M/V Serenity: 27 July, 2021. Long day starting at 0300.

20 SM; 3.4 hours

0300 lightening, thunder and rain woke us. As forecast, not a surprise. Normally not a big deal but tonight was different. Late yesterday afternoon/evening two sport fishing style boats came into the small anchorage. One in front of us and one beside. One was a 60 foot Viking and the other 50-55 footer unnamed. They had no fishing gear nor was their ground tackle ( anchoring equipment) suitable for the size of boats and depth of water. I took the dinghy over to the closest boat and said you are anchored too close for the expected thunderstorms later tonight. The big boat was too close even on a calm night. I did not get a favorable response from the gentleman onboard. It was too late and no where else to relocate so I stayed put. Fortunately, there were winds but nothing damaging or overly strong. First, the boat too close got his dinghy caught in my anchor line. While I was untangling that and trying to wake somebody up there was pretty good lightening and rain. Once untangled, the big boat swung more and we were touching. I had tied our dinghy on the starboard side to act as big fender; on the port side I had placed our big lock fenders. I knew we were going to touch before I went to sleep. While holding off the big boat, which touched us a couple of times, the gentlemen fell over the side and was not wearing a life jacket. Fortunately for him, his grip on the railing held and he pulled himself back onboard his boat. So for the next couple of hours, I was on the bow with a boat hook in hand fending off a jerk in a big boat. The big Viking may had touch bottom, as I heard both bow and stern thrusters going, and shortly this boat backed along side of a private dock. Our offending boat also fired up, retrieved his flimsy anchor and motored over and secured to the private dock. Whew…what a night. POC and i went to bed and slept for a few hours.

I had two anchor alarms set last night and we never moved except for the normal swing around the anchor as the winds shift. Our planned mid morning departure at 1000 was delayed because of totally unexpected winds. After the trough/front and line of thunderstorms cleared to the SE the winds were supposed to decrease with a corresponding smoothing of the lake waves. Did not happen, but in fact winds remained strong from the NW and waves stayed about two feet. So we sat at anchor. Napped and read. I was getting frequent near real time winds/waves from a nearby weather buoy in Little Traverse bay. At noon winds and waves were decreasing ever so slowly. Wind forecasts still remained favorable, but real world did not presently match the computer models. Finally at 1400 wave height was 1.6 feet. We prepared for our departure and finalized our plans and checklists. By 1500 wave height was 1.5 feet and we decided to go. Anchor up at 1515 and we headed toward our destination in lumpy and bumpy conditions. First hour wave on the bow but winds and waves decreasing. The last hour, not a bad ride all the way to the protected entrance channel at Charlevoix, MI. Waiting maybe 10 minutes for the lift bridge to open, we passed through continuing through round lake and entering Lake Charlevoix then to our anchorage. We safely anchored in 20 feet of water. Surprisingly water was 76 degrees on the surface. 1825 all stop. (Map). It has been a long day, stressful, but thankful no one fell overboard, struck by lightening and Serenity appears OK. Anticipate a quiet night at anchor. Kim’s video