17 Jul, 2021

The Journey…

Musing – Brandon

A 4-6 year old from the sailing school turtled his boat. Instructor made him right the boat, bail it out and get back in. She did tow him back to base, Brandon bawling!

Instructor: “Brandon you are going to be just fine.”

Brandon: “I AM SO NOT GOING TO BE FINE” at the top of his lungs amongst sobs. (ok, guess you had to be there)

17 Jul, 2021

17 Jul, 2021

The Journey…

Week 4 – St Clair, MI to Put-In-Bay, OH – NM 456 thru 575

ST CLAIR RIVER, ST CLAIR CITY, MI – Our sail from Lexington to the mouth of the St Clair river was 30nm and took 5 hours. The bridge above, The Twin Blue Water Bridge marks the entrance into the river with the US on one side and Canada on the other; which funnels the water from Lake Huron into a tiny opening that that travels 40 miles down to Lake St Clair. With this comes current, something we have not experienced much of. WOW, talk about speed! We gained 4kn of speed from the current and were going 9.2knots!!! And the picture below proves it! Hull speed on a sailboat has calculations that involve square roots and bow wave wavelength, not going to go there. Will just say that it’s roughly the fastest a boat can go. Rory’s hull speed is about 8.4. Consequently we got to our destination of the city of St Clair’s Harbor, mid river, 1.5 hours early.

We stayed in St Clair Harbor for a couple of nites due to some not-so-nice weather moving thru, had planned on only one. That’s what sailing’s about, Mother Nature rules. Therefore in between the raindrops we went and sat on a long boardwalk and watched the freighters go by. Do our MN friends recognize this name? We left St Clair the next day and headed down the rest of the river to get to Lake St Clair, a relatively shallow lake before the entrance to the Detroit river. We had the sails up and down at least 20 times (ok, 5 really) but it seemed like 20; winds just flukey. As our friend Bruce E. would say “see that arrow on top of the mast? That is where we’re going.” We entered the Detroit River anticipating as strong a current flow as the St. Clair but we were only going 8.4 knots. Our goal was to get to the Miliken State Harbor in downtown Detroit

DETROIT, MI – Miliken State Harbor, literally, right downtown, 3 blocks from the GM Renaissance Center, 4 blocks from the Atwater Brewery, etc, etc. It was refreshing to ‘be’ in a large city for a change and view the multitudes of diversity. We ate outside at a ‘white linen’ restaurant (quite underdressed), The Rattlesnake Club, and had an exquisite meal; best in a l o n g while except for our friend Sandy’s wonderful meal prepared for us before our departure..

View from the back of our boat, the RenCen. Below snippets from Detroit. We stayed in Detroit 3 nites, 1 due to weather but glad we did, got a whole bunch of laundry done which was amazingly free! We found the farmer’s market which was HUGE. Had BBQ ribs for breakfast at Bert’s next to the market, totally acceptable right?

Left Detroit and gazed longingly across the river into Windsor, ON, Canada – so close yet so far. The Ambassador Bridge which should be bustling only had commercial truck traffic on it.

PUT-IN-BAY, OH (a bay on South Bass Island, OH)- A 48nm trip from Detroit, motored down the river and raised the sails as soon as we were onto our 3rd Great Lake of the trip, Erie. Had a REALLY bumpy upwind sail, 11-17+ on the nose. Wind prognosticators failed miserably at their jobs that day. We even managed to put Rory’s nose thoroughly under water, kinda scary and awe inspiring at the same time. We averaged about 6.6kn and got in early. Put-In-Bay?!? What? The monument above commemorates the US victory of Oliver Hazard Perry over the British fleet in the War of 1812. The only US victory. Perry chose not to kill the British fleet, when asked what to do with them “Put them in the bay.” A running theory. The island town of P-I-B is a mini version of Mackinac Island except they use golf carts instead of horses and bikes. Golf carts everywhere! Sailing school in the bay every day, 4 yr to 11 year olds, lots of girls I’m happy to say. Came as close to Rory as they could. And a family of malcontent ducks who showed up 2-3 times a day to give us the stink eye for not feeding them anything.

