Day 7 - Buffalo to Monroe, MI (Home)

It was nice to sleep in before we left Buffalo.  We took our time returning the gate card and checked out the observation tower then took P for a really long walk as once one the boat she would not be getting off for at least 24 hours.  About 10am we shoved off on what would be the final leg of our trip.  It was going to be about 220NM across Lake Erie and we thought we could do it in about 24 hours.  This would be our longest crossing since we had originally purchased our first boat and did this same trip.  Last time it took us 16 days to go from Sea Bright New Jersey to Gibraltar Michigan.  This time we were on track to do it in half the time and didn't have to run from sun up to sun down.  How things have changed in the last 14 years yet here we are still in a hurry to get home so I guess not everything changes.

The weather forecast looked great for the next 36hrs and we decided to go.  The weather was great it was almost flat clam the entire trip across.  The engine ran great and the crew held up well.  P was not too excited as she decided to hold going to the bathroom for 24 hours but we expected that and really attempted to limit her water to keep her from being too uncomfortable.  Before leaving we had worked out a shift schedule so everyone could get at least 8hrs sleep with a plan to rotate watches every 4 hours.  Once underway Max and Amy seemed pretty happy running the boat.  I took a nap and watched a movie amongst other things.  Then about 9pm as it started to get dark I took a shift & Max decided to keep me company until about 11:30.  The plan was that I would run the boat until 2 or 3am but was feeling pretty good after my rest earlier and kept going until Amy came up about 5:30 at which point I took a couple hour nap and all of the sudden we were almost back at our home dock.  It really was an uneventful passage.  Amy made cookies, we ate well, the weather was great what more could we ask for.  The only weird thing that happen was the generator overheated at one point and shut off.  We didn't really need it but I suppose that will be one more thing to put on the fix list after we get home.

About 9:45am we were docked at our home dock at Monroe Boat Club where we had left from last August.  The trip worked out to be slightly less then 24 hours.  Luckily for us we have a great extended family that had dropped off a car for us.  We loaded up a few things and any food we thought might go bad and headed home.  Just like that our trip was done.

Day 6 of the Erie Canal - Albin to Buffalo

 

Today we completed the Erie Canal.  We traveled the last 20-30 miles going though a few more lift bridges and the double set of locks in Lockport.  The big thing I noticed was how much rock they had to blast though to create much of this section.  Up until now most of the canal looked rather natural like a river but most of this section looked like they had cleared a highway though a mountain.  It was quite impressive and would have also been hell should multiple boats be traveling this section at speed at the same time as there was no where for the wake to dissipate.  Luckily we were the only ones and it was no big deal.

After going though the double set of locks we asked the Lock Master if there was a place to tie up so we could see the mesume about the locks there.  Turns out there is one spot and its first come first serve and we were lucky enough to get it.  We wondered over to the museum that told about how they built the original flight of five locks, why they picked that location, then how they modernized it in the early 1900's to just the two much bigger locks but had also recently restored the one side of the lock so we could see what the original 5 looked like.  While wondering about the lock we ran into a Swiss couple that had come over and were biking from Boston to Denver over a planned period of 7 weeks averaging about 50-60 miles a day.  Their daughter had also just completed an exchange year in the US and was the same age as ours.  Seems I may have to get in shape and start thinking about the kinds of adventures we could have on a bike?

On the way back from the museum we stopped by the local farmers market and picked up some locally made cheese, salsa, and organically grown beer.  Once again a strange thing happened we saw an ice cream shop and walked right on by for the second day in a row.

After taking the dog for a quick walk we all piled back into the boat continuing on until we got to Buffalo completing a 50 mile day.  After coming though Tonawanda we ran into quite a lot of current in the river and decided to take the ship canal.  After I called the lock master and we were locking though I started to read about how much notice the new 2-3 bridges in this section needed before they would open.  It seemed I may have made a mistake as most wanted 2-3hrs notice and were no manned.  I'm not sure how it worked out but as we got closer to each they all opened without any calls needed.  Not sure if the Lock Master controlled them or what but it worked out great for us there was no current and no waiting for bridges!

