Mackinaw City - preparing for the North Channel

The other half of the anchoring experience is pulling up the anchor. We had a little trouble getting the windlass to pull. We discovered that the tension needed to be tighter. With just a little shove the anchor came up smoothly until the anchor reached the top in a backwards fashion. No amount of shoving with a pole will move an anchor facing the wrong way. We sent it back down and pulled it up again facing the proper direction.

As the photos show, it was cloudy and cold again. But the water was not too bad. As we approached the first lighthouse entering the straits it got bumpy so we sped up a little. The engines really like running at 1700 rpm so we let them fly for a little while, slowing down when we saw the bridge.  The the water calmed and we entered Mackinaw City on flat water with a little wind. Perfect weather for boating!

We are so excited to be in Mackinaw City because we might meet loopers! The 2014 looping gang is bunched up in the North Channel and canals leading to the North Channel right now. In the meantime we met several loopers and gold loopers in Mac City as we hoped.

One boat Boreas was waiting to meet us when we arrived. Fred and Julaine traveled with One September and Jim's Joy in the North Channel. They knew many of the loopers we traveled with: Sareanna, Sequel, Karma just to name a few. We spent a delightful docktails swapping stories about best stops. Then Fred gave us a tutorial on all the best places in the North Channel. I pulled out pen and paper because you never want to miss a chance to pick a local's brain!! Fred and Julaine and sailboaters who swapped a sailboat for a 405 Carver aft cabin for the loop. It is perfectly laid out for long term traveling. We certainly agree about the value of an aft cabin.

Next we met our neighbors. We didn't see a looper flag on this 45 foot Benetau trawler but the john boat strung on the back and the Georgia state flag branded them and fellow travelers. I kept bumping into this nice lady with a southern accent at the grocery store. Come to find out when we returned that she was crew on our neighboring boat!! They started in coastal Georgia. Actually the father is the looper. He was very quiet, just nodding, while the younger folks (our age) talked about loving NYC, this weather, and fresh water. The dad changed crew this morning as one set of kids left and another got on. This new set will travel down the rivers with Dad.

Dad had a bit of a problem this morning. We planned to leave this morning too. The weather looked right. A storm blew through the neighborhood last night. No rain but lots of wind causing high waves. We were ready for an early departure when Kermit checked the weather again. Something bothered him about this storm. It brought a low weather system. He said he had a feeling that the low would bring the winds and storm back around. He made the captain's call to postpone departure. Sure enough by 9am the storm came back around with high winds and ugly clouds. This is exactly the kind of weather system that kept us in Mackinaw for a week last time.

Dad next door decided he needed to leave. He had a schedule or something. Anyway he pulls out in a big wind and immediately got blown around big time. He bumped into this and skidded off of that around the corner right into a debate with a ferry over who has the right of way. The ferry breezed through pushing Dad into the rip rap. He bounced off that and slammed into the gas dock. It was scary but Dad and crew were ok. It is so tricky up here. We felt bad but there was not much we could do to help since he was a few docks away by that time. No photos of this situation. Kermit felt it would add insult to injury so we kept the camera below.

Needless to say we are staying in port today finishing up last minute chores. Kermit decided to finish the last bit of waxing so while I write this he and Paul are on the back deck with the power waxers purring away.

The good news is we are now ready to put the name on the back of the boat. To bring you up to date on the naming, Kermit made the new owners take "Good Karma" off the old boat so we could keep the name on the new boat. He bought nice new letters for the new GK but the material got caught in the wind and bunched into a knot. So we ordered new letters to be delivered to Mackinaw. They arrived yesterday!! Hence the effort to wax the back so the new name looks good. We are waiting until the wind dies down in the afternoon then we will have the naming ceremony!! I will share pics of that later.


We had two wonderful surprises on arriving at Mack City on Friday - Tom Taft (from Charleston fame) called to chat with Kermit. That is the little surprise. The big surprise is my sister Martha came to visit! She has a consulting gig in Green Bay (actually north of Green Bay close to Minnesota) and she stopped in on the way home. We had lunch in St. Ignace (pronounced  "Snig-nis, eh?) according to locals. Great pulled pork sandwich for me and and turkey veg sandwich for Martha with fresh fries like you get at the fair. Yum!! We stopped at the grocery store in St. Ignace because it looked more substantial than what we can get in Mac City. The locals all helped us with everything - really friendly! They answered unasked questions about produce, meat, and beer. Martha and I looked at each other then figured out that not only do we look unfamiliar to these locals but we sounded funny! We got a chuckle out of that!!

