A stern view of the Mighty Mac

June 14

Mackinac Island to Presque Isle

We motored out of the harbor at Mackinac Island by 730 am, leaving the lighthouses and the Mighty Mac  further and further in our wake. 

Of course in the Great Lakes, as soon as you leave one lighthouse in your wake, another pops into view (or so it seems to a transplanted North Carolinian like myself). This picture shows both the Bois Blanc (which means White Beach and inconceivably is pronounced Bob-Lo) lighthouse built in 1868 and use until 1924, and the "new" light (built in 1941), which is now solar powered!  Like many lighthouses in the Great Lakes, this one has been lovingly restored and cared for by private owners.

We've had to come up with a better method of handling Feather when we are coming into or leaving port since she may have a wee slight tendency to be underfoot. It's working well as you can see.  She's now learned to climb the ladder/step and balance on the small ledge at the top, while we're in motion. At first, we only had to put in a hatch board, then two, and now we're up to all three in order to keep her below when we want to. She;'s got better sea legs at this point than I do, and she has twice as many of them!  It's not fair.  


Once we're out of the harbor, deck lines secured and bumpers stored, Feather is allowed to come up top and join me usually with the Captain looking on indulgently.



We had surprisingly little company leaving the harbor, but we were delighted to be joined in open water by an honest to goodness Great Lakes fish tug named the Laura Ann, owned by the Massey Fish Company out of St. Ignace.  Chuck tells me these boats are more and more rare.  This particular company (https://masseyfish.com/about-us/) is a family owned and operated outfit boasting 6 generations so far.   I can personally attest to the quality of their smoked whitefish spread, which is one of my favorite noshes.


About thirty minutes out, we were passed by a crew that had been at Mackinac Island with us, doing sort of the same thing, getting a new-to-them boat to its new home.   They had their sails up, which encouraged us to try our own. 



















 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Just wear the damn life jacket!

Image
 August 1-10, 2022 Twice in two weeks, Twoflower has come upon a search for a missing boater, both with unhappy endings. The first, on August 1, brought an amazing day sailing to a very somber close.  After a gorgeous high wind day on the lake, winds in the mid to high 20s, gusting to the low 30s, Twoflower sailed into the middle (literally) of a Coast Guard (CG) search. Huron Point and the mouth of the Clinton River are home to Twoflower (North Star Sail Club, NSSC) and is an area where the CG often do drills.  I'd noticed the Macomb Sheriff boat lights near Metro Beach, but again, on the weekend this is all too common.  We are usually tuned in to channel 16 on the radio, and we hadn't heard anything, so we thought little of either the Sheriff presence or the CG. At the time, I was at the helm, and it's quite likely that I was driving like a drunken sailor (although we never drink under sail). We actually joked that they were coming to investigate my driving.  ...
Read more

How Windy?

Image
  I messed up Tuesday. The  forecast  was for 10-20 mph winds, 30% chance of thunderstorms- our typical summer  forecast . I invited my sister & her friend out for a spontaneous evening sail. My sister is a semi experienced boater and needed to get out of the house. Friend has been on boats before, but no real experience. So, I'm basically  single  handing, with a bit of help available. No problem.  The ancient TP5000 tillerpilot picked picked yesterday to stop working. No big deal, we're just going for an easy sail. We  head  out, and I leave the main covered and unroll about 60% of the 150 genny.  This seems perfect in the 15 to 20 mph breeze.  We're sailing nicely- easy. There is a bit of rain coming, so we put up the  canvas .  I didn't see a sign of anything but a little rain, from a pretty low and thin cloud. As the rain approaches, we get hit by a gust, maybe 40mph. I  head  up, expecting the gust to p...
Read more

The Turtle's Whiskers

Image
Lk St Clair It was a perfect day to sail.  The winds were much better than forecast, building to about 20 mph around 5 and then lightening up a bit to 10-15mph.   We had to reef in the strongest winds but we rarely got below hull speed.  It was a good day!  We sailed as far south as we've been in Twoflower on Lake St Clair and then we turned and sailed east all the way into Canadian waters (just barely, as it became legal last week) the view from the peanut gallery (clipped in setting the first reef point) red and green buoys mark the Freighter channel  In our continuing effort to get to know Twoflower and all the rigging that came with, Chuck and I took advantage of excellent conditions to play with the whisker pole once we were headed downwind.  .  We've flown the spinnaker using the whisker pole (we have an asymmetrical spinnaker), but this was the first time using the whisker pole on the Genny.  First, we figured it out together (with autopilo...
Read more