We pulled up to the fuel dock in Buffalo and got stuck paying the most for fuel we had yet on this trip at almost $7 a gallon.  Luckily we had only used 70 gallons since winter harbor and really probably didn't need to fill up but with our next leg being a 240 mile run across Lake Erie I wanted to ensure running out of fuel would not be an issue.  They gave us a decent dock for the night and we decided to walk around a bit to explore the harbor area.  I was impressed with the size.  They had two ex navy ships and a sub on display that one could tour if they so wished.  4 or 5 restruants (maybe more?) and lots of other docks.  This is where we ran into our 3rd 42 Nordic Tug that was made in 2000 and looked much more like ours.  Unfortunately the owners were out to eat so we just left our card and wondered off.  As we walked back to the boat we decided to break the streak and bought some ice cream.  Turns out we were not sick of it yet we just needed a day off :)

Day 5 of the Erie Canal - Newark to Albin

Newark was pretty close to the next lock so we slept in a bit and were off the dock about 8 to see where we would end up today.  Turns out we would make it though a couple more locks but this is where we ran into a lot of lift bridges only making it about 58NM today.  The good news is these are a bit easier then locks to do but also a bit more frustrating as each operator is responsible for multiple bridges and it seems they are all issued a hand held radio to talk with boaters on which is not very powerful.  Some of the bridges they are responsible for are 200ft away and some are 5-10 miles away.  Most of these bridges only open up to a hight of 15-18ft which means that our VHF radio antenna has to be down as our boat height is about 14.5ft this highest point with the antenna down or about 19ft with it up.  The highest point of our boat is our crain which we could lower if we had to but there was no need.  The point I'm slowly getting to here is that sometimes when we would get to a bridge we would call for an opening but not get a response because the operator was at another location 10 miles away and could not hear our radio call due to lack of signal strength. Then when you would get ahold of them either by phone or maybe after having to climb up to our roof to put the antenna up only to then go back out to take it down to go though the bridge and do it all over again a in a few more miles.. needless to say the process sometimes got frustrating.  I'm told they went to handheld radios so the operators would not have to listen to all of the chatter from the locks or bridges around them but it also means quite often they don't know your coming which adds some additional wait time while they rather fill or drain a lock upon our arrival.

Albin was a pretty decent sized town and there was one other looper boat tied up between the two lift bridges for the night.  We went for a 15 minute walk took in most of the town and had dinner at the local diner as again most of the restraints still seemed to be closed.  Again the city offered free power and a free wall to tie to for the night which was located right between the police and fire stations.

Something strange happened at this point in our trip.  We found the local ice cream shop and for some reason had no urge to stop.  We did stop in, stuck our head in, and looked at all the flavors but for some reason none of us wanted ice cream.  I think something serious has happened!  Have we finally had our fill?

 

Day 4 of the Erie Canal - Winter Harbor to Newark

Ok so I've given up on the number of locks we have done at this point. The guide book says there are 38 or so let's go with that.  One would think its easy each lock has a number painted on it in bright yellow but for some reason I never know what lock we are at.. I have to grab the binoculars and hope to see it or I'm franticly looking it up on Navionics or asking Amy to as we approach each one of these.  It does not help things that some are labeled 28a & 28b then a bit further down the river I'm pretty sure we skipped a number or two?  But who's counting right.  At this point we have just done a lot of locks.  Needless to say we passed though a few more today and traveled about 65NM ending in the town of Newark, NY.

Newark was a nice stop.  The free wall was right down town and offered free power and water. A representative from the chamber of commerce was hanging out by the water and invited us over to their office by the water just asking us to sign their guest book and offered a lot a great information about the town.  Unfortunately we would learn that this town like many of the other recent stops was pretty much shutdown for the holiday weekend like most of the others have been along the way.  By this point we have been traveling a lot of long days in a row and it had really started to get to me about two days ago.  So in an effort to get off the boat more we have been eating out a lot. We called five restaurant's and none appeared to be open.. Even the local Chinese restaurant was closed.  Those guys never seem to close.. most cities I've been to they are open Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, Easter nothing seems to dissuade their capitalistic nature.  Needless to say we finally found the one pizza place in town that was open and walked over there as well as the grocery store as we were low in the bread and fresh fruit department.

