June 19/20 Day 18 & 19 of our Lake Superior Adventure, We are now in LAKE SUPERIOR!!

Wednesday & Thursday

Traveled 79 miles, making our cumulative 505 miles, it took us a while to get to 400, but that last 100 went pretty fast. 

Left @ 6:30 AM because of going thru the Lock this morn. Garry called the lock master on the US side & he didn't have anyone going through (which the guys knew this cuz they checked the AIS for freighters). So he said come on in.  It was 45 degrees when we got up this AM.  Waterford led today so we took many pics of them entering the lock. We were right behind. We were even lucky enough to be thrown brand new lines, even though I was ready with my playtex rubber gloves on.  On the Erie barge canal locks, the lines would be slimy and the wall slimy & gross but not here at the Soo.  It only took a half an hour to lock through. We locked up 21 feet.  Very efficient & the lock master was a real nice guy. We had heard that the Canadian lock was easier & faster than the USA locks for pleasure boaters but they don't open till 11:00 AM & we have a long day ahead of us. We couldn't have asked for a smoother journey through the lock. 

History lesson: In 1789, the North West Fur Company built a 2,500 foot canal on the Ontario side. This was burned by the Americans in the War of 1812. The first lock on the Michigan side was completed in 1855. Consisting of two 350 foot locks in tandem, taking 2 years, 1,000 men & about 1 million dollars. Over the years, additional locks were added & upgraded. Currently, there are 4 locks but only 2 are being used. The Poe lock, the one used for the freighters, was completed in 1968 and is the largest on the Great Lakes. They are currently in the planning stages of combining 2 locks and making one much larger. The Canadians were the first canal, completed in 1895,  to utilize electrically operated machinery. Today, the Sault Ste Marie locks are the largest & busiest locking system in the world. Who knew?? Many of the freighters are transporting iron ore from Lake Superior's North shore. Currently some of the freighters that lock through are over 1,000 foot long. Most of my info is taken from the book "Superior Way"  by Bonnie Dahl, if you want to check my facts. 

This freighter entered the locks after we left

After leaving the Soo Lock, we entered Whitefish Bay.  On November 10, 1975, The Edmund Fitzgerald sank about 15 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay on it's way to Sault Ste Marie from Wisconsin, it was headed to Detroit, MI. All 29 of her crew perished. 

Point Iroquis light established in 1871, is located on Lake Superior near Bay Mills MI.  which is the entrance to St Mary's river from Lake Superior. The station's Fresnel lens is in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.  Station was deactivated in 1971, when the Canadian Gros Cap Reef light was built. The square top is because it has a helipad on it. 

Whitefish Point Lighthouse

Ile Parisipnne Light, est 1912

Trivia fact: Lake Superior in surface area, is the largest fresh water lake in the world. Russia has a lake with more volume meaning it is deeper. Deepest depth in Lake Superior is 1330 feet.

Crisp point light house, near Two Heart, MI, est. 1904 on Lake Superior





As we entered Lake Superior from Whitefish Bay rounding Whitefish Point, we were welcomed by our first Loon of the trip.  How appropriate, it flapped it wings & cried out, how cool is that!  Water temperature here in this part of Superior is 52 degrees, not bad.

Lake Superior was very calm, we sure are lucky so far.  Beautiful.  We were hoping to stop in Whitefish Point Harbor of Refuge, it's a small place, unmanned with no amenities, which is ok.  We had heard it was silted in and pretty shallow and open to South winds, which is what is forecast for the next couple of days, so we are being conservative & choose not to pursue that risk.  That means we won't get to visit the Ship Wreck Museum and buy some smoked whitefish @ Brown's in Paradise, MI, a place that was featured on the cooking channel for Hook, Line & Dinner.  We may be able to hit it on the way back after obtaining some local knowledge regarding the depths there.  




Doug & his love for freighters!







We arrived @ Grand Marais @ 6:00 PM, a longer day for this trip, but a normal length trip for our usual summer vacation.  I enjoy the longer journey because we are able to accomplish more.  Doug actually wired a rear view camera while underway.  Our friend, Jim let us try the camera and Doug loves it, so he permanently wired it in, drilling holes and pulling wires.  I napped & worked on recovering my pictures I had lost on the computer & oh yeah, one of us was driving the whole time.  We did see some fish nets around White Fish Point and we passed the one fishing boat that was putting the nets out.  We did not see another boat, other than freighters, the whole 11 hours out on the water.  


