I always put my largest Whaler away at the end of August, but I keep my 17- and 15-foot Whalers out for the Boston Whaler Great Lakes Cruising Club’s season closer: the Fall Color Tour. Each fall for the past 15 or 20 years, my wife and I have hosted a gathering of fellow Boston Whaler owners at the family cottage on Mullett Lake and Michigan’s Inland Waterway.
Touted as one of the most beautiful small-boat trips in the country, Michigan’s Inland Waterway is a 40-mile-long boating adventure across the top of the lower peninsula, beginning at Cheboygan on Lake Huron and ending at Crooked Lake, just a few miles from Petoskey and Lake Michigan. It winds through Mullett and Burt lakes along the Cheboygan, Indian and Crooked rivers, passing through two locks. While it’s only 40 miles, it takes the better part of a day to go from one end to another due to long and picturesque no-wake zones on the Cheboygan and Indian rivers.
One weekend every August, the Inland Waterway is the racecourse for the Top O’ Michigan boat races run by Top O’ Michigan Outboard Racing Club. More than 100 boats run an 80-mile course that includes tight hairpin curves on the Crooked River and large open water on Mullett and Burt lakes. Held annually since 1949, these races attract over 5,000 spectators every year.
This is my home cruising grounds where I keep most of my boats. The Inland Waterway is popular with thousands of boaters who visit each year. The summer months are busiest, but fall is an especially good time because of the spectacular colors and reduced boat traffic. The journey provides a wide variety of boating from the open waters of Mullett and Burt lakes to the peaceful no-wake zones on the Cheboygan and Indian rivers. Most popular with my boating friends is a run on the Crooked River. Two long sections of this river are not a no-wake zone and provide pretzel-like turns that we run on plane. It feels like you are in a chase scene in a James Bond movie.
The area provides a range of accommodations for visitors with boats. Multiple motels on the Cheboygan, Indian and Crooked rivers have docks, or you can camp on the eastern shore of Mullett Lake at Aloha State Park, which has a protected harbor and launch ramp. Restaurants with docks welcome boaters on the Cheboygan, Indian and Crooked rivers as well as on Mullett Lake.
The 38-mile waterway is a unique adventure sure to please any boating enthusiast. From wildlife and scenic beauty to water skiing, tubing and swimming, Michigan’s Inland Waterway has it all.
This article originally appeared in the America’s Boating Club Birmingham newsletter, Bilge Chatter.