We were one of two boats tied up to the wall here for the night and the other boat happened to be a 2008 42ft Nordic Tug.  This was now the second one we have seen besides ours.  We wandered over and met the owners who were also doing the loop and got a tour.  They were very interesting and it turned out the husband has a things for Nordics and this was his 4th one.  They bought the 42 to do the loop in but seems his love is still for the 32 of which he has owned 3 over over the years and hopes to buy another one when they go back home to the west coast.  After talking with them we were treated yet again to a couple more fireworks shows from two different directions.  We again were attacked by bugs.  At this point after about 4 really good firework shows we were starting to become a bit jaded and almost went back to the boat but we decided to tough it out with the bugs and really enjoyed the last show we would see along our loop trip.

Day 3 of the Erie Canal - City of Little Falls to Winter Harbor

Today is the 4th of July!  Happy Birthday America!

We left this morning at about 7:30am and made it through 5 more locks over a total of 65 miles.  On our first trip though we had been warned about Oneida Lake and stopped early to ensure we could cross in the morning when it was the calmest.  With our bigger heavier trawler we had no such worries and sort of laughed about our previous hesitation as after crossing it the first time I don't think it would be much different then a slightly below average day on Lake Erie.  But we also now have the benefit of 14 years of experience with 3 boats now and a couple of minor ocean crossings.

Being the 4th of July there were a few boats out.  I would not say a lot but enough that they were in the way from pretty much coming out of the last lock before Oneida until we got to Oneida.  We had been following a 58ft Sea Ray most the day which was nice but even he could not seem to intimidate them out of his way.  Several seemed to have no fear or respect for our bigger boats and would wonder across our bows at times and then randomly slow down or stop in-front of us just to immediately speed up again.  Like last time the free walls were both filled before the lake but we wanted to make it across the lake anyway that day so we kept going.  Once we got to the inlet for the there was a Sheriff boat wondering about clearly not knowing what he was doing (maybe keeping an eye on some small boats heading out) but like the others he decided to stop right in-front of me then randomly move off to the other side of the channel.  The Lake was rough for its size with maybe 2fters.  This was nice and kept all the small boats off.  In our boat we don't really notice these sized waves much and it was a nice crossing.  

Once across we stopped in Winter Harbor marina.  We filled up with fuel, got a pump out, and they had an amazing inventory of marine parts.  If I had more time I'm sure I could have found all sorts of stuff we needed there but I settled for four new Racor filters.  When we stopped in NC I had noticed the fuel filter was really black like we had picked up some dirty fuel somewhere but I also had not changed it over the last 600 engine hours so I just replaced it and decided to keep an eye on it.  I had also purchased some additive in hopes of killing anything that might be living in there but unfortunately had not read the label well enough to buy a strong enough dose for the 250 or so gallons I was attempting to treat.  I added it anyway & figured I would be burning enough fuel during this part of the trip that anything in there would not have time to really build up any sludge.  We had last purchased fuel in Annapolis and it was black again.  I had planned to change it but put it off because we only had two extras on board so I decided to wait until we were going to cross the Delaware Bay or maybe the run from Cape May to NYC.  For some reason it never got changed but in all fairness the engine never acted starved for fuel so it was still doing its job.  However it was really black again after only burning 4-500 gal of fuel by the time we got to Winter Harbor so I changed it again after adding about 300 more gallons of fuel to the boat.  Now that we have a number of extra filters I'll keep a better eye on it and maybe swap it out again before we cross Lake Erie.

Winter Harbor turned out to be a great stop for us we found a group of 15 or so loopers hanging out and spent rest the night socializing with them and enjoyed another nice fireworks show.  One of them turned out to be the fellow we had sold our new dingy to in Tarpon Springs.  We had a few laughs about that and found out he was really enjoying it.  I had ordered a new one the day we sold it but because of supply chain issues was told we would not have it until June.  Last I checked it was still three weeks out before he thought he would have all the parts so maybe I'll have it before the end of July when we get back?