We passed sand dunes as we got closer to Grand Marais, which sits on the southern shore of Lake Superior, Michigan.  It actually got warmer as we traveled into Lake Superior, the thermometer hit 70 degrees. We went up to the bridge while we were in Whitefish bay, which we haven't done under way on our trip so far.  It was warm, (did I say warm-70!) when we docked.  Grand Marais has always been a sleepy small harbor, very rustic.  Well, we pull in; they just have a wall, no docks, no fingers, just a wall built along one of their shores.  What we saw there are signs of  progress. They are installing a sewer system.  So much for the sleepy rustic town. There is a front end loader with it's back up alarm beeping continually with big piles of dirt and dump trucks in the marina parking lot.  Obviously not a state job, because it's after 6:00 PM & this guy is working like a maniac. Big clouds of dirt & dust are everywhere.  There are a few people fishing from the dock and no boats @ the dock, so we have easy entry. Even with all that noise & commotion, after we are tied up, what do we see near the sand beach, not far from our boat?  A trio of loons, who were oblivious to all that was happening around them.  Beautiful!!


The friendly ranger for the campground was here to help us dock & greet us, even though he was glad to take our money, he really couldn't tell us much, other than the bathrooms & showers that we could use were located in his campground, up the street & around the corner.  We met a nice gentleman, John, who with his wife, Janet built a home here 5 years ago right on the shoreline.  He helped us with some local knowledge of where to go & what to do.   

Our dock partner, Bill back @ the beach, gave us an impressive bottle of wine for our voyage & told us to save it for something special. We considered our first night in Lake Superior was pretty special, so we toasted to that & to Bill, thanks!

We walked to the beach for sunset, never disappointed.  The shoreline is breathtaking.

It rained during the night, love that pitter patter over our heads.  It was overcast, but warm in the morning. We watched the loons playing around our boats and did a few things around the boat.  After lunch, Doug & I got our bikes out and checked out the small little town, no surprise; a hardware/market store, 2 bars, post office and a couple of gift shops.  No wait, there is a gas station too.  

We then headed out of town to the Grand Sable Dunes & Sable waterfalls.  What a lovely surprise!  It was beautiful, a forest to walk through, the waterfalls dropped 120 foot as it travels to Lake Superior and the dunes tower 300 feet above lake Superior.  We walked barefoot through the dunes, better than a pedicure.  

When we returned to town, we checked out the farmer's market that was advertised to start @ 5:00 PM.  It consisted of 4 card tables. First one selling homemade pasties, bought one. Second, selling cookies & bread, we bought cookies. Third selling fresh baked cake slices, bought 2. Fourth, selling pasta salad & potato salad, bought pasta salad.  May not have been much there, but I helped the local economy & it all was good. 

Returned to our boat, hosted a cocktail party on board Day Dreams inviting John & Janet to join us.  Remember our saying our boat; drinks 6, eats 4 & sleeps 2. So later, the 4 of us dined on Waterford, Jacque made the best whitefish dinner we have ever eaten, fresh whitefish to boot, (Jacque bought @ the local market, Garry hasn't started fishing yet-but watch out when he does). 

Meanwhile, two sailboats have joined us on the wall.  This has been a lovely visit.  

Duck loves to swim!

 
 


For those of you who know these things, let us 
know what these pretty flowers are, please 








 

Listed on the National Registry of Historical sites
Look it up

The Soo Locks, Monday/Tuesday, June 17/18, Day 16 traveled 43 miles for a cum of 426 miles

Round Light house on St. Mary's River

Left Drummond Island Monday morning in the clouds @ 8:00 AM.  Air temp 56, water 59 degrees because we are in a shallower bay.  Winds NE @ 10 knots, but waves under a foot, as we are protected by this group of islands.  I believe all of you @ home are experiencing much warmer temperatures; dare I say mostly in the 70's? Oh well, I knew I wouldn't be wearing my bathing suit much this trip & I packed a lot of warm clothes. 

Just passed the 400 mile mark @ 10:40 AM, if all goes as planned, we will pass the 1,000 +miles mark.  Wow, that seems like a long way.  We've been enjoying a pretty ride along the St Mary's River, it reminds Garry & Jacque of their times growing up on the Mississippi.  The river is very easy to navigate because it is well marked with buoy cans and range lights.  It is shallow if you get out of the freighter channel.  We've seen some freighters but not too many.  

The AIS system is working great and we found a website that you all may access and to find us, if you wish to track us; the address is: AIS.boatnerd.com.  You can filter out all the freighters & ferries and just track pleasure boats.  You will see Waterford & DayDreams listed and then see where we are @ any given time.  Waterford may show up, with Day Dreams underneath.  Wherever Waterford is, we are close by.  

