Day 71 - Soaking up the last day in Frankfort
The seas must have been calming overnight as even when we were lying in still water at 2am we had gentle swells coming in from Lake Michigan rocking us to sleep. We have decided that today will be our last day in Frankfort as Captain Uncle is Door County through the weekend and we would like to see him. Knowing this I got up pretty early (8am) so I could enjoy as much of my day as possible. Before we set to land for the morning we stopped by Jordan and Eli’s boat and invited them over for “Taco Tuesday on a Wednesday” which they happily accepted. On my way back to Ciara I stopped at another boat, Stir Crazy and met Dennis who has been anchored next to us all week we just hadn’t had a moment to meet. Nice guy. He gave me mug merchandise and reminded me I need to up my merch game! He was super cool as well so we extended our dinner invite to him as well!
At shore we set up some piracy for power and headed to the beach for one last walk. Kona was super thrilled to see the water calm and did some pier jumping. She is tired out from the week and I could tell so we only did a few jumps and then walked the beach, soaking in every last minute. We stopped at the grocery store before we went back to Ciara to get some fresh taco ingredients for the night.
Since we had guests coming for dinner and also leaving tomorrow we spent a bit of the afternoon cleaning up Ciara to be presentable and more battened down for our passage. After 8 days at anchor and no kids aboard we may have moved in a bit comfortably!
Since we are nocturnal now it was already 4pm and hot and neither of us could fully resist a nap. I laid down for what I thought would be just an hour and woke up at a quarter to 6pm. That was a great nap and hard to wake up from! Captain and willed ourselves up and started prepping for dinner proper. Around 6 30 Dennis showed up with some cherry pie from a well-established Michigan Cherry shop. We all hung out while we waited for Jorden and Eli as they had finished up their real work for the day and had quickly taken their dog to the beach for a walk.
When they arrived, the sun was well on its way down and we were ready for the last bit of dinner touches. I was making homemade tortillas and when they came aboard and saw my set up I heard “you have a rolling pin aboard??” ha! That was impressive and I will say they all agreed that homemade tortillas really make a huge difference! Dinner and dessert (Joran and Eli brought ice cream for that pie!) was amazing. While we were all talking, we learned that Dennis had been in the North Channel around the same time as us although we obviously hadn’t met. He said his ex-wife had been a music major and Captain told him I was as well on trumpet. He said “Are you going to play taps like that one person in the North Channel?” That is when he learned that was me! He told me that on the Cruiser’s Net (Roy’s show/Facebook page) someone had said that listening to Last Post/Taps was their highlight of their trip north. I am honored. My lip has healed from splitting it open last week so I pulled out my horn and played for them and for everyone on shore. I am still amazed how silent how all the white noise on shore goes away after I play my last note and that people take a moment and stop.
We all hung out until late night but called it quits around 11pm as we did have to get up tomorrow and stop being nocturnal. We met Jordan and Eli on shore so the dogs could have one more walk and said our goodbyes with promises of an Epic Hanukkah Party this December if we don’t meet sooner.
I am super sad to leave. It has been the most wonderful eight days here in Frankfort and by now you all know how much I love it here. I am going to attempt and get up early tomorrow for one more long walk on the beach with Kona if I can at all will myself out of bed before we leave. Winds look good, but it will be a long 10-hour day.
