We are HOME!!! September 20, 2013, Day 111, 2450 statute miles traveled

Left St Clair Sat Sept 14, Day 105 catching the 8 o'clock bridge opening. One of our coldest days; air temp 42 degrees. Warmer water temp of 65. Blue skies & sun. Had a nice cruise down the St Clair River & dodged only a few fishing boats in Lake St Clair.  Where Lake St Clair empties into the Detroit River were a ton of boats perching but they were not in the marked channel. 

DYC Clubhouse

We arrived @ Detroit Yacht Club a little after noon. We have never stayed here.  One of Jacque & Garry's daughter's held their wedding reception here. It's a beautiful old club. Lots of history & tradition. There was an aerial picture in the bar of the club, docks & boats from 1836.  Were planes even invented? As we pulled into the marina, we saw the main stairway filled w/ people singing. They were in the midst of filming a promotional music video for Detroit City. Grammy award & Detroit Native Allie Willis wrote & was directing the video. They worked on it for hours. We'll have to watch for the completed version. 

View of Downtown Detroit from DYC

There are lots of boats/yachts docked & the place was bustling with people. It was our most expensive dockage yet, even more than Gross Pointe Yacht Club. There is a pool & hot tub with pool bar, locker rooms w/ sauna & fitness room. It's a bit tired in places, I'm sure it's extremely expensive & time consuming to keep up a large older structure like this. We dined in their bar, food was very good.

 Full moon over the bay

Waterford & Day Dreams could not finish an adventure like this without including the Lake Erie Islands. So we bypassed our Marina; the Beach & headed for PIB. We usually stay on the mooring balls in the harbor but we weren't sure if the water taxi's were still running & we wanted to use our bikes so we docked @ Miller's for 3 nites. Miller's has great facilities. The bay water has some nasty thick white/tan foam & of course the green tinge of Lake Erie. But you have to love the islands. We crashed Crew's Nest's outside bar to watch one of the America's cup race, USA is losing to New Zealand. We biked most of the island. The Cargo Net guys, Bill & Bob, were nice enough to open up for us so we could purchase 2 teak chairs for our back deck & Garry & Jacque bought the matching table. They had bought teak chairs the year before from the 2 guys. It was definitely worth their time to open for us. We snacked @ Old Forge ordering delicious dessert crepes; mine was decadent with peanut butter & chocolate, like a buckeye but even better. We liked their menu so well, we returned the next day for lunch. Old Forge is a new restaurant this summer, next to the brewery (used to be a gift shop). We dined @ Blu Luna for Italian even though the staff were all Croatian. After Labor Day, during the week, the bay is very quiet; Roundhouse, Frosty's & a few other places weren't even open. 

 

MBI State Park Main facility

On Wednesday, Day 109, Waterford had to head home. Garry needed to attend a meeting in Michigan (you know he was the only one of us still working while on our trip). So we headed to MBI for 2 nites @ the State Park Docks. We missed catching Craig & Cheryl by hours :( Since PIB was so quiet, we figured MBI would be a ghost town but we were wrong. Not long after we docked we began to hear horns & sirens. There was a parade!!  Antique cars from all the islands had converged on Middle Bass to have a parade & party. Carrie & girlfriends hosted a private party @ Hazards. We rode our bikes to Hazards & visited for a few minutes. We biked around the island, checked on CC & P's cottage; all looked well. It actually has been warm since we arrived @ Middle Bass island. We also ran into our friend Ken, who was unofficially supervising some stone work being completed on one of his neighbor's houses. Our condolences to Ann who just lost her Mom.  

Friday, September 20, Day 111, we are heading back to our home port. I guess it has to happen sooner than later. People have used the statement, that our trip sounds like one of a lifetime, they are right.  This adventure has been AWESOME & AMAZING! We hate to see it end. 

It will be wonderful to reconnect with our families & friends.  We really missed everyone & Doug missed his garage too. 

We have used 680 gallons of diesel fuel for this entire trip, 538 running the engine, 142 gals for running the generator. Our biggest expense isn't fuel but dockage. Most expensive dockage was DYC @ $90/ nite. Our most reasonable was $35/nite @ Copper Harbor, which also was our favorite all round place (Thank you, Copper Harbor Master & Keith). 

