Millersville MI 8/6/12 and Rogers City MI 8/7/12

On Monday 8/6/12, after leaving Port Sanilac, we went to Millersville MI. We were shooting for Alpena but the water was rough. We had 1 to 3 foot seas that grew to 2 to 4 across Saginaw Bay and we were sick of fighting it. We are staying about 4 miles off shore to avoid the rocks - Lake Huron is famous for its rocks.

It is kind of exciting to cross Saginaw Bay because at least 2 other times we got stuck by high winds and the accompanying waves, preventing us from crossing the Bay.

Millersville is a lovely small town. Great marina, especially for such a small town. I mean there are about 4 streets in each direction. We are talking small. The people are great and the town is just lovely. We hardly saw any people though. Just at the marina.

This was the first time we encountered other loopers. We thought we noticed a looper flag on a mast at the other end of the marina. Then we talked briefly to them about weather but nothing else in the boaters lounge. I don't mean to linger on the topic but the Michigan municipal marinas are just great. Very clean bathrooms, 5 on the scale of 1 to 5. Nice swimming, especially for Rusty.

We also met a nice couple in a Mainship docked next to us. We are adding them to our blog list since they want to follow us!

Left early on Tuesday 8/7 shooting for Alpena. It was rocky again and very cloudy. It seems as though Lake Huron is choppier in the morning and flattens out in the afternoon, a little opposite of Lake Erie. Interesting. About an hour into our trip, at about 9:30, we felt the boat catch something and discovered we were fishing. Rather we caught a fishing net!

FIRST BIG PROBLEM OF THE TRIP!  Tom Houser, check your list because someone in the pool won something we think!! We didn't argue about it (that is a shock) but we didn't know what to do. We tried to hail Boat US but no response. So we called the Coast Guard! What else should we have done? Not sure. They were quite helpful and said there was nothing much in the area except one salvage diver out of Alpena. After some wrangling we also got Boat US on the phone and they agreed the salver was the right choice. So he agreed to come out. He arrived with his trusty Lab (go figure) at about 12:30pm. It took longer to put on his dry suit and get set up than it did to fix the problem. He jumped in and cut a bunch of lines wrapped around the shafts. He was under water less than 5 minutes! He said we would never have been able to fix the problem any other way. Unfortunately we did not take any pictures. We were just too excited and scared that we really  messed up. But trust me, it happened!

Things learned:

1. Otto is our friend (auto pilot) but we still need to be vigilant because those little upside down bleach bottles are hard to spot and conceal a mighty punch.
2. Prepare lunch in advance in a cooler so we don't have to fight the waves to eat during the middle of the day.
3. Get a small jet ski grappling anchor so we can pull up fishing anchor lines ourselves and cut them. This would have saved us the $600+ fee to Diver Rick for 5 minutes work.

We got back under way at 1pm with much flatter water, going all the way to Rogers City, MI. The seas are funny and the skies are cloudy.

Rogers City MI is another lovely small town with a great municipal marina and really nice people. This time we gassed up when we arrived instead of waiting for the dock attendants to arrive in the morning.

As we came in we noticed those same folks we saw at Millerville! They are doing the loop as well. Luanne and Jerry. We had dinner with them at a nice Thai Chinese restaurant. Turns out he is a past commodore of a Toledo yacht club! What a small world... We had a good talk. We will probably run into them again.

We stopped at the local movie theatre and saw Moonrise Kingdom in a really old movie theatre where the guy who takes your money also sells you the popcorn and runs the projector! This is the kind of small town experience that is like being on Mars for me.

We had a great slip at the gas dock with high sides, so high that Kermit had to climb down a post to get to the electrical. This was worth a photo:

Wednesday 8/8 we left about 8am to the same kind of chop we experienced the entire time we've been on Lake Huron. Rusty is not happy. Our goal is Cheboygan with our target a bike store. We need some specific supplies like a rear bike rack, some supplies for a flag on the back of the boat to replace the one donated to the lake gods earlier in the trip. More later.