Michigan Inland Waterway

[koberlee]

My family and I have rented a cottage on the northwest end of Burt Lake on the Inland Waterway next week.

Has any one cruised the Inland Waterway and if so any advice (places to go/avoid)?

We plan on cruising out to Cheboygan one day and just enjoying it.

We are not far from Maple Bay which looks like a nice area to park and let the kid swim and play.

We are super excited to go and realy like the idea of parking the car and using the boat to go to towns and explore.

Any advice, recomendations, or stories would be more than apreciated.
Thanks,

 

[RotaryRacer]

Re: Michigan Inland Waterway

It is a wonderful place to visit.

When I was a kid we did the whole water way trip a half dozen times or so...we would actually launch in Oden take the boat all the way to Cheboygan and stay at a hotel for a night then venture out to Mackinac Island from there. This was done with other boats/friends. None of the boats were more than 19' long.

In 2008 I took my family (kids/wife) on a trip up to the waterway. We had mixed weather.

We actually camped at Aloha State Park on Mullet lake. This made a great starting spot. The day we had to explore Burt and Crooked lakes was very windy. We had consistent 4-6' waves on Mullet and Burt lakes. It was really too rough to be out there. I was a bit bullheaded and we pressed on, saw the lakes and rivers and returned safely. This was in our 18' Cuddy. I wouldn't have done it in an open bow boat.

We spent 2 days on Mackinac Island and had planned to take the boat out there. Since it was raining and just sort of miserable we took the ferry instead. After that we spent one more night at Aloha and had a full day to head out to Cheboygan. The weather was perfect. Calm, sunny, warm. We were out on Lake Huron for a couple hours with nothing more than a freighter wake the entire time. It was really pretty remarkable.

I guess the moral of the story is, go and have fun. Watch the weather and if the wind picks up get back to shore. Burt and Mullet lakes get surprisingly large waves when the wind is out of the West.