Day 2 of the Erie Canal - Lock 8 to Little Falls at Lock 17

Today we traveled 62 miles to the City of Little Falls just past lock 17 making it though nine more locks.  Surprisingly the Fourth of July holiday weekend still had not brought out many boaters.  The lock masters all said they had been pretty slow and we still had yet to lock though with another boat.  It was like having the Erie Canal to ourselves which by the way is a fantastic experience! 

Today we started about 8:30am and ran until we were told the locks ahead would be closing about 5.  We had read some reviews about the stop there and it was supposed to be within feet of a fantastic Mexican food truck and only steps from there to a brewery.  I was excited as it sounded like my perfect stop.  We pulled in tied up and were happily surprised that the town only charged $1 a foot and included electricity and water.  This was our first time other then Cat Skill of not having to pay an additional charge for electric and it was cheap.  Seemed this stop was getting better and better!  This is when I noticed the food truck across the street was closed.  This was quite sad but I still had hopes for a brewery.  So we set off insearch of some food and instead found the small town theater.  Max was insisting that we all needed to see the new minions movie so off we went.  The movie was ok, Max really liked it, and I was still excited for a brewery visit.  We trekked back over to the brewery only to find out it was closed as well.  Seemed all the local towns coordinate their festivals and these guys decided to simply close everything down for the holiday weekend.  Needless to say I was quite disappointed in the lack of enthusiasm for capitalism the town was displaying.  We went back to the boat had dinner then purchased some ice cream bars from the marina office.

While this is truly a beautiful post card perfect little town on the water they are now dead to me.  I had been excited all day about some good Mexican food and beer only to be denied both.  The worst part was the next morning while walking the dog we ran into a group of older guys having breakfast in the park because of course their normal spot was closed only to tell me how great the food truck was and that there is almost no better beer to be had then the local brewery.  Then just to add salt to the wound it seems a couple of them had accidentally crashed a private event the brewery was having the night before where they were given free beer.  I could not take it anymore and we shoved off promptly after that discussion to continue our journey west up the canal.

Day 1 of the Erie Canal - Catskill to Lock 8

This morning we traveled from Catskill, NY though the first eight locks of the Erie Canal.  Leaving Catskill and heading back up the Hudson was beautiful 32 mile trip and reminded me of our side trip to Knoxville when it felt as if we were traveling though the mountains.  Once we arrived at Waterford we had heard they were having a steam boat festival and figured that they would not have any room on their wall for us with those big boats in.  Little did we know that they were little steam boats that were maybe 20 feet long and a bit wider than a canoe.  Seems we could have stopped by there after all.  Guess we will save that stop for next time!  As we came by Waterford we entered into the Federal Lock with two of the little steam boats and had a chance to chat with them a bit while we waited for the water to rise.  There were mostly wood boats the owners had made and installed steam engines on.  One had a couple whistles and was quite capable of playing a few songs for us though the next couple of locks which made us all smile.  I had been a bit nervous about doing the locks again.  Fortunately we have now been though about 50 locks in this boat coming down the inland river system from Chicago to Mobile and pulled right up to the bollards the first time making it look like we knew exactly what we were doing.

Once in the locks we talked to the operators and it seemed like most businesses these days they are still a bit under staffed and were only staying open until 5pm vs their posted operating ours that stated they would be open from 7am-10pm.  As it was about 5 the lock master  suggested we travel down to a local restraunt called Jumping Jacks to tie up to their wall.  Unfortunately the restaurant was doing a firework show that night which meant the river was full of small boats that were their to party and not paying much attention to us.  So we decided to look for an anchorage.  As we were coming up on what we thought might be a good spot for the night we decided to try calling the next lock in hopes that they might be open extended hours due to the fireworks.  We were in lock.  They responded and locked us right through lock 8.  Once we came though lock 8 we tied up to the wall, had dinner, and then were treated to our first firework show along the canal while be attacked by bugs.  Overall it was a good day and we had traveled one more lock then we did on our first trip.  We were looking forward to our next day in the canal.

Made it to the big apple!

