St. Ignace to Bay Harbor

Day #690; Loop Miles to Date = 8,256

We had a longish travel day leaving St Ignace as we traveled west through the Mackinac Straits, and then south down to Bay Harbor on the lower peninsula of Michigan. We found that the wind forecast had understated the conditions that we encountered, and our first exposure to Lake Michigan was not quite as comfortable as we would have liked. We rocked and rolled a bit coming through the straits and especially when we turned to the south. We hugged the shoreline for awhile, which helped to mitigate some of the roll that we were getting from the south. But...all in all it wasn't the worst day we've had on the water, and we arrived at Bay Harbor by mid-afternoon.

But first, some additional pics of Mackinaw Island, etc.

The streets filled with bicycles, as cars are not allowed on the island...horses provide the only other allowed means of transportation. This picture doesn't really show it, but the main street was just packed with people. And after the peaceful anchorages and small towns of the past few months, it was rather an assault to our senses to have so many people to wade our way through. We found Mackinac to be just about as touristy as we anticipated, with T-shirt shops and fudge shops dominating the retail offerings.

Ok...this looks like a long way to fall when you make an error in judgment...

We decided that these guys had just given up after a few hours of walking around.

And you could rent your very own "accident waiting to happen". We chose not to.

Some spectacular homes on the island.

The parking lot at the restaurant where we had some lunch.

Delivering luggage to the hotel.

Some views of the Grand Hotel...it really was quite something. We walked around the property, sat on the famous porch, and wandered around the lobby area. It was right out of a movie set as anticipated.

Our view of the Mackinac Bridge on the way out of St Ignace. No bright blue skies this day.

 

 

So now we find ourselves at the Bay Harbor Yacht Club...a spectacular private club right down the road from Petoskey. Our friends on Job Site are members here, and were kind enough to arrange for us to stay here for a few days...and they left us their car to use while we are here! It is a beautiful facility, and we are most grateful for their hospitality. We plan to camp out here for most of this week, and will tour some of the neighboring towns by car (Petoskey, Charlevoix, Harbor Springs, Boyne City, etc.) So, instead of visiting these places by boat as we thought we would, we'll see them all by car like normal people...it should be a nice relaxing week.

 

 



Sault Ste Marie to De Tour, MI to St. Ignace, MI

Day # 686; Loop Miles to Date = 8,296

We departed the Soo on Thursday to much calmer conditions. There was a slight breeze, but the little that there was, we had was on our stern, so it was a very pleasant 44 mile travel day.

Our morning sky as we departed the Soo.
 

Our trip to De Tour was largely uneventful. We were traveling most of the day in the down bound commercial shipping channel, but we didn't see any commercial traffic at all. We were hoping to pass some of the large 1000' lakers, but they just weren't where we were travelling.

A vast waterway even though it is a shipping channel...you can see Act III way down in the left corner. The sky was really interesting this day.

And here's something that you don't see every day. This ship hull had apparently been hauled up on shore, and from what we could see it may have been converted in to a cottage or living quarters of some sort. It is rather disorienting to see this up in the woods and not on the water...

We found De Tour to be a sleeply little town with a small grocery and a few small restaurants. The marina was great...one of the newer, refurbished Michigan State DNR run marinas...very nice. But, it was just a place to stop for us, and we were off the next morning.

From our slip at Detour...a couple of the big ships crossing out in the channel.

Fridays transit was another 44 miles, all of it in the open waters of Lake Huron. We timed the weather perfectly on this one...the seas were dead calm and the skies clear. It was a wonderful day to be out in open water.

The lighthouse at De Tour Reef.

The Martin Reef Light on the way to St Ignace.

Our travels today took us right past Mackinac Island. Our plan is to take the ferry across to visit the island tomorrow. It's only about a 10 minute ferry ride from St Ignace, so that's our plan tomorrow (Saturday).

The Grand Hotel

Lighthouse at the Mackinac Island Channel

Light at Mackinac Island.

We haven't yet discovered who this is on the light...



Mackinac Island sights...



Ferry boats are everywhere...here is one that promotes their rooster tail...note the Mackinac Bridge in the background.

 

So, on Saturday, we'll take one of these ferries over to the Island and play tourist for a few hours...off to points south on Sunday if the winds allow...

 

Richard's Landing to Sault Ste Marie, MI

Day #684; Loop Miles to Date = 8,208

On Monday, we transited up the St Mary's River, through Lake George, and arrived back in the USA at Sault Ste Marie, MI. This is now our 12th state in addition to Canada. It was a lovely travel day, and one that we again timed perfectly with the weather. An incoming front was bringing some strong winds, and sure enough they came! The last 2 days, we have been snugly tied up at George Kemp marina while the winds have been blasting through here at 20-25 mph. But, we see promise in the forecast, and plan to cast off for points SOUTH tomorrow (Thursday).

We had an absolute blast in Canada...loved almost every minute of it. In all, we spent 61 days in Canada, and traveled 867 miles in these 2 months. Our plan to maximize the time that we devoted to this portion of the loop really paid off, as it lived up to expectations and then some. The only slight downside is that it is getting chilly on us...the summers don't last long up here.

The last lighthouse that we passed in Canada.

Coming up to the Soo was not in our original plan, but we are really glad that we did. The locks are impressive! The town itself is a bit old and run down, but there are a variety of touristy shops along the water, and it is obvious that there is a substantial amount of tourist traffic here during the summer. The enormity of the ships and the lock systems is tough to describe and tougher to represent in pictures. There are actually 4 parallel locks to handle all of the traffic that have been constructed over the past 100 years or so. The largest amount of cargo that is still being transported through this lock system is iron ore from Lake Superior. In total this season, there will be 67 Million Tons of cargo that is locked through.

