It rained all night and early in the morning - thunderstorms passed over. By mid-morning, there were signs of the skies clearing up and as we left Kalamazoo Lake, the clouds finally parted and blue skies came through. Looking at the weather forecast, we saw that we had calm seas on which to travel the 40 miles to St. Joseph today, but on the following two days we could expect small craft advisory conditions - gale force winds and waves of up to 10-12 feet.

We arrived at the Benton Harbor inlet on which the towns of Benton Harbor lies to the north and St. Joseph on the south. Following along the St. Joseph River we passed through the open RR bridge and waited for the regular opening of the Harbor Island Bridge and entered the Anchors Way Marina.

After tying up and taking care of some straightening up that was needed on the boat, we took the 1 mile walk into the town of St. Joseph and strolled on the lakeside embankment that overlooked the beach recreation area.

St. Joseph was originally settled by French explorer LaSalle as a base for his exploration of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Later in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the town became the well-known lakeside resort of Silver Beach with an expansive boardwalk that sadly no longer exists.