When we left Mackinaw City last Wednesday we thought that maybe summer was over. It was cold, overcast and blowing like stink, normal Great Lakes weather. It was too cold to ride on the flybridge, but that is where Jake wanted to go as soon as he heard the engines cranked, so Mike boosted him up. After leaving the harbor, Linda went up to the bridge to check on Jake and found him under the seat covers cowering. So Linda put on her winter coat and went up to ride with him. It was only an hour over to Mackinac Island, but Jake was one happy dog to get ashore.
The weather stayed cool the rest of the week. Floyd and Maggi Lewis came over in their boat, Bonnie Banks and spent the weekend with us. Jim and Diane Richards came up from the store to finish up an accounting upgrade that we had going on. Sunday we left Mackinac Island and summer had returned. We all got to ride on the flybridge, it was dead flat calm and Jake was as happy as he is ever going to be on the boat. It was a short ride over to St. Ignace, but Jake was glad to get ashore. 
After arriving in St. Ignace, we linked up with Larry and Kathy McElroy and had dinner at the Douglas Lake Steakhouse. Larry bought our dive charter business in St. Ignace and it is still going strong. If anyone wants to do any shipwreck diving, the Straits has the most shipwrecks and the clearest water of anywhere in the Great Lakes. We are happy to report that the boat seems to be running perfectly. We didn’t find any faults on our two short shakedown cruises. We did have one glitch. Our old GPS that plugs into the computer failed last year. Mike had an even older GPS that he used to use, so he brought it up from Florida to use this year. When he plugged it in it worked perfectly and he was feeling pretty good until he realized that the adapter to plug into the computer was still attached to the old GPS which was now in Florida. No problem, just buy a new one. He found the cheapest adapter that he would buy was $43. He found a complete GPS designed for computers for $36. Needless to say he now has a new GPS for his computer. We will see how well it works when we take off this week and start down Lake Michigan.
We hope that you all have had a great week. It does look like summer has finally arrived everywhere.
Take care, Love,
Linda, Jake and the Fat Man
Somebody please help get me off this boat!!