Coming out of the St Mary's River and the peacefulness of our trip through the North Channel, it was a minor shock to the system to see all of the industry once again as we approached the locks.

Picture of a picture in the Visitors Center. This is the entire Soo Locks system. The lock chambers on the left (The American Locks) are 1200' long.

Taken from our boat in the marina...these 1000' long Lakers go right by our slip basically.

A graphic from the viewing area at the locks. The only one that really applies to us is the transit to Chicago...we doubt we can get there in 29 hours.

So, as the weather has been fierce while we were here, we were glad to have a couple of days of downtime. We had traveled the past 8 days straight in order to make this side trip happen, and needed some time to slow down a tad. We're off again tomorrow for another stop in the UP (Upper Peninsula to those of you non-Michiganders) at Detour, and then further south from there. There is supposed to be a Farmers Market here later today (Wednesday) and a concert in the Lock Park tonight...time to bundle up!

 

Thanks for reading...stay tuned for more...

Gore Bay to Spanish to Blind River to Richards Landing

Day #681; Loop Miles to Date = 8,176

We were able to depart Gore Bay on Friday morning, although we had to leave at dawn in order to beat the incoming weather system. It was either this, or we would risk getting stuck in Gore Bay for multiple days. It was a bit sporting for the second half of the trip, but quite manageable. We were very glad that we decided to do this, because, the winds came in as predicted. This leg allowed us to cross from the southern side of the North Channel to the north side, which was where the rest of our stops were planned.

Sunrise leaving Gore Bay...it was nice and calm here since the winds were out of the south and we were on the southern end of the bay.

From Gore Bay, we transited north to Spanish...yes that is the name of the town. There wasn't much going on in Spanish...just a place to stop along the way. We snagged a ride into town (it was well over a mile) to walk around and grab a bite to eat. Just a small worn out town with not much of any commerce.

However, after an early dinner, Sandy took a stroll to look at a burned out building that we had passed by on the way into town. Evidently, there were 2 schools that at one time were operated on the property a bit behind the marina. One was a girls school, and one was a boys school run by the Jesuits. The girls school had burned down, and the boys school had simply been abandoned. And sadly, the stories about life at these schools was disheartening. Their primary purpose when established was to offer a place to "educate" the children of the surrounding Native American population. Even though the story is not a happy one, the walk was enlightening, and there is now a memorial erected, and as well some beautiful gardens on one of the properties that appears to be a residence of some sort.

 

View of Spanish Marina from atop the hill.

The markers for the memorial to the students.

 

A local artist is in the process of adding to the memorial with this carving...called "Free Spirit".

 

What remains of the Boys School.

 

And the beautiful gardens!

 

From Spanish, on Saturday we traveled to a marina at Blind River, another very small town. This one was stuck in the 1960's as the large Lumber Mill here closed down in 1964. For the first half of the 20th century, it was a thriving area, but sadly no longer. We again snagged a ride into town, found a place to eat for dinner, and then walked back to the marina, enjoying our last taste of Farquhar's ice cream! It's not quite as delicious as Kawartha, but it is really, really good.

On Sunday, we planned to move to Thessalon, yet another small coastal town. The weather has continued to be unsettled, and we saw that there was more wind on the way, but that early on this day was perfect for travel. However, here is what it looked like as we left Blind River...

We could barely see Act III only 100 yards ahead.

Our last view of land for a couple of hours.

So yes...fog, and plenty of it. The good news was that once we cleared 1 set of buoys, all we had was open water, and it was incredibly calm. With our radar and AIS, we felt comfortable and safe for the few hours that we expected the fog to last. Sure enough, we emerged from it within a couple of hours, and it turned into a gorgeous travel day. It was so nice, and the water so flat, that we changed our plan and chose to double our travel day and skip Thessalon. We stopped briefly at Thessalon to walk the pups, and from what we saw, we missed absolutely nothing by not staying here any longer. It was a 60+ mile day, but worth it to get a bit ahead on our schedule.

After the fog, it looked like this...beautiful.

One of the last cottages that we will see in Canada...note the Canadian and US flags are both flying...not at all uncommon here.

A small lighthouse up on a bluff that we passed coming into Richards Landing.

 

 

So at the end of the day, we docked at Richards Landing (that's the name of the town and the marina). We found this stop to be a cozy little town with a few shops, a grocery, an eatery, and of course...an ice cream shop. As this is being penned, we have had dinner, and have yet to decide if we have room for ice cream.

 

The small café where we had dinner...a bit of a time warp as yet another "joint" that made you feel like you had stepped back in time.

We don't usually include pictures of food, but Rob's dinner was the special here...a breakfast poutine. It had hash browns, layered with cheese, with chopped ham and bacon, egg, and topped with hollandaise..,this is the half portion.  Absolute YUM! Sandy had home made pancakes with locally made maple syrup...also delicious.



So in the morning we plan to make our way to Sault Ste Marie, and check back in to the USA. We've been in Canada for 60 days, and have traveled 764 miles here thus far. It has been an absolute treat, and probably our most favorite segment of our Loop trip.

A couple of bonus pictures that we forgot to include in our last post. On the hike up to Bridal Veil Falls, we found some Fairy Homes! What a cute idea this was, most likely to hold the interest of small kids who were making the hike. Here are just a couple of them...we saw about a dozen or so.

So...all for now folks...our next posting will be when we are back on home soil. Onward we go!