Silver Lake Dunes Area

Silver Lake State Park is about eight miles south of Pentwater right on Lake Michigan. We saw the dunes from the lake as we were approaching Pentwater. During our stay in Pentwater, we decided to take a bicycle ride down to the park.

The bike ride down there was very nice. You take County Road B-15 (no, it’s not B-17, but it’s pleasing nonetheless, mister). The road winds around Pentwater Lake and then heads south down along the Lake Michigan shore to Silver Lake. While riding down there, you never really see the lake but it’s a very nice ride along forested areas that make up the crests of sand dunes. The speed limit is slow enough that cars don’t zip by too fast, and there are just enough hills to make it interesting but not tiring.

Upon reaching Silver Lake State Park, you enter a very different world. It’s almost like something out of a Mad Maxx movie. There are dune buggies and off road vehicles EVERYWHERE. The closer you get to the park, the weirder it all gets. Apparently, riding up the sand dunes is a big thing there. It’s quite interesting to see, just for the sake of seeing it. Here’s a picture of the staging area for the vehicles, prior to entering the park.

Once you reach Silver Lake, you see just how scenic the dunes really are. On the day we were there, the lake was a deep blue colo, and the dunes really stood out against the color of the water.

Looking closely, you can see some of the dune buggies on the dune. The orange flags you see at the bottom of the picture are attached to vehicles. The flags are generally on poles that rise six to ten feet above the vehicles.

Unfortunately, our return ride was not quite as pleasant as we would have liked. We decided to take a more direct route back to Pentwater. According to the map (and the GPS), we could head east along Taylor Street, then take 60^th Avenue north and end up at the east end of Pentwater Lake. That was a shorter route, avoiding a lot of the winding back and forth on County Road B-15.

All was well until, after a mile or so, 60^th Avenue turned into this . . .

Yes, it eventually became a narrow loose sand road the cut through the woods. Think of a logging road made out of very loose sand. Our mountain bikes could only make headway for about half the time – at best. The rest of the time we pushed the bikes. This went on for several miles. We made the mistake of continuing on instead of turning back because, well, this can’t go on forever. Well, it did.

When we finally hit asphalt, it was like a person crawling through the desert who reaches an oasis. Not sure if it’s a hallucination or if it’s real. That little mistake turned a pleasant two hour ride into a four hour ordeal.

So . . . if you are in the Pentwater area, by all means take a quick trip down to Silver Lake. But if you are on bicycles, stay on County Road B-15 for the trip back and forth from Pentwater! Avoid those little side roads – such as 60^th Avenue – at all cost.

More About Pentwater, Michigan

Pentwater is a historic little town that was founded in 1853. Its history does include some pretty major tragedies – three ships sinking during a November snow storm, the boiler in the furniture factory exploding, the logging mill burning down, and a big fire in town, too. After reading that, we were getting a little nervous about our stay here! However, it has some great old houses, many bed and breakfasts, nice sandy beaches, and friendly and helpful marina staff.

The center of town is the village green gathering area that has band concerts in the summer time. A nice little shopping area is located on Hancock Street that is within walking distance of the three marinas in town. There’s a marine antique store (which is also well stocked with marine supplies), some souvenir shops, sweater stores, a small book store, a few water and skateboard type sports stores, and three ice cream shops. A couple of notable stores are:

· ‘Cenzos – a full service grocery store with A LOT of local produce and locally made food items across from the Snug Harbor Marina.

· Durand Wine Company (www.durandwinecompany.com) which has a whole wall of Michigan-made wine and also has Michigan coffee

· Art on the Town Gallery (www.artonthetowngallery.com), which is a co-op of local artists who produce, pottery, paintings, decorated glass, jewelry and woven baskets. Bernie purchased a tea basket with a birch lid made by Luddington artist Cass Schorsch at this gallery.

· House of Flavors (www.pentwaterflavors.com) which is the ice cream store that we frequented. It has regular food too and a sense of humor. (One of the meals on the menu is described as “Shrimp fresh-caught from Lake Pentwater – well, not really”.)

Although we missed the Pentwater Farmer’s Market on Thursday, there is a Chicago link: one of the Green City Market participants – Liberty Family Farms – participates in it and was one of the founding farmers.

Other Pentwater events included:

· Bernie saw an otter while out on her morning jog (yes, she did get lost but found her way back to the boat.)

· A planned two-hour bicycle ride turned into a five-hour Challenge Excursion. The Pentwater City Council’s definition of an “Avenue” is very similar to Bernie’s definition of “deserted cow path through a loose-sand dune”. Lesson learned – STAY AWAY FROM 60^TH AVENUE IF ON BICYCLE.

· Bernie rowed Phil’s butt around Lake Pentwater in the dinghy.

