michigan, and head north all the way to the Straits of Mackinaw, cross under the mighty Mack, and explore the beautiful western coast of Michigan along the way. I honestly can't decribe how amazing this trip was, and we have actually already started planning a similar trip for next year! We created a blog for our friends and family to follow at http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/, but I also wanted to share some extra pics and info with my Four Winns friends.
DAY 1
Our first stop was Muskegon Michigan approx 127 miles away. We left our marina a little after sunrise on a rainy Saturday morning full of nerves and excitement for what we viewed to be a trip of a lifetime! We wanted to stop in Muskegon on our way to White Lake to see the Tall Ships, and thanks to Cap'n Morgan we had a slip waiting for us about 100yards away from the visiting ships!

Bikes strapped to the back with our slightly modified SUV bike carrier

Leaving sight of land for the first time! Only 127 miles to go!

Tall Ships in Muskegon

After we saw the ships, ate lunch, and fueled up we were ready to reach our final destination of the day, Whitehall for our first over night stop. Heading towards the channel at Muskegon lake we ran into this monster!

I'm pretty sure he had the right of way so we let him go by us before entering the channel

After heading approx 10 miles north we entered the Channel to White Lake and saw the White Lake Lighthouse to our starboard side

_________________
Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

Day 1 cont.
Once through the channel we had a 6 mile cruise to eastern shore of the lake where we had reservations at the White Lake Municiple Marina in Whitehall. We found the marina to be quite empty with the exception of a couple of retired cruisers doing the Great Loop together.

The town of Whitehall had a small downtown close to the marina, and most importantly a pizza shop a stones throw away from our slip.

Just down the street in Montague is the world's largest weather vane! We also found Montague to be a good place to stock up on supplies with a grocery store within short walking distance

We found the Municiple Marina to be a nice place to stay. It was clean, quiet,cheap, and had a friendly helpful staff.Our next stop was Manistee the following day, but poor water conditions kept us in White lake another day. We would have to reroute our itinerary to skip Manistee and go straight to our 3rd stop Frankfort. This would not be the last time we would have to change our plans.

Home port to Whitehall with stop over in Muskegon
Miles:154.9
Moving time:7hrs 9min
Fuel used:77.7 gal
Avg mpg:1.98

More to come....

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Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

It looks like you had an awesome trip. The western coast of Michigan is really something worth seeing. The detail you guys went into on your blog for people following your trip is incredible and I can't imagine the stress racing across the lake form the upcoming bad weather, but would rather do that than be caught in 10' waves.

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-Rob.


Current boat: 2011 Yamaha AR210
Previous boat: 1998 Horizon RX 4.3GL SX

Looks sweet man. Wish I could convince my girlfriend to do something like that.

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Pac Winn

First Boat:
2000 Vista 268

Great write-up on your blog site. I like the rough water videos!

More fun to watch than to film?

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Gordon Arnold
New Hampshire

2003 268 Vista ..................................................................Prior: 97 245 Sundowner

Miranda didn't take a very good video of our trip back to Hammond. Waves were off the starboard bow...and she was on the port side, would explain it. I'm still very happy at how well she handled the trip back!

Once you get all your notes organized we will need to get together as this is a trip that we want to do.

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2007 358 T-5.7GXi IB
Previous Boats
'08 H240, '08 V318, '04 268, '04 225

Day 3 White Lake to Frankfort
On the 3rd day we had to make up some distance since we missed the Manistee stop, and were now headed directly to Frankfort. The weather and water conditions had settled down, so we packed up and headed approx. 100 miles to the North!

Dana getting the boat ready for departure!

Leaving White Lake

Passing Little Sable Point Lighthouse along the way

A couple hours in to the trip we decided to anchor outside Ludington for lunch. The sand dunes provided a nice back drop.

Passing Big Sable Lighthouse

As we traveled North the beauty of Michigan western shore really started to show itself with the impressive sand dunes!

_________________
Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

Day 3 cont.
As we entered a channel there was a large old Coast Gaurd station to our port side.