2 more items: some friends are still having difficulty commenting on the blog, use anonymous and then just sign your name at the bottom of the comment.  If you use my gmail email address, don't worry if it comes up as Jo Grow.  I changed it to that sometime back because I attempted to get out of it and it would not let me.
  

While on the river, getting close to the Soo and our Marina destination, a big inflatable Coast Guard vessel approaches us from the opposite direction.  They turn around right behind us, put their lights on & give one wail of their siren. Drat!!  We haven't been inspected in years!  Doug slows down & they pull along side.  They say they want to board us, can we say no? I don't think so!  So I ask them how they plan on doing this and they say for Doug to just stay on course but go very slow.  Two of them board, as the inflatable pulls up close to our port beam.  I was very nice helping them on, telling them to be careful and not hit their heads.  They get on the back deck and have these big, glunky black army boots on, I say "I suppose it would be rude of me to ask you to take your boots off".  They just smiled at me and proceeded to tell me, first after asking if I have any weapons on board, that they wanted to check all our bilges.  At that point, I wimp out & tell them I will take over for Doug @ the wheel and he can help them.  One thing we have been running into often is new trainees, like at the marinas.  Well, these 2 were also new & gung-ho.  They had to use their manuals to know what to check, but they weren't going to miss anything.  They were in our midship and engine room 3 different times, looking @ different things. They had their guns strapped to their waists, so we were very patient with them.  They were very polite and nice and complimented us regarding the boat, but..... what a pain! Doug had to take most of his "stuff" out of the lazarette, but Doug did put his foot down & told him he wasn't going to show him the bilge under our bed.  We passed the inspection and now have an official document proving it, but not a sticker.  They were on board about a half an hour.  


We pulled into Kemp Marina located directly adjacent to the Soo locks, around 3:00 PM. This is a really nice Marina, the 2 young men working weren't new this year, actually have been working here 4 or more years.  Floating docks, well cared for, clean bathrooms, easy walk to watch the locks/freighters and to shops & restaurants. 

a small training ship going through

The first tourist event was to walk to the locks and watch a freighter lock through.  Doug loves this stuff. There is a great visitor's center, where we learned about that AIS website.  It had a informative topographical map of the all the great lakes and showed the deep troughs in Lake Superior of 1300 feet depth and how stinkin shallow poor Lake Erie is. No wonder we have such issues, but did you know there is a section of Lake Erie that is over 200 feet deep near Buffalo? 

The next morning Tuesday, we took it slow, the gals washed some clothes, while the guys did boat chores.  One of the great dock hands drove us out to the Super Walmart, we took advantage of the car, so we stocked up. We headed to the Antlers Bar/Restaurant for lunch.  Our friend Kevin has told us about this place & we had to see it for ourselves.  It's like eating/drinking @ Cabbela's. They have animals & antlers every where.  I think they have at least one of every animal & fish you could name.  The duck has had such great opportunities to make friends so far on this trip. 

crew members from Edmund Fitzgerald

Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial; Capt McSorley from Toledo

Valley Camp Museum Freighter

We then did more tourist type events: a freighter on land, The Valley Camp, that has been turned into a museum of sorts. The Freighter museum had a section honoring the Edmund Fitzgerald crew, did you know there were quite a few from the Toledo area that perished that day in November, 1975? If you can enlarge the above picture, you will see that the Captain was from Toledo, then 2 from Milbury & Oregon, OH.  I think Toledo should do tribute to these men. 

Sault Ste Marie, The Soo

our view from our dock

more Toledo history

The second place is called the Tower of History.  The tower was very interesting.  It was built originally as a bell tower, standing 210 feet tall, for a Catholic Church.  Supposedly the priest @ the time, had a vision of what he wanted but he didn't have the funds to even pay for this very expensive bell tower, much less the elaborate church he wanted to build. The church never was started, the Bishop put a stop to it.  So now the historical society owns it.  It does give one a great view of the area and locks. 

view of our Marina from the tower

Doug was having a great time watching all the freighters and learning all about the history of the locks.  When you see him, he will be glad to fill you in on all that he has learned. He just can't get enough pictures of these big ships, we watched a 1000+ footer, one of the biggest on the Great Lakes go through the locks, my they can really move slow when needed.  

Duck gets snubbed

Last night when I published this post, I had lost all the pics from these 2 days, from my computer, but with a lot of persistence & help from expert Kathy, they have been recovered and all is well with the world.  Thank you.

Duck bums a ride