Yesterday we made the trip from Atlantic City to NYC.  It ended up being just under 100NM but the sea was beautiful and completely clam.  We saw dolphins, schooling fish, and a lot of the NJ shoreline.  It was really a great day to be out on the ocean traveling.  Amy's only complaint was that we didn't see any humpback whales.  We saw a couple tour boats circling something but could not tell what it was and the Coast Guard was on the radio talking about a sighting off of Coney Island.  Despite all that we still missed them somehow.  We were traveling with a couple of buddy boats and stopped by the Statue of Liberty to get a few pictures of each other and our boats in front of the statue.  Our crew wanted to keep moving up the river to get some additional miles under the keel but I convinced them to spend the night at the anchorage behind the statue.  Looking at the weather report it looked like it was going to be a really calm night despite all of the wave action we were getting from the ferry's at the time. As predicted it calmed right down about 8pm and we got some breath taking views of the city lights at night followed by a beautiful sunrise the next morning.  I think we all really enjoyed getting to spend the night there.

Unfortunately we are now on a timeline to get home.  Annabelle flew back into the the USA after completing her junior year as an exchange student in Denmark two days ago and already has plans to go back to Europe first visiting London with her Girl Scout troop and then flying over to Rome to spend some time with Sara one of the exchange students we hosted last year.  So to make a long story short we are now in delivery mode looking to get as many miles in a day as possible to knock out the last thousand miles of our trip.  So sadly we were not able to visit family or NYC while we where there.  So shortly after sunrise we started our trek up the Hudson River and past the amazing NYC & Jerry shoreline.  I had forgotten how pretty the trip up the Hudson River was as we progressed further it truly was breath taking and pictures would not do it justice.  It reminded me a lot of our journey from Chatnewga to Knoxville where it felt like we were boating though the mountains with the large gorges beside us and the mountains in the background.

Tonight we made it to Catskill, NY.  Last time we did this trip was on a new to us 31 foot sail boat we named Escape Plan.  It took us 3 days to make it here from Sea Bright, NJ going about 5kts most the way. Once we got here we then had to wait to take down our mast and ended up spending 2 nights in this cute little town.  We pulled into the marina across the street from where we stayed last time which is now owned by the same guy.  Last time I had made a note that these were the best showers we had seen so far and as a much more experienced boater I can now confirm they are still pretty nice.  We took a bike ride though town and not much had changed.  Most the restraints I remembered were still there as were all of the cat statues.  We attempted to eat at the owners restaurant but the line was pretty long so we ate on the boat then went out for ice cream.

It will be interesting to see if we can make this trip any quicker now that we have a power boat vs the sail boat.  The first time it took us 16 days.  So far we have covered the same ground it took 3 days to do in 1 and can skip any boat modifications required to travel though the canal as this boat is under the 15ft requirement to travel end to end though the canal system.  I suspect the 7 days we spent in the canal system last time will be about the same or maybe we can eliminate one day or so due to our increased speed on some of the longer legs between locks with no speed limits.  We'll see!

Writing a Blog is tough!

 

It's a serious time commitment to write these.  As much as I enjoy doing them it seems I'm not as committed as I should be and it seemed I was always behind as I only sat down to write these on bad weather days when there was not much else to do.  Instead Amy & I choose the easy option and simply posted a proof of life picture everyday to our Facebook page checking in where ever we were at.  

With that said our trip is coming to an end.  Annabelle landed back in the USA two days ago and we are on a time line to get home so that Amy and Annabelle can go on their next trip to London on July 9th.  Max has a 4H class he must attend to be able to participate in fair this year on the 12th of July.  Overall I think the crew is just ready for the trip to be done.  We have seen a lot of cute towns along the way, we have seen and done a lot of things on this adventure but we also miss home and our friends there.. We also really miss the convinces of easy internet and the simple ability to have a package shipped to your front door vs having to plan ahead what marina to send it to then figure out how to get there about the same time as the delivery.

With all of that said we have just arrived in NY.  I have been looking back at our last experience when we bought our first boat and thought we were on a heck of an adventure going from Sea Bright New Jersey to Gibraltar, MI.  Its interesting to see how long it took and how some of my thoughts have evolved so I'm going to try and blog this last section of the trip with the thought of comparing it a bit to the first time we did it 14 years ago with Annabelle and a clear timeline that we had to be home to pick up Max & get back to work :).