Martha brought her dog, Dieter 2.0. She calls him 2.0 because he has become a much better, more well behaved dog since going through training. He sits and heels when told and doesn't jump or run off like he used to. It was a pleasure having him on the boat! Makes me miss Rusty!!

Martha left at 5:30am the next morning for the long ride back to North Carolina. I sure wish I could see her more often. Maybe next year.

On Saturday the four of us took our bikes over to the Fort Michilimackinaw. We talked about going to Mill Creek to see that working saw mill but we judged it to be too long a bike ride for all of us. Good thing too because we learned today that the mill is not working. The five mile trip each way is too long just to turn around and come back. Right Don?!? (Sorry, that is an inside joke!)

The fort is reconstructed from a massive archeological dig started in 1958. Buildings have been reconstructed on the foundations of the original buildings destroyed by the British when they moved the fort to Mackinaw Island in 1774 during the revolution. This is where the history we learned on the trip comes in handy. The British leader enlisted Obawa Indians to fight against the revolutionaries. They didn't just stay local. They went to New York and as far south as St. Louis and Kentucky.

The fort was the site of voyaguer trading since the 1600s. French would bring goods from Montreal to Fort  Michilimackinaw in the spring. Voyaguers would move out to trade those goods with the Indians for furs that the Indians trapped in the winter. It was a good cycle.

The blacksmith shop

The reconstructed fort is set up with an Indian encampment outside, displays about the voyaguers, and the fort itself set up as it would have been in the 1770s before decamping to the island. We saw these two fellows shoot off rifles and cannons, a nice lady talked about what it was like to live in the fort and shared the bread she just baked. The blacksmith was fascinating. He is trained as a welder. About 17 years ago he started learning about blacksmithing. Now we demonstrates blacksmithing in the summer at the fort and in the winter has a welding business in AZ. Nice life! He looks like a blacksmith too - a big guy with the coolest safety glasses that look like he made them out of fancy metal.

We also stopped at the old lighthouse to terrify Kermit with heights. Not so bad this time. This lighthouse is only 55 steps to the top, a lot shorter than some of the lighthouses we climbed before like the one at Bald Head Island in NC.

We stopped for ice cream (of course) then to KFC for a light dinner. Sometimes you just have to get out!

Today is Sunday July 13. We are a little behind schedule but still not in trouble. We are scheduled to meet Ron Pfeldner and the other boats at Gore Bay on Wednesday so we still have time. Tonight we plan to grill out with a nice bottle of wine and some steaks. Then early to bed and up early tomorrow to head over to DeTour passage and finally enter the North Channel. I can't wait!!

Beaver Island Anchor Out

It was this blue... honest!

We loaded up and left on Thursday morning early. 

Weather was good, water flat like a mill pond, not too much wind. Quite a change from the cold wind of our two days in Petosky. 

Maeo reading during this relaxing trip

Captain Kermit and Paul Bates

Our target was Beaver Island. We skipped this place on the last trip. That time we had such bad weather for a week in Mackinaw City that we did not want to be distracted from our target of Petosky.

Passing a ferry to Beaver Island

This time we took advantage of the flat (albeit cold) weather and headed out for a short 30 mile trip to test our anchoring skills. We need to know if the equipment works otherwise we have to make repairs in Mackinaw City. It works! We arrived around mid-day.

Entering Beaver Island Harbor

Beaver Island is about 13 miles long and about 3 miles wide with a nice protected harbor on the east side. It is serviced by ferries from Leland and a few other places. 

Kermit worked the controls at the helm and Paul and I went out on the bow to drop the anchor. We have two switches at the helm to operate the windlass - one to move the anchor up and the other to move it down. We opened the cover, unlatched the safety latch and got out of the way while we pressed the down button. Sure enough, there it goes. We have chain at the beginning then 1" line. The idea is that the anchor bites into the bottom, the chain is heavy and lays on the bottom, then the line pulls tight holding the boat in place. We waited a few minutes to be sure the anchor was caught, then we took down the dinghy to go to town. 

Paul adding air to the dinghy

The last time we operated the dinghy was in Grand Haven on Spring Lake. Paul observed we could have more air in the pontoons so he added some now. 

