Layover day in Frankfort, MI

Days on cruise:  137

Frankfort is another pretty little town on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan with nice marina and park facilities, good shops and restaurants, and great sandy beaches.

In the morning we off-loaded Bob’s bike and walked 1.5 miles to a bike shop for a repair. The bike shop was in the shed behind the Conundrum Café, both owned and operated by Michele during the short, 4-month summer tourist season.

After lunch we walked the streets and beach of Frankfort and found it charming.

At 5:00 Daniel and Angela showed up for cocktail hour. We met them yesterday in Leland as we were both departing for Frankfort. They are Loopers from Brazil! They bought their sailboat 3 years ago in Fort Pierce, the same Florida city where we lived in a marina on Next To Me for 2 1/2 months  before beginning our Loop.

Daniel and Angela are true adventurers! Fifteen years ago they bought a 37-foot sailboat and with their then 11 and 8-year-old daughters, sailed from North Carolina to the Azores in Europe, up the coasts of Spain and Portugal, then down to Brazil, making two amazing Atlantic Ocean crossings! They have some astonishing stories to tell of that trip.

Now they’re doing their Loop in multi-years as they’re only allowed to be in the U.S. for six months at a time on their tourist visas. So they return home and work in the Pizzeria they own there, which their daughters run in their absence while attending college through online courses. They say sailing the coast of Brazil would be unsafe, but they love sailing in the U.S. and Canada because it is safe and beautiful. We sure have to agree with that, and enjoyed our evening with Angela and Daniel. We hope to run into them again further south.