We have traveled 2133 nautical miles/2450 statute miles 
110 nights total: 33 anchored, 77 @ Docks
Average speed 7.5 miles/hour/6.5 knots

Thanks for sharing this Grand Adventure with us; stay tuned for the next one; 2014 here we come!!!

Day 100-104/ September 9-13 Slowly on our way home; hit 2000 mile mark

Day 100, Monday, Sept 9,Sunrise, leaving Tawas, we started early because of a long day. If the wind would have switched to southwest instead of south, we would have had a better ride, but the waves were 2-4‘s on our nose, so after 6 hours, we decided to duck into Harbor Beach instead of going another 5 to Port Sanalac.  We are still way ahead of schedule but originally we weren’t going to stop at Harbor Beach because last time we were here, our depth sounder was reading 0 feet under our boat on the approach in.  But Allison, the dock Gal, assured us they have been dredging all summer and we could get in without problem.  Which we did, thank you very much. 

Harbor Beach; they are still dredging. The uprights have dried mud on them, the water is murky & has a whitish glow to it @ nite. There is a coal fired power plant right @ the entrance & a ConAgra factory behind that. Some of the docks are leaning. There are different odors wafting depending on the time of day. We were weathered in the next day; one of those bizarre days where temperature records were broke between here & home. The thermometer rose to 96 degrees & the winds rose with it. It would have been stifling without the wind but because of the high winds we couldn't leave. Doug washed the boat & i washed the windows, it looks great now!! There is a bike path to town, which Garry & Jacque biked today. 

We picked these right off the trees in Harbor Beach, aren't they beautiful?

Garry & Jacque invited us over to watch the America's cup Cat races taking place in San  Francisco. They have satellite TV.  Amazing boats & races. There is a beat up sailboat docked next to us with a guy on board, but we never saw him once. 

Weds morning Sept 11, a moment of reflection in honor to all those that suffered during 911. It's a blue sky & sunny day, air temp 69, water temp 65. Last year my friend Diane taught me a great card game i am able to play while driving the boat: it has many names;Toilet Solitaire is one of the names.  I WON today playing one handed solitaire (that's the name I prefer)!-YAHOO. My first time winning. Diane won the hand when she was demonstrating the game to me so I thought it was pretty easy to win but it's not!!! 

We were on the bridge most of the day; even played scrabble. Doug won this time. Since it is such a pretty, warm, summer like day & the lake is calm, we decided to keep going past Sanalac. The weather forecast for tomorrow calls for rough water. We decided to stop @ Port Huron Yacht Club for the night & then head to St Claire Harbor in the morn. We are in St Claire River now so even if it is windy tomorrow we should be ok to get there. I called PHYC on the cell & asked for Brock, who has been the Harbor Master since we've been stopping here. The guy on the line told me Brock passed away sometime ago. The last time we were here was July 2011 & I talked to him then. So sometime after that he passed. So sorry.   

It hit 90 degrees today. We were able to sit out on the back deck & watch a show of spectacular lightening & thunder most of the evening. It rained some & blew but we missed most of the bad stuff. 

It's Doug's Birthday today; September 12th & we have reached the 2000 mile mark on Day 103 of our Grand Adventure. I think that in itself is the best present, but that's because I didn't get him anything, haha!! He's a young 59, too young to retire??? We are heading an hour down the river to St Clair Boat Harbor so Doug can celebrate his birthday @ the River Crab (a Chuck Meuer) Restaurant. We stayed @ St Clair Harbor on our way north in June.  

St Clair has a nice friendly, clean marina & they even have a courtesy van. We walked to the grocery then the Harbor Master, Stephanie came & picked us up so we didn't have to carry our purchases. They also took & picked us up from the restaurant.   Garry & Jacque bought Doug his birthday drink & John @ the piano serenaded us & played our requests while in the bar & we had window seats to watch the Freighters go by in the dark. We had excellent meals & a fun time @ the River Crab. Garry & Jacque's birthday present to Doug is starting our new library of books to research our next Grand Adventure of the Great Loop. 

We stayed here, at St Clair for Friday the 13th, windy & storms popping up all around. We walked to the coffee shop, then some antique stores, then lunch @ Aschatz's, who are famous for their pies. Of course, we sampled. The Berry & Coconut cream pies were very good, but Elaine still wins the prize for the best pies ever! After lunch, Doug & I visited the local library. The wifi was out @ the Marina so we thought we would be able to access it there but they share the same wifi, so no luck. We read actual paper items, like magazines, imagine nothing digital.  

