Our cruising days were filled with amusements: food, musical presentations, food, trivia games, food, jigsaw puzzles, food. Sometimes we were close enough to see land. Sometimes we were close enough to see what was on the land. There were a surprising number of islands in the lakes, especially Lake Michigan. In fact one of the trivia questions was: what is a recursive lake? Answer: a lake on an island in a lake. There are also recursive islands: an island in a lake on an island in a lake. Whew!
The first day out of Chicago was spent at sea (at lake?). We cruised the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, which features large sand dunes. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore protects many miles of dunes on the mainland and adjacent islands. This picture shows a cluster of houses to provide scale for the size of the dunes. I don't know if this is part of the protected area or not.
Sand mining is a major extraction business in Michigan and in some areas the dunes have been leveled. There have been various past and ongoing attempts to protect the dunes through regulation. Of course any such attempts will be controversial with opposing commercial and environmental interests. Past history suggests that short-term commercial thinking costs more in the long run, but ....
On our previous Great Lakes trip in 2019, we had a game going on who
could find the most lakers. We saw several on that trip, although
not as many as we expected. We saw very few on this trip. We later
saw this or another POLSTEAM ship anchored in Thunder Bay. The company
has many lakers in its
fleet.
I did mention food? On cruising days the staff put out a lavish
spread for tea. On other days, we had to make do with cookies and other snacks.Click your "back" button to return to the previous page or click for our picture album.