Freeing the dinghy on this boat is much easier than on the old Good Karma. Kermit attaches a bridle to the crane, moves the crane to lift the dinghy then moves the dinghy over the side into the wate. Then he climbs in, unlatches the bridle, and moves the crane back into its hidy hole. Then we all climbed in and went to the land. We left the dinghy at the far north end of town. This gave us about a mile walk each way, just fine for a nice afternoon. 

 
This is not a tourist island. Locals have been here for generations. There are no resorts just summer cottages for rent. The St. James Boat Shop specializes in boats, buckets, and other specialty wood products made  out of cherry cut exclusively on Beaver Island. These canoes pictures that about 300 hours of labor. They are truly works of art. I am not sure how much the canoes cost but that paddle board pictured here sells for $400. That is art. Can you imagine how wonderful it would feel to paddle on that work of art?

This is a quote about the proprietor from his website:   (Stop by the St. James Boat Shop, too, where Bill Freese builds wood-strip canoes and kayaks across from the marina. Thin as a pole with a gray grizzled beard, he and his black lab, Bear Dog, wile away the hours in solitude, sawing, sanding, varnishing. Beaver Island, he says, "is as good a place as any to hide from the world.")

We can attest to the hiding part. A person could anchor in the bay and spend weeks just hiding from the world in this quiet place. We lucked out to find that this first complex of shops (and I say that very loosely) includes the McDonough Market and Deli. This is one of the best grocery stores we've encountered so far and the prices weren't bad either. Maeo and I went back at the end of the day to make some purchases. You know you are in a special place when in this dusty one street little nothing of a place the people who live there care so much about their town that they have fancy specialty cookware for sale in the deli, the same stuff they sell in Charlevoix and Petosky, the land of Kilwens.

Beaver Island has a cool history. Of course there were the native Americans from the Odawa tribe then the fur traders but then something different happened. A fellow name James Strang from New York adopted the Mormon faith with Joseph Smith. He moved to Beaver Island from Wisconsin and proclaimed himself king of Beaver Island. He had 4 wives including one who disguised herself as Strang's nephew for some reason. He took over the island for 8 years from 1848 to 1956 until two disgruntled followers assasinated him. The feds came in from Charlevoix, arrested the murders then convicted them. The penalty was about $2 and time served. Evidently  no one liked Mr. Strang.

After the Mormons left the Irish came in. Beaver Island still has a strong Irish flavor. Lumber and fishing were the main sources of income. Now much of the island is deserted except for the town and some summer homes. The brochures said if you hike around you will run across deserted homes and cars, signs of a more prosperous time. Today construction is the big industry in town as newcomers build summer homes in search of peace and quiet.

We found peace and quiet too. We cooked dinner (corn and chicken) and watched the sunset. So quiet.

The view out our aft cabin window over the dinghy

Next: Mackinaw City

Petosky - Still cold... but at least we have sun

What is it like to visit places for a second time? Still fun but different.

A grey and rainy day

We left Charlevoix in the rain on Monday July 7. It was the kind of steady rain with little wind that made the water pretty flat. We only had to go around the corner into Petosky so running in flat rain was not a big deal. I don’t think Paul liked it though. We seldom ran in rain in Lake Erie, at least not on purpose, so it was a little odd.

Leaving Charlevoix in the muck

We pulled in the electric cord using the Glendenning motor while Kermit wiped the cord so it didn’t go in wet. This is a really cool little gadget. The 50 amp electric cord is thicker and heavier than each of the two 30 amp cords we used on the old Good Karma. The new boat is equipped with a motor like a windlass that pulls the 50 amp cord into a little hidey hole on the starboard (right) side of the back of the boat all by itself. All we have to do it unhook it from the electric box on the dock, press the “in” button and hold the cord as the Glendenning machine guides it into place inside the back of the boat. Another one of those marriage saving machines that keeps the equipment in good shape but helps couples avoid arguments. We are playing with the big boys now!!

We pulled away from the Charlevoix dock as Kermit realized the channel was not quite as wide as he thought it was. The swing to the left out of the dock was really tight. I think he came about 4 feet from the stern of the boat across from us. That was too close!! But  Kermit handled it just fine. Just a tad bit uncomfortable.

