Goodbye Holland and hello Ludington

Finally on our way!
Before leaving our adopted home port in Holland Michigan, Paul and Lisa with childrens and brother Rich boarded HD for a day sail which turned into a day motor due to lack of wind and 80 degree temperatures. After dinner aboard HD we bid our farewells and headed to Norfolk for the semi annual Loopers rondevous. We picked up some great tips from real live aboard boaters (mostly motor boaters) met a swedish couple who sailed in from the Med and are to do the loop before returning home. Cin volunteered for the life raft demonstration and we retruned to HD ready to begin our journey.
Left Holland in heavy although patchy fog after a short wait to see if it would clear. Being "patchy" we left for Muskegon, a sail of 28 miles, with the aid of radar, GPS and our bell. After sailing and then motoring towards the harbor the fog closed in. Although clearly seen on GPS and radar, we could not eyeball the 33 feet high breakwater beacon  until we were within 5 or 6 boat lengths; the nav instruments guided us to safety!
Spent two nights at Torrensons Marina dock while they added an expansion tank to our cooling system. The captain crawled into the bowls of HD to investigate our underway leak which was letting more H2O into our bilge than is comfortable. Seems the gaiter connecting the rudder post to the hull had worked itself free, so after repositioning the three clamps and re fitting the gaiter into place, we only have a drip vs a river entering the bilge.
While in Muskegon we used our new bikes and went 16+ miles to provision and visit West Marine. The only sore point is the seats (the bike's and ours) which need to be upgraded for comfort.(the bike's seats that is)
At 9:45 Saturday May 21, 2011 we left for a 47 mile sail to revisit our place of engagement last August, Pentwater.
Southerly winds with the reacher had us sailing between 4 and 5.5 Kt. We arrived at 6PM, the estimated ETA, only to run hard aground in mid channel right between the breakwater beacons. We were able to rock HD off the sand and decided to go another 10 mi to Ludington arriving at dusk with 27 ft under us.
We called the USCG to report the obstruction for the benefit of other mariners. They called us back on our cell phone and later broadcast the shoaling on VHF radio.  Our good deed for the day!
We dingy'd ashore and had a fine rib dinner at a place we knew from last year which luckily was open to serve us at 9:45PM. Back aboard fired up the generator for the first time since winter lay up and it provided the power to run our heat pump to both warm us up and dry us out from the mostly rainy day.
This morning, Sunday, dingy'd to town for church, dined on multi grain pancakes at Brenda's Restaurant and now at our favorite coffee house with Internet, in store roasted beans, comfy couches and coffee served in your own french press.We will spend the day here and depart tomorrow morning for Manistee and the first of many new geographies to be explored.
We plan to cross the pond either from Manistee or Frankfort between Wednesday and Friday to visit Pem and Susie and show Cin the harbors of Door County.

So far in retirement we are not having any difficulty filling up the day. A lot still to learn about all the toys and tools aboard HD and talking to the sailors and would be sailors in port is fun.