17 Jul, 2021

17 Jul, 2021

The Journey…

Quote – Anthony Bourdain

17 Jul, 2021

17 Jul, 2021

The Journey…

Week 3 – Harbor Beach to Lexington, MI – NM 327 thru 456

HARBOR BEACH, MI – Huh, these are the only pictures we took while we were at Harbor Beach for 4 nites. I guess we’d better pick up the pace. The sign above requires more discussion. Every. Single. Place. we have stopped signs similar to this or “only open Thurs-Sun” or “only offering pizza” or “only offering appetizers” or worst of all “closed”. And in most places a sign reading “hiring all shifts” is prominent in the front window. Reality of staffing shortages in the news is striking hard, especially in the service industries. The remaining people left behind are working their proverbial butts off covering 2-3 peoples jobs. I feel burnout will make them succumb to throwing in the towel. Will this be ‘fixed’ soon, it appears not; last year changed everything about how everything works – the economy, people, jobs. INSIGHT – be extremely respectful of people who remain, make time not an issue, exude patience and SMILE.

D got inspired and cleaned and lubed 3 winches.

K got inspired and took a nap. We were at Harbor Beach for 4 nights because we sailed for 14 hours, the first day from Alpena. Our intended destination was anchoring in Tawas Bay only 30 nm SE from Alpena. The winds were strong but very consistent and the waves were building and were going to continue to do so overnite. That would make the wind and waves combo horrible getting from Tawas Bay to Harbor Beach. Thus we continued our great sail to Harbor Beach, 85nm getting in at 9:00pm. So give me a break on the nap ok?

LEXINGTON, MI – LOWLIGHT, the epitome of our sailing careers LOWLIGHT! We had an absolutely gorgeous sail from Harbor Beach to outside the marina at Lexington. The wind had picked up to around 18kn from the SE exactly behind us for docking purposes. The marina’s fairways were extremely narrow and the wind got ahold of us and pushed us sideways into 2 powerboats bow pulpits. Luckily and unlucky the owners were on board and were able to keep our boat from really doing damage. There was A LOT of swearing involved and WAY too many instructions being shouted. Both boats stated they sustained damage but we have yet to see any evidence, hopefully stated in the heat of the moment. Somehow the marina staff watching from another dock showed up and were able to get us in our slip. We felt lower than low. Trying to shake it off we went into town to get some lunch only to come back and have the harbormaster and another boater new to our starboard side with him. He had hit our boat getting into his slip; all the marina staff were on our boat trying to push him off. 2 in one day?!?!?!? We, in our 25+ years of sailing have never hit or been hit by another boat. Sigh. Rory girl came out unscathed but for 2 tiny scrapes on her toerail, she is really a touch girl! D & I will get over it…

17 Jul, 2021

17 Jul, 2021

The Journey…

Week 2 – St. Ignace to Alpena, MI – NM 203 thru 327

ST. IGNACE, MI – Alas the travels have become a true reality when you’re looking at a pair of these. The short hop from Mackinac Island to St Ignace was all about trying to miss the three sets of thunderstorms approaching from the east. We slowed down and sped up accordingly and managed to get into the marina as it just started to rain. We were referred to the restaurant below for the ‘best breakfast in town’, but the staff is well, ‘different’. The maitre D’; a spry older woman; pretty much barked orders and did crowd control. When our table was ready “Hey you with the glasses, over here” was our call to action.

WILDERNESS BAY AND GOVERNMENT BAY, LES CHENEAUX ISLANDS, MI – Wilderness Bay was only about 2.5 hrs away from St Ignace. Sailed most of the way until we got to the channel approach for the anchorage. Beautiful peaceful place, comparing it somewhat to the Boundary Waters in MN. For our first evenings entertainment we literally watched mayflies hatch on the water and hundreds of gulls snatching them up. The ‘thing’ in the first picture below were hatching as well (anyone know what it is?) They proceeded to get into cracks and crevices on the boat and laid a gelatinous spiral helix of lime green eggs. (thought I took a pic, sorry no). It took days to find them all. Second mode of entertainment was watching Ma & Pa eagle take care of their single eaglet, a very voracious eater. We then switched venues moving on to Government Bay, similar but more populated.

