AquaFennatic Great Loop Blog: Mackinac Isl, MI to Petoskey, MI

Aug 18^th – It was a hot and sunny day with a heavy rainfall in the middle of the day. We got up early this morning and all looked good for our departure from Mackinac Island to Petoskey MI. We traveled approximately 60 miles in mostly calm seas. We were on a mission in Petoskey to get a new cell phone plan from Walmart and to see if West Marine had some things we were looking for. When we arrived at West Marine a surprise heavy rainfall hit us and of course all the windows in the boat were left opened. I waited for a bit however the rain wasn’t slowing down thus I decided to make a mad dash for the boat. As I tried to cross the road a truck hit a large puddle and I found myself under a wave of dirty water. When I got back to the boat everything was drenched and I quickly closed up all the windows and began cleaning the mess. Once the sun came out I had everything clean however lots of things were still wet thus we left the boat open again to dry while we made trip # 2 into town. We made it to Walmart (a 2 mile walk) and purchased a cell phone plan which we were happy with at the time, however when we got back to the boat we found out that we can’t create a hotspot on the cell phone which was the main reason for getting this plan. The person in the store told us that this was possible so now Maria has been calling around trying to resolve the issue. Today was not a very productive day :(

Aug 19^th – Another hot and sunny day with threats of thunder storms. We stayed in Petoskey to resolve our phone issue. I first rode my bike up to Napa to buy oil filters for the generator which was 2 miles up hill and then gliding on the way back and then I rode to Walmart which was another 2 miles up hill and then I was able to glide on the way back. Walmart allowed me to return the phone, however they couldn’t help me with the cell plan thus I had to spend close to an hour on the phone with a service representative that did help me connect one of our old phones to the plan we purchased. It was a terrible experience and I’m glad it’s all over and that we have a working US phone. Maria was cleaning and doing laundry while I was away. Once I got back I’m sure I didn’t smell very good and was in desperate need of a shower. After my shower we decided to walk into town to check out a fair that was underway as well as the downtown area. It’s a nice place, however I started to run out of gas so we went back to the boat and had a couple of cold ones and relaxed.