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Great Lakes Cruising
 

By Emily Bingham


Thumbing through photos from John and Linda Stephenson’s summer vacations is like consulting a Great Lakes guidebook. So many all-star attractions are pictured — a harbor in Holland, a smoked-chub supper in Leland, the mighty Mackinac Bridge. And while the Stephensons are certainly a fine pair of amateur photographers, what makes these images particularly spectacular is the unique angle from which they were taken.
Almost every shot was snapped on the water.
The concept might not seem exceptional, but consider this: Most of us do our sightseeing from a land-locked point of view. Summer vacation rolls around, and we pile into the family van, heading to campgrounds or the beach. If we’re seeking fun on the water, maybe we’ll rent a canoe for the day or take the ferry to Mackinac Island. If we’re lucky enough to have our own boat, we’re even luckier if we take it out more than a dozen times each season. When the sun sets, the adventures end. We return the rentals, put the boat on the lift and head home with our feet firmly planted on terra firma.
Cruisers, though, have a decidedly different perspective. When they hear talk of summer vacation, they think of open water rather than open road. When the sun sets, the adventures are far from over; they’re just moored for the night. These are the people who spend long weekends or even weeks onboard their boats, trading in the comforts and stresses of life on the land for the romance and risk of life on the water. They go where they please, following only schedules written by wind and weather.
They dally. They explore. They return to land with new friends, great stories and, often, a deeper appreciation for Michigan’s unique beauty.
Not everyone is cut out for the cruising life, but if you’ve got the grit to deal with the less-than-glamorous aspects of living on a boat — foul weather, close quarters, galley cooking — than cruising might be your dream escape.
Just ask the Stephensons. Once upon a time, with three young children and zero boating know-how, this East Grand Rapids couple followed their own dream and bought a 15-foot sailboat. They struggled and fumbled and rallied as a family to get the hang of things on their first few weekend-long trips. Now, nearly 30 years and a few upgrades later, John and Linda spend months at a time navigating the Great Lakes via their 32-foot sailboat, Set Free, logging an average of 1,000 miles each season. Cruising has allowed them to travel and explore, to spend quality time with each other and their children, and to form lasting friendships with like-minded boaters.
It’s a lifestyle that’s continually challenging, endlessly rewarding and always exciting — especially when it comes to seeing firsthand what folks back home can only imagine.
“It is totally different than what you would experience in a summer by RV or car,” John shared. “We get to these places you can’t really get to any other way. It’s just so beautiful.”
Every summer, the Stephensons cruise out from their homeport in Holland and slowly wind their way northward. Hanging out in hip coastal towns like Charlevoix and Harbor Springs is a much-anticipated part of each trip (“I can tell you where all the great shopping spots are up and down the lake,” Linda confided), as is spending time in wilder areas such as Lake Huron’s North Channel, off the coast of Ontario.
“We’ve seen eagles flying overhead and bears swimming next to our boat,” John noted. “There’s no comparison.”
This thrill of possibility is one of the biggest reasons why people choose to cruise, according to Steve Tadd, spokesperson for Discover Boating, a boating awareness effort by the National Marine Manufacturers Association.
“Cruisers want the adventure of not knowing where they’re going to be the next day,” he said. “Sometimes you’re in a great harbor. Sometimes you’re in a great city. Sometimes you’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s a lifestyle of not having things overly planned.”
A little planning is necessary, though, in the beginning. It’s easy to be swept away by the romantic notion of life on a boat, but industry experts say new cruisers shouldn’t try to do too much too fast.
“Before you head out on your adventure make sure that you are really a candidate for the cruising life and haven’t just been listening to too many Jimmy Buffett records,” writes author Jim Trefethen in “The Cruising Life: A Commonsense Guide for the Would-Be Voyager” (International Marine).
Other advice: Start slow. Do your research. Test the waters, so to speak, with a few overnight trips before moving into weeklong or open-ended excursions. Be patient with the learning process; consider it bonding time for all onboard.
“The whole family had to work together,” emphasized Linda, referring to the Stephensons’ first voyages with their young kids. “It was a wonderful experience, especially for our children, having to work and live together in such a small space. It gave them a sense of adventure.”
Now that the Stephenson children are grown, cruising has become a way for John and Linda, both retired, to strengthen their relationship with each other and their friends. Socializing is another big plus to the cruising lifestyle, with Michigan’s extensive marina system at the center of it all.
“Boaters are just very social people in general,” Tadd said. “Every night at the marinas, total strangers are having cocktails on each other’s boats. Everybody wants to share their story about where they’ve been and where they’re going.”
Social organizations such as yacht clubs or the Great Lakes Cruising Club — a 73-year-old association with nearly 3,000 members — can also provide a framework for interaction with other cruising couples and families.
Perhaps, though, some of the deepest connections made while cruising happen internally. The distractions of everyday life are stripped away, leaving space for reflection, personal growth and continued understanding of life away from land.
“We’ve been on the water for thousands of miles and sailed under many conditions. There’s always something new to learn,” Linda shared.
And that, of course, is the very center of the cruising spirit: having a mind as open as the water and knowing that the joy is truly in the journey.
“Just getting there is part of the adventure,” John says. “Once you start, cruising really becomes part of your life.”
Emily Bingham writes from her new home in Traverse City.



Sidebar

Common Traits of Successful Cruisers

The international cruising society is made up of a diverse and disparate group of colorful and stimulating people from all walks of life, from many countries, and from all social and economic strata – but we share several traits. Cruisers are

• Optimists who view life as a stroll from the shade into the sun
• Rainbow chasers and magic-bean buyers who often have unrealistic expectations of the worlds that are about to be conquered and the dragons that are about to be slain
• Idealists who believe that life should be a little better than it is, and work to make it so
• Fatalists who accept life as it comes, know that there are a few jokers in every deck, and realize that fate doesn’t always deal a winning hand
• Realists who know that someday the sun will set on the final anchorage and who can sail on to whatever comes next without regrets, remorse, or a glance at the wake
• Loners who thrive on solitude and understand when another boat just wants to be left alone
• Gregarious and friendly to a fault and always ready to dinghy for miles through a swamp on a rainy night to attend a potluck supper or to come to the aid of a fellow cruiser
• Inclined to gossip like fishwives at every cruiser gathering (cruisers call it the coconut telegraph, and it is one of the most efficient grapevine communications systems on earth)
• Suckers for a good sea story or yarn, and always ready to sail off in search of some rumored perfect harbor or pristine anchorage
• Able to find the material for great stories in ordinary circumstances
• Independent and self-reliant to a fault
• Free-spirited (sometimes to the point of capriciousness)

Not all of these traits are positive, of course, but they are as much a part of cruising as rusty anchors and sunsets, and they combine to make life afloat a little more simple and basic than life ashore, to make it easier to accept the bad things that happen while emphasizing the good things, and to carry on into the storm when non-cruisers come about and head for harbor.
Excerpted from “The Cruising Life” by Jim Trefethen, printed with permission from International Marine, www.internationalmarine.com