I may have found the best ice cream cone ever!

Coming into Petoskey, MI was a bit of a rough day on the water. Leaving St Ignace we knew we would be in 5-6ft waves for about 5 miles but it was then supposed to clam down a lot outside of that.  Seems 5-6 was really code for 6-8ft waves & I guess calming down meant  3-4 foot waves on the lake most the day.  This was not so bad when it was a following sea but we also got to experience that on the beam for about 4 hours as well..  It was a long day on the water and we were happy to get in before the next couple days of bad weather came in.

Wow this has to be one of my favorite cities we have been to so far.  We stayed in the city marina for four days.  Its turned out to be a really nice marina in a fantastic location.  The marina offered free curtsey bikes and was in a great location for walking or riding to nearby towns.  While there we found several local brewerys and a fantastic local chocolate factory.  These guys made their own waffle cones then would dip them into a dark chocolate fountain ensuring the inside of the cone was coated to help avoid an leaks :).  They then filled the cone up with some fantastic ice cream!  We may have liked the chocolate factory a bit to much as I think we spent about $80 there.  We justified it as it was our anniversary and we went for chocolate instead of a nice dinner :)

We ended up only having one rainy day and the others were just really windy making the lake unnecessarily rough for our little boat.  Se we really only ended up with one down day on the boat which turned out to be nice for everyone to get caught up on laundry while watching a couple movies.  The other days we were able to do some walking around the area and make good use of the free bikes.

 

St. Ignace

We decided to stay in St Ignace for 3 days so we could do the bridge walk. This worked out well as the lake conditions were not that great the day we left Mackinaw Island and it was supposed to rain the next day.  The marina was really nice.  It was in town with good places to eat and the city had something planed for every night.  They were showing movies in the park one night, had a two day art fair, and fireworks another night.  We made our first friends on the dock that offered to take us to the grocery store.  Amy had provisioned to be able to feed us for about 3-4 weeks when we left but we were low on bread, milk, and of course the kids had eaten most of the chips, crackers, and other junk food by this point.  Needless to say we took the opportunity to restock a bit.  We had our first true off day where no one really wanted to do anything while it was raining so we watched movies and played a games together.

The bridge walk was a new experience for us.  I had heard about it, I had even ridden my bike over the bridge one year about 25years ago when I was still in collage. We found a kind soul on the dock who was willing to drive us up to the park where it starts at about 7am.  The Governor comes out gives a bit of a speech and then leads everyone (probably at least 1000 folks just on this side) across the bridge.  I had expected to to be cold but we got a pretty nice morning for it.  Once you get out on the bridge they have someone stationed about every 100 feet.  At first its bridge Maintance folks then it was State Police Officers.  I have no idea how they got that many to work on a holiday weekend unless they made all the ones in the training academy do it?  Anyway buy about the time your nearing the halfway point you can really start to feel the bridge sway.  They say it moves as much as 30ft side to side.  At the highest point we really looked like a group of drunken sailors out for a walk.  A few folks lost their balance fell down.  Because of the metal grating on the bridge we saw several they were cut up pretty badly from the fall.  We were lucky enough not to have any such accidents but it was a bit scary to look down though the grates to see the water so far below you.  Unfortunately this year because of CoVID they were not running the usual busing to bring folks back from Mackinaw City if you decided to walk all the way across it would mean we would need to catch a ferry over to Mackinaw Island then from there back to St. Ignace.  This was not going to be cheap for 4 of us.. So we elected to turn around at the halfway point and walk back.  I should note this was much to the disappointment of my daughter that was convinced she wanted to walk the fully 5 miles over the bridge, then 5 miles back, and 3 more back to the marina.  Once we got to the halfway point Amy did offer to keep going with her but she backed out opting to walk back with Max and I.  We appreciated the gesture :)

Once we got back we made breakfast and got the boat prepped to go.  The weather was good but the lake conditions under the bridge no so great.  It looked like we were supposed to have 4-6 foot waves for about 5 miles around the bridge.  Then things would level out to 2-3's rest the way.  If we did not leave Monday, it looked like we would be stuck in St Ignace for at least the next 2 days.  We really needed to start making some progress so we decided to go.  Sure enough the waves were big when we got out there.  I'm sure we saw a few that were 10 or more.  But like they predicted after about 5 miles we were down to 4's then about 20-30 miles after that the lake had calmed down to pretty consistent 3 foot swells.  We did a lot of rocking and rolling and were really happy to find an open dock in Petoskey for the night.

