We didn't know much about Leland before we arrived. We knew there were historic fishing shanties and that it was hard to get a reservation at the marina...but we managed to get one! What a surprise! This was such a pretty little town! Right near the marina there is a section of town called Fishtown full of a bunch of old fish shanties. While the authenticity of the shanties had been preserved, most of them had been turned into gift shops or artisans. However, one of them still sells fish and we bought some whitefish for dinner and some smoked fish to enjoy later. In addition to the cute shanties, the other architecture compliments Fishtown, and there is a picturesque waterfall over the dam behind all the shanties.
We ended up in Leland for three days due to high winds and waves so we really got to enjoy the town. There are beaches both north and south of the marina. We took Frodo for a walk to both beaches, went swimming, and learned how to look for Petosky stones. A Petosky stone is a unique fossil that can only be found on the Northern shores of Lake Michigan and people are very serious about searching for these stones. They are essentially fossilized coral colony heads from an ancient tropical sea bed so they are quite unique. It looks like any other limestone pebble unless it is wet or polished. We managed to find a few tiny samples of Petosky stones. You can buy bigger ones with polishing kits for $12, or already polished for $28 but we opted not to get too swept up in the pet rock craze.
Other highlights of our time in town included a vodka tasting at the Grand Traverse Distillery where we bought some chocolate vodka. You can't go wrong with chocolate! Another day we went to Verterra for a wine tasting and bought a few bottles of wine to enjoy later. One day, a helicopter came into one of the cottages next to the marina to give some people rides! If that wasn't crazy enough, one evening when the waters calmed down, a vintage Amphicar drove into the water and "boated" around the harbor and the beach! On our last evening, we enjoyed dinner out on a restaurant patio overlooking the waterfall. The waterfall was fairly loud, but we enjoyed the ambience and our tasty fish dinners. You can see some of our fun highlights in a short video.
There was no end of entertainment here. In fact, we noticed that the marina was listed as one of the tourist attractions in town. There seemed to be people walking the docks and looking at the boats all the time. After overhearing a young boy tell his parents that we had a kitchen on our boat (apparently he could see through our windows), Heather told him that we called the kitchen a galley. Then she decided to take it one step further and told him that we even had a washroom on our boat and asked him to guess what we called that -- a head! We're not sure if he believed her. We have learned that in boating you either watch the entertainment (usually of other boats) or you are the entertainment so you might as well embrace it!
Sleeping Bear Dunes is like a national park with these incredible dunes along the shoreline. The sand dune is well over 100 feet! We did not get there by land, but took several photos from the water as we went by. There are several fabulous dunes along the eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan that we photographed along the way.
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