Happy Birthday to my friend; Janet. Do you remember one year celebrating your & Doug's birthday @ Middle Bass for the Grape Stompin Fest? 

         A freighter under the blue water Bridge

September 7, 2013 Tawas, a New stop for us! 1,897 miles

another tall ship returning from PIB

Saturday morning, Sept 7, we left Harrisville, headed for a new stop to us; Tawas.  Tawas is on the northwest end of Saginaw bay. There is East Tawas & Tawas City. This marina has been recommended to us by 2 different sources, so we're looking forward to checking the area out. 

This area is nice. It is a bustling small town that has used its proximity to the lake well. While we were approaching, there was a sailboat race in process in the harbor & a triathlon finishing up on shore. The Marina docks are in need of a good cleaning (not geese or seagulls this time, but ducks). They have a run of high fixed docks & a run of floaters.  They do have more seasonal boats than some of the marinas we've been in. The facilities building is literally 0.4 miles away. The building is on shore, next to the public beach, so part of the building is public restroom & then the boaters coded shower & restrooms. These were nice just a long walk but good exercise.  

We walked uptown, just past the bathrooms & there were still runners crossing the finish line.  They have a Norman's store on the corner. They have gift shops, shoe store, bakery, ice cream shoppe, CHOCOLATE shop, restaurants/bars, clothes store & more. The guys abandoned us after while, so then Jacque & I enjoyed our leisurely shopping excursion. 

Sunday afternoon, we rode our bikes to the State Park & lighthouse out on Sandy hook.   Another nice campground (Kathy & Dan) & sand dunes with a big beach. There were kite surfers out & catamaran races happening. A good place to kayak too, but too cold & windy today for that. We dined out @ Jack's & enjoyed great bar food. 

Day 95/96/97 September 4-6, 2013 Attacked by Pirates (it's ok, they were the friendly type)

Left Mackinaw City on Weds, September 4, it's cloudy with 2-3-4 foot waves on the beam. Stabilizers took care of it perfectly. Arriving @ Rogers City, we've traveled 1800 miles on Day 95. We walked up town, not much to see. The old theater where we watched the movie in June was closed temporarily for a week, does that give you an idea regarding the excitement around town. We stopped in at the Dollar store, a gift/coffee shop & the carry-out. 

If you don't like water but like to go fast, this is for you!! In the parking lot.

Thursday morn, Sept 5, we left Rogers City with blue skies & sun but cool 56 degrees. 2-3 foot waves again on our beam. Arrived @ Presque Isle. It's even real quiet here, Labor Day truly does signify the end of summer here in Michigan. The weather wasn't conducive to walking around too much; windy & cold. It appears now that Labor Day is over, so is summer. What a shame because they have such a short season. 

Friday morning, Sept 6, as we were preparing to leave Presque Isle, an 80 foot schooner, Madeline (a pirate ship)  arrived on their way back from PIB's celebration. We are younger than the crew on Madeline; no worries. We left Presque Isle & headed to Harrisville, where they win for the best facilities. Steve, the Harbor Master has a lot to do with this. Doug & I walked to a store where Garry & Jacque had bought an entrance rug on our way up North, which we love, so we wanted to get one too. They were sold out, so we ordered one. The weather again is cool & windy. 

The attack of the pirates :)

beautiful sunset!

Happy Birthday to Jim; wishing you many more sunsets over the water!

The 57th Annual Mackinac Bridge Walk; We did it!! Day 92,93 & 94

our view from the pilot house

Sunday morning, September 1st, Day 92: Wow, we've been traveling 3 months. We left Petosky just after sunrise. The day is cloudy, darn we will be going under the Mackinac bridge again & we were really hoping for a sunny, deep blue sky day. We have following seas which is a great ride for us. A few boats passed us going the other direction & they were bouncing quite a bit. 

We were just ahead of a small rain cell, so it started to drizzle just as we docked @ The Straits Harbor back in Mackinaw City. We came back here for 2 reasons; it's on our way home & we plan on walking the Mackinac bridge on Labor Day tomorrow. We laid low the rest of the day. 