We had slip reservations at Jacobson Marina on the north side of the lake. We were excited to stay here because of their advertised customer service and ammenities such as boater's lounge, pool, and hot tub! When recieving the slip asignment over the radio we were told someone would be waiting at the dock to assist us...no such luck. After tying up I went into the office to check in and was greeted with "what do you need"? While I was paying for the slip he asked if someone had helped us dock, and when I told him no he simply said" Oh they must have been helping one of the bigger boats that came in" WTF? But wait thats not all.... we found out the hard way around 11pm that he also forgot to give us a bathroom code, so we sat outside the bathroom till someone came by 20minutes later! The next day when checking out I told them I was pulling around to the fuel dock. As I approached, the guy I just talked to, got on his cell phone and walked away as we pulled up! OK I'll stop because there are a few more things that happened and now I'm getting mad thinking about it. Long story short...Jacobson's Marina sucked and by no doubt was one of the low points of our trip!

If you stop in Frankfort, and like ribs stop in at Dingy's. After the long day we had it was so nice to have some great ribs washed down with a cold beer!

_________________
Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

Day3 cont
The town of Frankfort was nice! It has an attractive downtown with a main street that leads down to a very nice Lake Michigan beach.

We couldn't believe how many blocks of perfectly kept old victorian homes this town has. We kept finding ourselves walking block after block to see them!

Our next stop was a 2 night stop on Beaver Island, but once again the weather had other plans for us. We decided to reroute our trip to Charlevoix instead to prevent us from being stuck on the island if this weather decided to stick around for a while! This would prove to be a great decision. More to come, and I'll try to get these pic's bigger!

White Lake to Frankfort
Miles:99.5
Moving Time:4hrs 43min
Fuel Used:50gal
Avg mpg:1.99

_________________
Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

Great blog. As a small lake boater, I envy what you can experience being on big water. Thanks for sharing.

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Current Boat: 2000 Four Winns 298 Vista
Previous Boat: 2000 Carver 406MY

Day 4 Charlevoix!! ( our favorite stop)
We chose to go to Charlevoix to ride out the bad weather. The fact that it was attached to an inland lake(Lake Charlevoix) was really the deciding factor in us chosing it as our next stop, but after a few days there we almost considered cancelling our trip to Mackinaw just to get a few extra days in this boaters paradise!




Going thru Round Lake to enter Lake Charlevoix



Sunset at the slip looking towards Round Lake



On Thursday nights they have music in the park right next to the marina. We watched this symphony from the bow of our boat! It sounded amazing!



Lake Charlevoix



My favorite pic! If you look in the background you can see John Winn's Mansion/boat house.



We went to our first drive/dock restaurant called The Landings. This place was so cool, and had really good food!

_________________
Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

Charlevoix cont.

The Emerald Isle returning from Beaver Island.



The channel at sunset



The little green and white sailboat to the left is the boat Moses the giant dog fell of the back of in our blog post, and now you can see why it was so hard to get him back out of the water!





Cruising Lake Charlevoix to Boyne City on the eastern end of the lake



Stopping in Boyne City for ice cream...cool little town with a really nice marine store downtown. The municiple marina was all new and very nice



Another shot of John Winn's house, and a 147ft yacht to the right called Cracker Bay.



The Harbor Master house with boaters lounge, showers, and laundy. This place was so clean it was ridiculous! The staff was great, and the Harbor Master Hal was one of the friendliest people we met on this trip.




I can't recommend Charlevoix enough for visit...it was a boaters paradise, and to be honest a bit depressing to leave. More to come.....

_________________
Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

Wife and I just went through the full blog of your trip (very nicely done). Your trip has special meaning to us, as we are native Michiganders, but have been away for 25-ish years. Linda's family vacationed along the upper western coast and I was born and grew up in Gren Haven (the bay that you were looking at from the tip of the Sleeping Bear Dunes to Pyramid Point). You went right past the house I grew up in, on the shore. If I still lived there, I could have waved as you went by!

Linda & I would love to drag the boat over there and do a trip similar to yours.

Oh yeah, we like Victorian houses too (per your blog notes) ......

_________________
Gordon Arnold
New Hampshire

2003 268 Vista ..................................................................Prior: 97 245 Sundowner