· They sound a very loud siren at noon, at 5:00pm, when there is a fire, when there is a weather warning (this is why the siren sounded at 4:00am this morning, it was not the signal that all the bars were officially closed), and possibly when someone just feels like sounding a loud siren.

· In the other Michigan cities we’ve been to on this trip, it has gotten light later in the morning (7am) and stayed light until 9pm. Here. It gets light early (before 6am) and stays light just as late – around 9pm. That gives a lot of day to fill up with sightseeing and relaxing.

Pentwater Homecoming Weekend

We just happened to stumble into Pentwater during its busiest weekend of the year. From the looks of things, it sounds like we were lucky to find dockage. Why so busy? This was Homecoming Weekend.

Homecoming Weekend is Pentwater’s annual celebration of the founding of the city. There were many events throughout the weekend. Some of the ones we saw were the Petoskey Steel Drum Band, the Coast Guard demonstration rescue, the parade, and the fireworks.

The Coast Guard rescue was especially cool because it took place right on the waterfront, about 100 yards or so from where we were tied up. We had one of the best seats in the house from our aft deck.

The parade was really fun. For a small town, the parade was pretty impressive. Fire trucks, police cars, candy flying to the crowd from all directions - but somehow always landing at the feet of small children, VFW members (the crowd stood and applauded as they went by – that was nice to see), antique cars, and much more. But also a lot of administrators from Michigan State University. MSU seem to be huge in this town and a big part of the Homecoming weekend, too. They somehow managed to squeeze the entire MSU marching band into a little bar in town called The Antler Bar.

Our First Evening in Pentwater

After getting the boat all situated we, of course, took our ritualistic “we’re safely in port now” nap. We then headed into the Pentwater shopping area – located about 200 feet from where Meridian was tied up. What do you know – there was an ice cream shop!

Pentwater was “crazy” this weekend because it is Founders Day Homecoming. Friday evening the big event was the Petoskey (Michigan) High School Steel Drum band. It was held in the Village Green and we think everyone from Pentwater was there. The announcer gave a lot of information about how steel drums are made and the band played quite well. Of course, Bernie, in her tireless effort to support every independent band in the Midwest, bought a CD. But it went for a good cause as they are an entirely self-funding school group.

Bernie had made a batch of her famous calzones and froze them before the trip. Phil got to have more of her calzones for dinner than he’d ever had before. (She usually only makes them for parties and Phil never gets a chance to eat any.)

The Trip from Muskegon to Pentwater

Our internet connection in Pentwater was extremely slow so we are a bit backed up with posting. We hope to catch up by Monday or Tuesday evening

We heard Pentwater can get very crowded, so we called ahead on Thursday night to the Snug Harbor Marina. We were told it would be packed the next day, but if we called and confirmed at about 9 am they’d hold us a spot – at worst along the wall by the fuel dock, or by the haul-out crane.

Because of that, we wanted to get a really
early start on Friday morning. Unfortunately, when we woke up at 5 am, we were greeted by dense fog (or as we had recently learned, “Light Haze”). So we made our preparations and waited for it to brighten up a bit. By 7:30 it was still pretty foggy, but you could see that the sun was trying to break through – so we unhooked the lines and headed out into the lake. Moving very slowly.

It was still very foggy on Lake Muskegon, but it eased up a bit on Lake Michigan, and visibility gradually improved. We eventually increased our speed to the lightning fast 10 mph that has become our typical cruising speed. (Gas prices, you know.)

Once again, the lake was extremely calm, and it was a very pleasant trip. We stayed about ½ mile off shore, and once the fog cleared, we could see the sand dunes pretty well. They are truly amazing along this stretch of the lake.

As we passed the entrance to White Lake it was still a bit hazy, but we took a picture for Di.

Upon reaching Little Sable Point, it had become sunny and warm. We got a really nice view of the lighthouse.

It was also nice to finally be able to look behind the boat and see a wake that wasn’t silver.

We then motored along past the Silver Lake Sand Dunes. This area is different from the other dunes we’ve passed along the shore, in that they are not covered with trees and vegetation. Just really large mountains of sand. From the lake, we could see dune buggies crawling up and down the sides. You could also see lots of boats anchored and people on the beaches.

We reached the entrance to Pentwater Lake at 12:40 pm. As you can see, the weather was very different from when we set out in the morning! We then reached Snug Harbor Marina at about 1:00 pm where they had us tie up on the wall near the gas dock, helping us with the lines as we approached from a weird angle. It’s actually a great location, located right up against the sidewalk in a park-like setting. As with the other Michigan marinas, the staff was very helpful, gave us great directions, and were right there to help us at the dock with whatever we needed.

And finally, here’s our favorite picture of the day, taken as the sun was starting to burn off the fog, and the lake was still extremely calm.