Has anyone noticed that sometimes I write "Mackinac" sometimes "Mackinaw"?  I have researched & it depends what I'm talking about: the bridge, island & waterway straits are Mackinac; but pronounced "Mack-in- aw".  The city & the Coast Guard cutter is Mackinaw pronounced the same way, talk about confusing when I go to write. 

Line of people to get on buses

view from bus, people almost finished

Labor Day, we were in line for a bus @ 7:30 AM; they are very organized with 6 lanes of people for buses & they have 115 school buses from all over Michigan. We get bussed over to St Ignace in the UP, on the other end of the bridge. Then we will walk the 5 mile bridge back to Mackinaw City. They have had up to 70,000 people in the past. I don't think they'll have that many this year because it is cold & windy. The governor starts the walk, I think by 7:00 AM. We arrived to the other side of the bridge @ 8:50 & began our walk. There were a lot of people, strollers & some wheelchairs.  They do not allow pets or wagons. We had to dodge many people to stay walking faster than a slow stroll. At first we had 2 lanes to walk in; one paved & one fully grated. I liked walking on the grating, it was less crowded. About 3/4's of the distance, they narrowed us into one lane & gave the motorized traffic 3 lanes. Needless to say our speed slowed considerably. OK, there's the reason to get going @ 5:30 AM, like the governor did. He finished in 57 minutes, we finished in about 87 minutes. 

the grated lane, the water 300ft below

 

Mackinaw City from the bridge

The Finish line with our certificate

We crossed the finish line & collected our certificate-Yahoo! Found out according to the news, our good friend Cheryl watched, (no, she didn't see us on the news) there were 40,000 walkers. The weather must have kept some people home :(

An eagle tried to snatch our "Lucky duck", but we saved him!

Tuesday, Sept 3rd, we were going to leave but it was windy with small craft warnings, so we stayed put. Biked some of the bike trail to Mill Creek State park, then rode through Mill Creek campground; a huge place 1000 sites, lots of cute cabins with an awesome view of the bridge, right on the water. 

wind generators that power the Marina @ the Straits

This small vase has become one of my favorite purchases.  I pick wildflowers to fill it everywhere I go.  It makes me smile, I hope it does the same for you! :)

Petosky; a great Marina & town/ August 29/30/31

Thursday, August 29, we woke to a beautiful morning but they have 2 nasty type bugs here. Both come out @ night. One is winged & black & the other is a fragile type mosquito looking thing that doesn't bite but leaves little green marks all over the white fiberglass that is hard to get off. This last month we haven't been bothered by bugs much except for a few mosquitoes @ dusk.

That's calm!!

Lake Michigan is like glass this morning, we left Beaver Island @ 7:30 & the sun was rising above the trees. After we were a couple of miles into our journey, the fog descended upon us. Luckily it didn't last long. It was another great bridge day. Lake Michigan's water is blue with many shades. Sure wish Lake Erie looked like this. 

We arrived @ Petosky Municipal Marina a little after lunch. The docks are fixed so they are a little high but they are well maintained & there is plenty of water & weeds. Facilities are very nice. After we were settled, we put our dinghies down & since it was so calm, we took advantage & rode across Little Traverse Bay to Harbor Springs. Walked around the shops & Marina. We bought a rug for the entrance to the salon. 

Friday, August 30: The next day, we rose early & hit the Farmers Market here in town. The best one we've been to. Lots of fresh produce stands. Tomatoes & sweet corn finally. We also bought fresh basil, (it was really pretty), peaches & Doug ended up buying 3 pies. First he bought 2 little ones; Michigan cherry & apple pecan, then we found a full sized one made with fresh peaches, couldn't pass that up. It started to rain & blow so we ducked into a cute restaurant: Julienne Tomato, for breakfast. It rained on & off so today was a lazy day. We did accomplish a bit more shopping; some more dry pants for me, a cool birch basket @ the Basket store (if you are looking for a unique basket, try that place). Some drink glasses @ the Hardware store. The four of us, dined @ Palette's Bistro with a nice view of the lake & bay. Excellent meals. 