Petosky Municipal Marina

Check out the sailing school in the background -
that is Bay Springs across the bay

We left about 7:15am with the intention of catching the 7:30am bridge lift. That gave us about 15 minutes to sit around in the rain in the basin near the bridge so Kermit could complain bitterly about the bridge tender for not responding to the radio question he asked several days before, even though all the guidebooks say that the bridge tender does not respond to VHF radio transmissions. That was fun. Finally the bridge went up and off we went around the corner for an uneventful ride in the rain to Petosky, about a 20 mile trip.

Peonies in July?

The marina was sort of empty except at our end of B dock where four other boats about our side congregated. Nice folks. It was quiet. That whole day we saw few people. It was cloudy and cold most of the day. The sun didn’t come out until Tuesday and it stayed in the 50s and 60s the entire time warming a little in the afternoon so we could put on shorts but we wore long sleeves and kept those polartecs nearby. Tuesday I even wore a scarf under my polartec for a bike ride to Bay Harbor. I needed it too!

Cultural center across from the library

The cold weather means the flowers are at least a month behind us. We saw tulips in Charlevoix and peonies in bloom in Petosky! Those are May and June flowers, respectively in northern Ohio. That is how cold it has been here.

Hemingway's first bar

We walked around Petosky on Monday afternoon. hen we walked to the public library where I remembered that last time they sold books in the basement. Sure enough! Maeo bought some books for the grandchildren and Kermit and I bought a few ourselves.

We had an awesome lunch at City Park Grille, just amazing and so much less expensive than other places we’ve visited. 

Hemingway would not recognize
the waterfront!

The City Park Grill is the oldest bar in town, evidently Ernest Hemingway hung out as a kid. Petosky is Heminway land. Descendents still live in the family summer home in Walloon Bay just outside of Petosky. The town is proud that if Ernest came home he would find the town almost just like he left it. True in some way and not true in others. The town has done a great job of cleaning up for the tourists who invade in the summer. Although as we note all through this blog, our travels up the west coast of Michigan are not revealing the crowds we saw two years ago. 

We busied ourselves with laundry, puttering around the boat, and restocking the book department from the marina book exchange, then dinner on the boat and early to bed. Sunset in Petosky is spectacular.

Petosky Municipal Marina from the bike path

 Sunny all day Tuesday, red sky at night and all. Still cool but good enough to get the bikes down for a ride on a wonderful bike path to Bay Harbor, about 2 miles south along the water.

Cool sculpture - you know you are approaching BIG
BUCKS - Bay Harbor MI

Bay Harbor developed in an old quarry. It has more houses and condos than it did when we visited in 2012. This marina is not even full although there were two spectacular yachts tied up near the pool.

The crew is washing the big yacht
tied up in Bay Harbor - notice
he is wearing gloves!!

Everyone was watching this boat play with their dinghy
- they have a white hose stuck into the motor and were
running the motor while it sits on the hard top!!

We had lunch at Knot just a Bar again where we watched a couple from Ft. Lauderdale in a 50 foot boat inexplicable attach a water hose to their dinghy engine while the dinghy hung from the cradle on top of the hard top. Hard to understand why but it made lunch conversation fun.

We found fish sauce and specialty dessert items at the little grocer so Maeo could make pad thai and I could make a dessert for the North Channel adventure. We made it home safely with our prizes with only two bike failures on the way back: my back tire slipped out of the socket (not good) and Maeo had trouble with a sharp corner leaving Bay Harbor.

We spent the afternoon wandering around town. Kermit got a haircut at the barber Ernest Hemingway used in his youth. Same guy, I swear!! 

And of course ice cream. Best ever! Really!! Paul found a place with the best orange pineapple ever. I think it was a Murdicks. This orange pineapple had bits of both in an orange flavored ice cream. I know he wished he could have a second cup right now.

This was a different visit than the previous time. I am pretty sure it is the town activity that makes the difference. The first time we visited Frankfort it was windy and stormy with few people. We did not come away with a great impression. This time Frankfort was sunny and warmer crowded with people for the July 4^th holiday and we had a much better time. Petosky was reversed. Last time it was warm, sunny, and crowded with people for an August festival. We had a blast. This time it was cold and empty and we had less fun. I am pretty sure Paul and Maeo were wondering what we saw that they didn’t.

Just for the All Ports Folks: Here is a photo of the chips tied up Maeo style!!!

Next stop: Beaver Island, MI