Friday Oct 31, 2014 Florence, Al. MM 256 to Waterfall Cove MM 217

It was 48 degrees and partly cloudy when we departed Florence Harbor Marina at 0745 hours. We were done with locks for the time being so it was a nice run the 39 miles down to Waterfall Cove where I planned to anchor for the night. This cove is where my sons, Jason and Peter and I anchored 3 years ago when we were bringing the boat up north from Texas. We had a great time there and I wanted Colletta to experience the same. Well, let me tell you that the ambiance of the cove was entirely different between when the boys and I were there in June and being there on Halloween. The major problem was the cold and 35 mph winds. The winds created a 2-3 foot wave with white caps, now for Lake Michigan boaters this is not a big thing but let me tell you it pretty much stops all local boat traffic except for, the bass fishermen. We got into the cove and it seemed a little smaller then I remembered. It was probably because they have dropped the lake level 5 feet to prepare for the snow and rain during the winter. We got the bow anchor down and set but with the wind we were moving all over the cove and although it is pretty deep I wanted to put out a stern anchor also. Tried 2 different anchors without success, so I decided that we would anchor like I did when I was here with the boys; that is run the bow of the boat up on the beach, drop the bow anchor, pulling it up on the sand and setting it by hand.

The wind was so strong it was pushing the boat back off the beach so I pulled out the two anchors used earlier and took the dinghy and rowed to shore and placed them strategically in the sand and put big honking rocks on top of them. Well, let me tell you that held them in place but the boat still danced back and forth all night but we didn’t move off the beach.

This is the waterfall in the cove. It just seemed bigger when there was a lot of people around having a good time