A favorite activity of vistors to both North and South Manitou Islands is walking the sandy Lake Michigan shoreline. In addition to the obvious pleasures of swimming and sunning on a warm summer day, the beaches offer an easy to follow "trail system". Occasionally shipwrecks are exposed by the actions of waves. On South Manitou, the wreck of the Francisco Morazon is a popular destination, often as the outbound or homeward leg of a visit to the Valley of the Giants. North Manitou visitors will want to be on the lookout for sections of beach which are posted to protect the piping plover, an endangered shore bird. Visitors to South Manitou will have to skirt the protected Gull Point area. |   |
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