Our Journey up Lake Huron

Our journey up Lake Huron was a quick one.  This was well traveled cruising ground for us as we had stopped in along most the ports along the way over the years.  I would have liked to have traveled into the thumb area to visit Bay City or Tawais but we will have to save those ports for another year.  We only ended up with one weather day in Harbor Beach.  We met another family doing the loop here with a son a year older then Max.  He was pretty excited to meet Max as he was the first kid doing the loop they had met since leaving from South Carolina.  Max being new to this I don't think yet appreciated how rare this opportunity might be along the way but we invited him over to play video games and even brought him into town with us to check out the new Jungle Cruise movie during a storm that was passing though.  

Most days we ran 50-60 miles a day taking us about a week to get to Mackinaw Island.  The kids found their own spots on the boat and I think Penelope was enjoying the constant attention she got from being in close proximity to her people and so far has yet to get sea sick.  In the past we have taken her with us on day trips and the occasional weekend trip to Put-in-Bay.  She never much liked the sail boat and really hated it when the boat healed.  So far she seems to be doing ok on the tug but still does not enjoy the rolly days on the water.

When we got to Presque Isle we decided to attempt anchoring for the first time with this boat/anchor.  Before leaving I had attempted to put our larger anchor on from the sail boat (a 85lb Mantis) but found the shank was to long to fit with our current set up so just ended up replacing the swivel with the Mantis one.  I'll keep an eye out as we go for marine consignment stores to see if I can find something else that might work along the way as our current 30lb anchor seems a bit light for our boat.  As soon as we got in Blake (Max's new found friend) was over saying hi on his families dingy.  We launched ours so the kids to could take Penelope in to shore for a walk.  This quickly turned into dingy racing and it was fun watching the boys have a good time on the water.  The evening was amazing at anchor but the night was pretty rolly. The wind shifted more than predicted which brought in waves off the lake making for a pretty uncomfortable night on the hook.  The good news is the Anchor did well.  It seemed to reset quickly as the boat shifted around but I think I would still feel more comfortable with something heavier.  All in all it was just your typical bad night on anchor, no big storms or anything exciting.  We had a lot of movement and a bad nights sleep.  With that we were up and out the next morning and on our way to the next stop.

Harrisville was nice but it seemed the cute little summer town was struggling a bit.  We ended up meeting our first looper that had just crossed their wake and another group that was working on a slow loop (3-5 year experence).  Unfortunately the kids were hungry and we didn't have much time to chat with them.  We wondered into town and found a pretty good place known for their broasted chicken.  The food was great.  While there we also ran into a few other couples from out dock as well.  One of which it turned out was celebrating his first book release that day.

Overall our trip up Lake Huron was great.  We had a really good weather window with calm seas.  We made good time and enjoyed each of our stops along the way.