Ever since buying our first boat I had been wanting to bring it up to Mackinaw and say I took it under the bridge.  I'm not sure why but it was something I have wanted to do for over 13 years now.  We got close one time when we had the Beneteau up at the island a few years ago but for some reason I elected not to spend the 3 hours or so it would take to say I had crossed over into Lake Michigan.  I was pretty excited to go under the bridge that day so hardly noticed the huge waves breaking over our bow and it was a neat experience.  I really hope to have the time to do it again one day!  Hopefully a day with better conditions :). Plus how many folks can way they went over and under the bridge in the same day!

Mackinaw Island

 During our family planning sessions everyone voted that they wanted to stop by Mackinaw Island again (we had just been here in June with our exchange students).  We radioed in and were luck enough to get in for two nights right before the Labor Day weekend.  Its always fun being on the island.  We rented bikes.  Unfortunately the relatively flat loop around the island was mostly closed this time so we pedaled our way up the big hill to check on some of the stuff we had not seen in a few years like the Butterfly House, Carriage Museum, and Grand Hotel.  The kids got board at the Carriage Museum and decided to go back to the boat letting Amy and I take a slower pace enjoying other small stops along the way.  Before we left I sent Max a picture of the forge that was set up allowing tourists to craft their own knifes.  Of course by the time he saw this we had made our way to the bottom of the hill and was pretty excited to go back up and check it out.  Amy left us to head back to the boat.  I got another reminder of how out of shape I am now peddling up this hill for the 3rd time that day but Max was excited so that helped motivate me a bit.  Once there he decided to try the experience and pounded out his own knife from an old rail road spike.  Max has been bugging me for the last two years to build a forge with him at our house ever since earning his metal working badge at summer camp a couple years ago.  Not to mention that one of the older kids from his school is interested in this and has created a nice set up at home.

On our second day we met another couple on a custom tug that it turned out had been part of our sailing club many years ago.  They told us about their plans to do the bridge walk that weekend and we decided to stay and take advantage of the one day a year folks were allowed to walk the Mackinaw Bridge.  Overall it was nice to spend a couple of nice nights on the island.  The next day we planed to venture over to St. Ignace where we planned to stay until the bridge walk on Labor Day. 

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.

Made it to Lake Huron

Today we left Metro Beach and started heading up the St Clair River to Lake Huron.  It was fairly uneventful until a storm came though and the fog rolled in making visibility a bit scary for an hour or two.  We had the chart plotter and radar to help get us though.  Luckily there were not many boats still out on the water during the storm so we just kept chugging along.  Seems I still need to learn how to use the radar as I could not figure out how to tune out the storm clouds over us to see the channel but I guess I'll work on that for another day.  Other then this the river was peaceful as ever and we enjoyed our trip under the Bluewater Bridge and made it into Lexington for the night.

And we're off like a screaming herd of turtles

 

We finally left the dock!  There were no parades or music playing when we left but we felt like it as we finally started this adventure we've been talking about for more then 20 years and planning for the better part of the last five.  Weather was nice and we went from Monroe Boat Club up the Detroit River and stoped at Metro Beach for the night.  The boat did a great job pushing itself up the river and we are looking forward to our next day and getting out on to Lake Huron!

This trip has been a long time coming and I'm really looking forward to getting to experience it with my family.  I'm sure we will run into some issues along the way and I know home schooling may be a challenge (especially if we have to educate both kids).  Even though we are still waiting on a placement for Annabelle which the company assures us will happen we figure worst case we will park the boat for a few days rent a car head home for a few days and send her off!  For now I'm excited that she is with us for at least this part of the journey!  For now our goal is to work our way around Michigan fairly quickly and then slow down to smell the roses after we get to Chicago.