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The 2011 Inland Seas Summer Festival takes place this Saturday, July 16th on the waterfront at the Inland Seas Education Center in Suttons Bay.

The event kicks off with the 5K Road Race/Walk at 9 AM along scenic Lake Michigan and it's only $25 to participate! The music follows from 10 AM - 5 PM. There are also tours of the schooner Inland Seas, short sails aboard ISEA's Friendship Sloop Liberty,  hands-on activities from numerous Great Lakes organizations, food, art & other vendors, and the announcement of the winners of a hand-made Abenaki canoe built in the ISEA Boat Shop by volunteers, a Boardwalk D7 folding bicycle from Brick Wheels, dinner for four at Trattoria Stella, and a sail for 6 aboard ISEA's Friendship sloop Liberty!

Tickets for the music are $10 per person, with kids 15 and under free - click the link above to register for the race or music and much more information.

Music Lineup

The Inland Seas Summer Festival will provide live music from several musicians throughout the day. The Sour Belly Trio made of members from Sour Mash - a local Roots Bluegrass and Alternative Folk group; 3-Hour Tour - a Power-Folk group playing Leelanau County Style songs you know by heart; and Don Julin - master of jazz. The headline act will feature Don Middlebrook & Living Soul, a Buffet cover band - think trop rock, Jimmy Buffet meets Kenny Chesney.

11:00am - 3-Hour Tour
12:00pm - Don Julin
1:00pm - Sour Belly Trio
2:15pm - Don Middlebrook & Living Soul (Jimmy Buffest covers)
3:45pm - Don Middlebrook & Living Soul

The Inland Seas Education Association has 2 Astronomy Under Sail trips this summer. The dates are June 30th and August 13th from 9-1:15 PM. Cost is $45/person and the event is limited to 25 participants.

The schooner sets sail on Suttons Bay before sunset and heads out beyond the shore lights where you a clear view of the night sky. Your guide is astronomer Dick Cookman (owner of Enerdyne) and Dick will help you identify constellations and explain the legends behind their names. In addition to the star gazing, you will become the unofficial "crew" of Inland Seas, learning to work the halyards and sheets!

The Glen Arbor page on Facebook shot a beautiful video yesterday of a serene canoe ride down the decidedly un-springlike snow on the Crystal River.  Check out the video in high quality on Facebook (normal quality).

Trish posted a cool little flip-book of last Friday's Super Moon rising over Suttons Bay. You can see more shots from around the state in the Super Moon slideshow from the Absolute Michigan photo group!

The third video we'd like to share comes via the Glen Arbor Sun and it's packed with springtime fun!

Forest Rebecca Olson enjoyed an early spring day the right way in northern Michigan — by tapping a maple tree and enjoying the sap from which we make maple syrup. In succession, the flowers bloomed, the snow began to melt, the chickens came out to play, and her daughter Roen greeted the farm animals.

Here's some videos from presenters and performers who will be at the Benzie County Water Festival, along with some videos of the beautiful water they'll be talking about!

The First Annual Benzie County Water Festival is a community water celebration that takes place on Saturday, March 18-19 south of us in Frankfort. This will be a unique event designed to engage folks in the stewardship of the Great Lakes and the cultivation of a vibrant and sustainable local culture in our region.

A family-oriented, community-centered program will feature Michigan musicians, speeches from water luminaries (including Tom Kelly of Inland Seas Education Association and GTB Tribal Chairman Derek Bailey), interactive multimedia projects and presentations, artisan foods and beverages, workshops, visual art, theater and dance, children's activities, an ice fishing contest, as well as connections to campaigns and projects protecting our water locally and/or addressing global water challenges.

A highlight is the showing of the showing of the award-winning documentary WATERLIFE on Friday night (March 18) at the Garden Theatre in Frankfort. If you have not seen this extraordinary film and love the Great Lakes YOU SHOULD SEE IT!!!

The Benzie County Water Festival is co-sponsored by the Benzie Conservation District and Absolute Michigan. For more information, check out the Benzie Water Festival Facebook and contact Sarah Louisignau by calling 231-871-1075 or by e-mail.

