Michigan Maritime Museum

We were in town on vacation with family and looking for something to do. The Maritime Museum was well worth a couple of hours.
The main building holds exhibits on maritime history, particularly ship wrecks. Over the years there were an incredible number of wrecks on the lake and specifically around South Haven. Thankfully navigation and safety is much better these days or I am not sure I would get out on a boat. There is also a room dedicated to a Northwest DC-​6 that crashed off South Haven in the 1950s into the lake and disappeared with all on board. There is a grisly exhibit of artifacts and clothing that washed ashore.
Outside the museum has several boats including a replica of the «Friends of Good Will», a sailboat which offers evening cruses. There is a building with exhibits on ship rescue and a building with some great old outboards.
Worth seeing!

I would absolutely take a half day and visit this museum. Beautiful surroundings, tons of historical information including an exhibit of Northwest flight 2501 — which took my breath away. Loved the U.S. Coastguard presence in their exhibits! $ 8.00 adult entry fee but totally worth it as you can take as much time as you like touring the campus.

Even after living in the Southwest Michigan area for 20+ years, and going to South Haven literally every summer, I’d never managed to make it in to this little museum.
This year we decided to rent a condo here for a week, and some of us were pretty new to the South Haven area. We’d seen the ‘Friends Good Will’ replica tall ship sail out the harbour whilst having drinks on another South Haven locale ‘The Idler’. It seemed pretty cool, and I’ve never been sailing, let alone on an olde timey ship!
At $ 30 a head for day trips, and $ 40 for the sunset cruise, it is a bit steep, especially for a family of 9. We went on a sunny, but cool and windy July day. There’s lots of interaction, as you get to take part in putting up and taking down the sails, and the crew members dress up in period clothes and recount the tales of the original ‘Friends Good Will’. The tours generally last an hour and a half… (dun dun duuun) EXCEPT OURS!
For the first time in 5 years (there was another time when the museum first obtained the ship), the ‘Friends Good Will’ broke down. We were stranded on Lake Michigan for 5 hours.
Gilligan’s Island and shipwrecking jokes abounded, but they quickly grew old as most of us we’re freezing to death (we weren’t exactly dressed for a day of sailing). One of us even got sea sick as the wind picked up and the waters got choppy. At one point we reached 7 knots.
The worst part of it was that we could still see the beach and South Haven, but we’re maybe a mile or two out, so it’s not exactly as if we could swim back in.
Looking back, it really was funny, and OF COURSE it would happen to me, I just never really want to go sailing again (okay maybe I could be persuaded if you promise not to let the motor go out!). I’m sure any other time it would be a great experience, especially for kids!