Day 105, August 10, 2012 (Harbor Springs, MI): Here we are … by choice? Harbor Springs is pleasant, clean, and neat with lots of activity including street acts of music, magic, balloons for kids, and lots of people on Main Street of this town of 1,300 inhabitants, last evening . We want to move on to Petoskey across Little Traverse Bay but it is almost winter today with temps in the low 50s, low clouds, and winds  gusting to 40 mph. At the left, Little Traverse children’s sailing camp have a sail furling competition. At the right is a classy little shop on Main Street.

We came  into HSprings for another purpose. We needed to do a little preventive maintenance. The two engine thingies each have two cooling systems, one closed internal with a radiator and coolant and a raw water jacket to cool the coolant instead of air flow as in a car. The raw water flows because of a pump that has an impeller made of a composite rubbery stuff than wears out; so, we change the impellers periodically to avoid the potentially harmful results of impeller failure. I pulled our impellers, yesterday and broke out the spares only to discover that our suppliers, Superior Diesel in Charleston, Bridge Port Marine in Orillia, ON, AND Volvo themselves got it all wrong. While Superior Diesel did its mea culpa, neither Bridge Port nor Volvo would admit error. In fact, on a call to Volvo customer care I was not only not helped but told I was wrong and hung up on! Doesn’t that want to make you run out and buy anything Volvo? Walstrom Marine in HSprings is making a good faith attempt to find the correct parts. Craig Tallberg of Coastal Carolina Yacht Sales stepped up to the plate to improve our relations with Volvo mothership in Chesapeake.

We are looking forward to being in Holland, MI, near the end of the month. Tiara is comping us dockage at their Corporate Yacht Center and Sequel, reborn, will be coming home. We have accumulated a short punch list from the reconstruction of the boat, which they want to address. None of the punch list items is serious. We will take the opportunity to visit Holland and old friends at the same time before going off to the western shore of Lake Michigan.

Mackinac Straits Bridge, the world’s longest suspension bridge bewteen St. Icnace and Mackinaw City.

An empty ore carrier passes under the bridge on its way to Duluth.

The abandonned Waugoshance Point Light that marked the west end of the Straits of Mackinac for ships going south on the Lake Michigan. Automated nav aids have replaced the stately old light. The straits bridge is on the horizon in the background.