NORTHPORT

Grace and I decided to sail the Great Loop after following the blog katieandjessieonaboat.com a few years ago. (So really, mom and dad, you can blame Katie and Jessie for me doing this boat trip.) After hours spent reading and re-reading their blog posts, months of emailing back and forth with Jessie, and attending Jessie’s Great Loop talk at the boat show in Chicago last January, she has reached celebrity status for Grace and me. Lucky girls that we are, Jessie seems to have embraced her role as our Great Loop Guru, and we got to spend a few days at Northport listening to her advice and having her dad (the Wizard) help us make boat repairs.

Northport began with Jessie meeting us at the marina, cold beers in hand, offering us showers and laundry and a delicious turkey burger dinner. While there, I adventured by car to Sutton’s Bay to find a cure for the mysterious rash all over my hands, couldn’t get Jessie’s car to start, panicked because I thought I broke the car and no one was answering their phone, and stumbled into a super cute tile store called Sporck tile art. While there, a really nice woman named Susan and I chatted about the Great Loop, and she gifted Grace and me two beautiful sailboat tiles (thanks, Susan!).

Northport ended with a fun “scooter” (motor bike) ride around Leelanau County with the Wizard. Having not spent very much time in Northern Michigan before, I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful views. There were rows and rows of cherry trees, the water was a million shades of blue, and it was pretty thrilling to travel faster than five knots. It was indeed the best way to spend an afternoon in Michigan, just as the Wizard had promised.