Beaver Island (8.16.19 – 8.18.19) Set sail from Charlevoix to Beaver Island. This was Linda’s first time to the island. Bob has fond memories when he came as a kid with his buddy, Bill Borre…more on that later. We had dinner at the Shamrock Bar & Restaurant and chatted with Thomas at the bar. He pronounced his name “ThomASS” and he nicely offered us some of his baked goods that he brought with him in a Ziploc bag, apparently to give to people he met, but also for charities. He baked them at his home in McHenry, IL! Luckily we felt find the next morning and feel his name pronunciation is misleading. Spent the rest of the evening watching Contra Dancing at the Holy Cross Parish Hall. Bob’s sister, Carolyn, and her husband Joe had danced with this group and told us about it. We did not join in as we had missed the lesson at the beginning of the gathering and we didn’t want to pay $25/person to bump into people in a “doe si doe.”
The next day we spent a long time in the public library beautifully surrounded by trees. We did our previous post and then went to Daddy Frank’s for a burger and ice cream. We met Sarah, who had traveled there for the contra dancing. She told us a fascinating story about how she had just found her birth mother and family. We felt like we were listening to an audio book. At age 58 she found out she has 4 full older siblings!
Bob was pretty sure his friend Bill’s family would still be on the island. We asked someone who looked it up in a paper phonebook! Then she gave us the phone number giving only 7 numbers. (That brought us back to 1986 in Chicago when we had to start using area codes!) We called Betsy and Glenn Borre, Bill’s parents, and they remembered him and asked us to come visit the next day.
That night went to the Circle M for dinner. Dinner was great and the live music from Zachariah Malachi and the Hillbilly Executives was really fun. We learned they had a shuttle to the marina so we could avoid the 1.5mi walk back to the boat:) On our shuttle we met Bill and Judy Livingston who were anchored near us in a boat that he built! Sunday we went to church at the Beaver Island Christian Church and were the youngest there – that always feels good. Then we rented bikes and rode the lovely ride through the forest to the Borre’s house right on the lake shore. We had a wonderful talk and they gave him a scanned picture of the time Bob and Bill caught salmon with Bill’s dad (see below). On the way back to the boat we stopped at the Toy Museum which is really more of a store/museum. We chatted with the owner, Mary, on her porch as we waited for a storm to pass. People are fascinating. She has run the store for 50 years. She came to the island because she was actually looking for an island where she could raise her boys and let them safely run free with nature. Went to the Maritime museum and then headed back to the boat. The next morning we got up to head to Mackinac Island and had so many weeds on the anchor chain it took us an hour to pull them all off. We should have taken a picture of the anchor. You could not see any of the metal and it was just a weed ball about 3 feet in diameter. Linda poked at it with the boat hook to get all the twisted weeds to come free. At least it held well!
On our way to the Holy Cross Parish Hall 
Linda’s first time as Dinghy Captain
The Circle M now 
The Circle M then 
Is young Bob on the left or right? 
Our first seaplane 
Judy Livingston
and the dinghy Bill built
A bit concerning anchoring this close to”heavy machinery” 
Catching up with
Glenn and Betsy Borre
Not your ordinary toy store/museum 
Linda exploring the back yard of the toy museum
Linda with Mary the owner of the Toy Museum
SV Tiger Lily 