The first Michigan Water Festival was held on the Straits in Mackinaw City in August of 2006 and attracted 500 people from all over the state. The Water Festival moves around Michigan every year, bringing the message of the vitality of Michigan's water all around the state (there's a video in the series above). Learn more at water-festival.org!

Photo Credit: 'Lighthouse Dawn' Point Betsie Lighthouse, Lake Michigan by Michigan Nut

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The other day we stumbled upon this cool video of the wreck of the tug Lauren Castle from the Water Studies Institute at Northwestern Michigan College.

NMC Explains their underwater mapping program of Grand Traverse Bay and says:

Last year’s mapping concentrated on shallower areas of the bays andpinpointed for the first time the wreck of a ship, the Lauren Castle, near Suttons Bay, shown in these scanned images. When research concludes next month, a majority of the arms of Grand Traverse Bay will be mapped. The data will result in the first new maps in 80 years.

“The sophistication of this equipment is phenomenal .  This is the first time the bays have ever been imaged to this resolution,” said Hans VanSumeren, director of the Water Studies Institute.

The tug Lauren Castle was built in 1906 by the Delaware River Iron Ship Building & Engineering Company at Chester, PA with the original name General G.M. Sorrel. It had seven different owners during its 75 year career on the East Coast and in the Great Lakes. A a work tug, it engaged in a variety of tasks, especially the towing of commercial ships.

In 1974, Lauren Castle lost two crew men while assisting the cement carrier S.T. Crapo. On November 5, 1980 the Lauren Castle foundered with one loss of life on in Grand Traverse Bay while assisting the tanker Amoco Wisconsin. The shipwreck was discovered in 1999 by Thaddius Bedford, a local resident and current member of the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve Council. It is located about seven miles north of Traverse City within the West Bay, in approximately 390 feet of water.

See more images from the exploration of the bay at NMC!

Update!! The Leelanau.com team hiked out to the wreck yesterday afternoon. Contrary to some published reports, the hike is 4+ miles round trip on the Dune Trail (head straight up the Dune Climb) or about 5 miles round trip on the beach. Time is about the same but the shore route from Glen Haven (go left from either location) would be a lot less strenuous! We got some photos (check out the slideshow) and will hopefully have a video. Photographers Jeff Rabidoux of Life on the 45th and Ken Scott were also there!

TV 9&10 has a nice video report on the shipwreck that recently washed up in the Sleeping Bear Dunes. The wreck  is located about 1/4 mile north of where the Dune Trail reaches Lake Michigan.

The Traverse City Record-Eagle has a feature as well that quotes Laura Quackenbush of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore museum as saying the wreckage appears to be that of a propeller-driven steamer. It goes on to say:

She contacted Steve Harold, director of the Manistee County Historical Museum, who said the shipwreck could be that of the St. Nicholas or the General Taylor — both lost during fall months in the mid-19th century.

The St. Nicholas carried wheat when it started to leak and became stranded in Sleeping Bear Bay in November 1857. The General Taylor was stranded in October 1862 near Sleeping Bear Point.

Both ships were wrecked near where the wooden hull washed ashore, said Harold, author of "Shipwrecks of the Sleeping Bear." Determining its identity will be harder, since wood can float for miles and no name or serial numbers were recovered.

"The chances are better than 50-50 that this is an early propeller vessel," he said. "Those are the most logical choices, but there's no proof."

The Glen Arbor Sun has a great writeup on the strongest storm in Great Lakes history, the October Storm of 2010 with 60+ MPH winds, waves over 20' in Lake Michigan and countless people without power.

While the storm boasted intense winds and rock-bottom low pressure, it pales in comparison to the deadliest storm ever experienced in the Great Lakes happened nearly 100 years ago. Known as the "Freshwater Fury" or the "White Hurricane", it was a blizzard packing  hurricane-force winds that ravaged the Great Lakes November 7-10, 1913. With the sinking of 19 ships, the stranding of another 19 and a death toll of at least 250, it remains the deadliest and most destructive natural disaster in Great Lakes history.