Saturday, August 31 we woke late to a beautiful day. First item on the agenda was to see if Garry's aluminum bottom 9.5 dinghy would fit on our bridge. With Garry's help we got it up there & it will fit. We plan on buying a new one & we thought we were going to have to get a smaller one. We then got on our bikes & rode on the beautiful bike trail to Bay Harbor. We walked through the Inn. Doug & I had been there once with Turner, it's a fabulous place. We then walked over to the Marina & stopped @ the sidewalk sales along the way. We saw the house our friend, Paul had built on the peninsula & we ate lunch outside @ Knot Just a Bar. The bike path is paved & goes all the way to Charlevoix, I know because Doug made me bike the 34 miles round trip a few years ago when we stayed at the Inn.

Doug's Bloody Mary & lunch

Another example of the clear pretty water

  We didn't bike that far today. We enjoyed the views of Lake Michigan & the bay from the path. 

When we returned to Petosky, we did a little more shopping, they have a super hardware store & just checked out the area more. This has to be one of our favorite ports & towns. There is a nice park all around the Marina & a great pier where the local kids jump off & swim. The downtown is thriving too. It's great to see. 

Lake Michigan;Our 4th Great Lake this summer! A different Beaver Island

Day 87; The wind has finally subsided, so we headed out today: Tuesday, August 27 to dip our toes into Lake Michigan. We traveled under the awesome Mackinac Bridge.  Both Lakes (Huron & Michigan) and the Straits are calm. We are not sure exactly where the 2 lakes merge & if the Straits are considered separate from the lakes; is the bridge the dividing point? Garry says that the 3 miles of water around the bridge are the Straits, separate from either lake. 

White Shoal light

Gray Reef light

The S V Denis Sullivan, 138 foot Tall ship, 3 masted, pasted us in Lake Michigan on her way to Windsor. She was too far away to get a good pic. All the tall ships from the Great Lakes are to converge @ Put in Bay on Labor Day for the big 200th anniversary of Perry's victory in the war of 1812. Our gang; Cheryl, Craig, Jeri & Jerry will be there to watch & hopefully document it all. Not sure if Paul & Jess will be there. Paul is back to college for football practice. 

Beaver Island Lighthouse

Wish we would have had blue skies & sun for the bridge pics & it is misting now.  Beaver Island has 2 marinas and the Municipal Marina had been recommended to us by one of Marty's friends. They don't take reservations but as of last nite, Joe (dock guy) said it looked like they would have space for us today.  As we neared Beaver Island we called the Municipal Marina & Jim (harbor Master) said no one had left today due to the weather & he only had one slip that was deep enough for us. Looks like another Plan B day! There is a private Marina; Beaver Island Marina, so Garry called Pat, harbormaster from BI Marina & she would love to host us. The docks & facilities are not as nice but they're no Rossport or Duluth either. The dock guy "Charlie" made up for all that was lacking. He is a good looking young man who works really hard.  He even found us wood for a campfire. They do have a sandbar in front of some of the docks & the depth went down to 1.7 feet on our depth meter during our approach. That is always a bit unsettling. Plus the water is so clear, it's difficult to tell how close bottom really is, so that even makes it more of a challenge. 

Wednesday, we biked some of the island. It is a big island: 45 square miles. We biked 10 miles of it. It hit 90 degrees today & we are not complaining-we are loving it. Lots of sand & dunes and lots of cedar, oak & birch trees. Some beautiful big old trees. They have a coffee shop, grocer, gas station, ice cream & gift shops, couple bars, couple of restaurants & of course a hardware store. We waded in @ two of the beaches & when we got back to our boats, bathing suits went on for the first time this whole vacation & we all jumped into cool, clean Lake Michigan right off our boats. Later, we dined @ The Shamrock, which was walking distance into the main village. Guess what? Not one Irish item on the menu! 


The history of Beaver Island is interesting. Native Americans were the first documented inhabitants and the Odawa tribe has 100's of graves here. In 1847 James Strang, a Mormon, who had broke away from the main group brought his followers to Beaver Island. Within a few years he had control of the island and crowned himself King.  His Kingdom was the only kingdom ever to be established in our United States. All the gentiles were forced off the island. He wouldn't allow his followers to have multiple wives but he had 4 himself.  In 1856 he was assassinated by some of his disgruntled followers. His loyal followers were forced to leave & the Irish Catholics took over. Hence the Restaurant the Shamrock, we thought would have Irish food! 

Doug's Kingdom Now!!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful nephew, Bob; wishing you a Fantastic year!!