Our First Post

O God, thy Sea is so great and my boat so small

August 27, 2022, Mackinac Island Michigan, we arrived at Mackinac Island on Wednesday for a two day stay and decided to extend it another day. What a magical place this is, we had never been here and certainly glad we came. Since we only traveled four days this this will be a short post and I’m hopefully going to publish this today instead of Saturday. What I save in writing I'll make up in pictures of Mackinac.

 

 

 

Below is a review of our last day in Canada and our first few days back in the states:

 

August 20, Travel Day #44, Thessalon ON Canada to Drummond Island Michigan USA: Total Distance Traveled: 18 Miles, Total Time Traveled: 2.5 Hours. Well, we did a bang-up job wising Kenton and Kathy bon-voyage, you never know what nights the hardest, the first night in camp or the last.  We a great meal on board and departed together at 9 AM for our different destination. Nice Goin was headed East on Lake Huron then on Lake Erie and Her Idea headed West on Lake Huron toward to Lake Michigan. We had a great day with unlimited visibility and a flat sea. We had a relatively easy run only a few hours as we had scheduled an oil change for the boat at Drummond Island Yacht Haven (sounds like a spa for a boat). We arrived just after noon and went right to the fuel dock to top off the fuel tanks and a pump out. We hadn’t done either since we entered Lake Huron on August 7^th in Midland Ontario. I’m happy to report Diesel was $5.14 a gallon which was a lot better than the $7.70 we paid in Canada.   After filling up and washing down the boat, we had lunch aboard. I think I have mentioned we have no live TV, and The Admiral is a crazy sports watcher and so no golf on weekends and now that football has begun, we need to try and find as solution. At any rate we grabbed a ride from a fellow looper to the local sports bar to watch the final round of the BMW. Daryl Conant, our trainer in Kennebunk, nephew Scott Stallings was in the hunt all weekend and finished second. Scott trough Daryl had hooked us up with tickets to the PGA event in Massachusetts a few years ago. At any rate it was great to watch him play so well, and Scott now has qualified to play this weekend and his first time in the top 30. Oh yeah and a purse of $1.6MM isn’t too bad. So, we are now back in the USA and that always feel great.  

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Our Dinning Room Table

 Cool Lighthouse

Nice Goin arriving

 Another Light House

August 21, Travel Day #45, Drummond Island to Detour Village MI: Total Distance Traveled: 8 Miles, Total Time Traveled: 1.5 Hours. We had another electrical issue with the power posts at Drummond Island and couldn’t get shore power. One of our fellow loopers Chase helped us out and rewired our plug which had been wired wrong three weeks ago. For some crazy reason it works for three weeks and suddenly it stops. I’m not going to bore you with the fits and starts we face but safe to say between toilets, water heaters, showers, electrical systems, anchors, there is never a shortage of things breaking or misbehaving. Hopefully we are always close to a marina. At any rate we had the oil changed in the morning all systems in the engine room were good, so we decided to cruise over to Detour Village a less than 10-mile trip. This would help shorten our trip on Tuesday headed to St. Ignace to keep that voyage around 40 miles. It was a smooth ride over to Detour Village and we arrived in less than 2 hours, settled in, and had an early evening.

 

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Evening sunset 

Lake Shore

Her Idea Underway

August 22, Travel Day #46, Detour Village MI. to St Ignace MI: Total Distance Traveled: 38 Miles, Total Time Traveled: 6 Hours. We depart at 8 AM on Tuesday as we wanted to start before the wind and waves picked up as this leg was open water all the way. This would be our last large water crossing on Lake Huron. The day was clear and warm and unlimited visibility. You will see on the tracks the two days (day 44 & 46) that we crossed Lake Huron. Day 44 the northern section and day 46 the lower section and headed west toward Lake Michigan. WE have been in Lake Huron for over two weeks.   The wind and waves did pick up for a few hours but in general it was smooth trip. We went by several light house and a few tankers that were headed to Lake Superior. We also went around Mackinac Island on our way to St. Ignace. We wanted to be close to Mackinac so on Wednesday we can have as short journey so we can enjoy the next two days at Mackinac. WE arrived around 1 and secured the boat and walked to a restaurant we had heard about and enjoyed a great lunch on the deck overlooking Lake Huron. We then walked 15 minutes to a grocery store to provision the boat. It was great to be back in the States and get the brands we are used to and were unable to find in Canada. It was also wonderful to pay US prices and a LOT less tax. Canada really is an expensive country to shop in and the tax rate is huge. Now the Canadian dollar is only $0.77 USD so there is that! We went back to the boat and cleaned the boat. I’ve said it before but boy does a boat get dirty inside and out. It’s an endless job.

 

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One darn big lake

 

 

August 23, Travel Day #47, St. Ignace MI to Mackinac Island: Total Distance Traveled: 15 Miles, Total Time Traveled: 2.5 Hours. Wednesday, we had an easy morning in St Ignace as we had less than 10 miles to Mackinac Island where we are planning to spend two nights. We arrived after a short cruise over to Mackinac got a slip at the town dock, had lunch, and then took our bikes around the island which is an 8.2-mile circumference. We spent three hours stopping along the way enjoying a beautiful summer day.   

 

 

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Mackinac Island 

The Grand Hotel 

You don't see this requirement very often anymore

This place is specular, old school!

The golf course has 18 holes, the front 9 (Grand Nine) you play on the hotel grounds, the back 9 (Woods Nine) they take you over by carriage and drop you off. 

The Grand Hotels Carriage

Delivering building materials to a construction site (no cars allowed on the Island)!

UPS Delivery

 

 

Tough Place to be The UPS guy!

Beautiful Homes

Here's An Idea!! 

Lake Shore

Arch Rock

Nice Location for a Putt Putt Golf Course

We had a very relaxing week with as few lay days and so we are getting ready to get back on the water. Tomorrow we have a log run over 50 miles and we will enter Lake Michigan. We plan to try and get down the lake in 12 stops going about 30 miles average a day and we estimate that this will take is at least 3 weeks with weather days. It absolutely poured rain yesterday and the wind is hollowing from the south today, that was another good  reason to stay an extra day here plus it's beautiful here. You really can't travel south on Lake Michigan safely on a south or west winds and of course that is their prevailing winds so we need to pick our days carefully.  

Picking the weather days is the big challenge in Lake Michigan

Fair winds (I really mean it this week!)