This excellent article on the weather science behind the 1913 storm from NOAA Weather Historian William R. Deedler features a report from the Lake Carriers Association:

“No lake master can recall in all his experience a storm of such unprecedented violence with such rapid changes in the direction of the wind and its gusts of such fearful speed! Storms ordinarily of that velocity do not last over four or five hours, but this storm raged for sixteen hours continuously at an average velocity of sixty miles per hour, with frequent spurts of seventy and over.

Obviously, with a wind of such long duration, the seas that were made were such that the lakes are not ordinarily acquainted with. The testimony of masters is that the waves were at least 35 feet high and followed each other in quick succession, three waves ordinarily coming one right after the other.

Read more about this storm and see a slideshow of the damage and video of the ships that were lost in Freshwater Fury: The Great Storm of 1913 on Absolute Michigan.

Photo credit: lake michigan fury by farlane

Recently the University of Michigan women's rowing team traveled to Leelanau County. The Leelanau Enterprise reports that head coach Mark Rothstein said that Lake Leelanau could be one of the best places to row in the state and the entire Midwest:

The team stayed at historic Fountain Point Resort near the Lake Leelanau Narrows, where proprietor Erik Zehender had a 12-by-48-foot floating dock specially built in time to accommodate the U-M team as well as a Lake Leelanau Rowing Club now being formed.

No one had ever brought a rowing club – let alone a top NCAA rowing team – to Lake Leelanau before last week. Zehender said he hopes the U-M visit will attract visits by more rowing clubs to Leelanau County in the years ahead – a boon for local businesses in the sometimes slow fall and spring visitor seasons.

Prior to his visit, Rothstein said he was “testing out the lake to see if it will be a good rowing venue for future trips and races.”

The photo above was taken by Bill & Becky Ross of Flying Still Photography. Here's a video featuring some more great photos of the trip from UM!

The fact that the Westmoreland was one of the earliest propellers on the Lakes and that she was almost brand new (one year old) when she sank makes for a great shipwreck story. But when stories of her fabled cargo started circulating around the wharfs and bars of Milwaukee and Frankfort she became a legend.

Stories of gold in the strong box and brandy and whiskey in her hold seem to emanate for the Westmoreland’s first mate, Paul Pelkey. Captain Pelkey was far from a crackpot and considered a very capable seaman and navigator. Captain Pelkey returned in 1872 and 1874 to get at the cargo of the Westmoreland. That’s a lot of time and effort to put into something, unless you knew something was there…

~via MichiganMysteries.com

The other day, the Sleeping Bear Dunes blog tipped us off to a story from earlier in the summer that we missed. I talked with Ross for a bit this morning. He told me that it was his intention to leave artifacts at the wreck, because it's the law and also to give people the experience of diving an "underwater museum." He also let me use these photos he took - see more on his Facebook!

The Traverse City Record-Eagle article Diver says he found Westmoreland shipwreck explained that diver Ross Richardson of Lake Ann combed the waters near the Sleeping Bear Dunes for years seeking the Westmoreland — a vessel that foundered near South Manitou Island in a Lake Michigan winter storm on Dec. 7, 1854.

Richardson, however, kept his discovery a secret until he could set aside time to dive down and see the ship up close. His brother joined him three days later, and they filmed underwater video of the Westmoreland, which rose 30 feet above the sand in some spots. Richardson then posted the video on his website, www.michiganmysteries.com.

"I was shocked," Richardson said of his discovery. "It's an area of underwater archaeology that's kept it pretty hidden. It's a good piece of history."

Several expeditions failed in the search of the 200-foot Westmoreland, though some newspaper reports from the late 19th century indicate the vessel was located. Historians believe it was sunk by a wicked winter storm. Stories passed down over generations about treasure aboard the ship, but Richardson refutes those claims.

"There's no proof or records of it down there," he said.

Anyway, here's the video (no sound) and you can read more about the Westmoreland and other Michigan mysteries on his web site.