PRESQUE ISLE/ALPENA, MI – After consulting the wind app gurus and the Lake Erie WX site it was deemed that if we wanted to get in any sailing the next day or so we would need to do an overnite trip. We took off at 5:00pm thru fog and motored for half of the trip to Presque Isle. The fog lifted, we were sailing nicely and at 2:30am on my watch I see a freighter leaving one of the calcite mines about a mile away coming our direction. I changed our course by a couple degrees, they changed theirs to match. This happened a couple of times and according to our AIS system on our chart plotter it was going to be a CLOSE encounter!. So me being me hailed the vessel on the radio and stated ‘if we maintain our present course will you avoid us?” Reply was “Aurora you will be fine”. HINDSIGHT – more tact in radio communications. Came into Presque Isle at 5:40 am, saw beautiful sunrise, anchored and went to sleep. Winds picked up and D awoke thinking we were dragging anchor. Since the winds were favorable to continue down the east Lake Huron coast D asks me “how far to the next spot?” I look at a map (not a chart) and say “oh, probably 20nm or so”. 43nm down the road and me getting the stink eye we pull into Alpena. HINDSIGHT2 – always consult a chart.

ALPENA, MI – After sleeping in and charged up to go to the farmer’s market in town we went to where the map said it was – had moved- went to where it moved to walking 2 miles – didn’t start on Wednesdays till the following week – it was Wednesday; we ended up going here for breakfast, good ‘hippie’ food, sat outside and watched the world go by. Provisioned and relaxed some then went to a highly recommended restaurant which was only serving appetizers. Why? Staff shortage. Not the only time we’ve heard that this trip. App very good however. Encountered the 3D fish wall art on the backside of the restaurant building. Next day walked 2.5 miles to the Besser Museum; and true to its sign it had a great mix of local history et al. Topped off the day at the Red Brick Restaurant with a flight of distilled products and great bar food.

A quote in a stall in the women’s rest room at the museum.

17 Jul, 2021

17 Jul, 2021

The Journey…

Musing – K & D

In Wilderness Bay, Les Cheneaux Islands, some am hour.

K: “What was that noise? It sounded like an animal or the snubber line and anchor chain are twisted.”

D: “I dunno, I’ll go check.” Goes outside, comes back. “You were right”

K: “Really?!?” (2 options given)

D: “Something jumped in the water from the cockpit when I went out”

K: “What was it?”

D: “Dunno, too dark”

Spent the next 1/2 hour trying to figure out what it was and came up with the assumption of a muskrat.

17 Jul, 2021

11 Jul, 2021

The Journey…

Week 1 – Manitowoc, WI to Mackinac Island, MI – NM 0 thru 203

MANITOWOC, WI – Literally untying the lines, 0455 Wednesday June 16, 2021… It took us 10 hours to cross the lake 1/3 of which we had the iron jenny on. We got to Frankfort, MI, dropped the anchor, ate a great meal onboard, watched the sunset and went to sleep.

LELAND, MI – Invited to the Cove Restaurant, home of the ‘Chubby Mary’. As you can see by the look on Dwight’s face it is a unique drink. Smoked chub in your drink served with plate of chips & fork to ‘eat’ it with.

HIGH ISLAND, MI – In route with very choppy water, 15-27kn winds, 4-6′ waves, Rory was surfing quite well. Did manage to take a HUGE wave over the side, 50 gallons at least! Then this cloud formation was lurking directly over the island. Went under it and the wind indicator spun around 2-3 times and we came to a virtual stop. Had to do a Mr Google on ‘long white tube cloud’ and came up with the Arcus roll cloud; formed by a cold front advancing in the absence of thunderstorms. Spent 2 nights anchored here, only ones there, delightful. Below is the islands location and some of its inhabitants. Piping Plover, for which the island is a protected nesting sanctuary; a rather LARGE spider; a good old Bullfrog; and a Northern Water Snake, they swim very well.

MACKINAC STRAITS, BRIDGE & ISLAND, MI – Approaching the bridge from the west, the Island is in the distance.

On the east side of the bridge, officially into Lake Huron, HipHipHoray; now it really seems that our traveling adventure is becoming real. Scenes from Mackinac Island; view from the top of Fort Mackinac, the ubiquitous fudge making process for which Jeff from Chakra- Manitowoc called Mackinac ‘the island of fudge suckers’; and the mode of transportation other than 10,000 bicycles – horses.

11 Jul, 2021