Day 42 - 8/6/24
Another long haul day, and our last one long day with the kids. The USA border was right around the corner so we set sail anxious to clear customs (hopefully by phone) and make way to Government Bay in the Les Cheneaux islands, MI.
We had absolutely no cellular service on our last night in Canada. AT&T was the the clear winner among our family as I was the only one. I knew I would have no reception way back at the “Pool” and perhaps we had all gotten too used to the relatability. I was at the helm when we crossed the border and almost immediately we had a hail on channel 16 from the US coast guard. They had our name (no coast guard boat in sight to know our name and we don’t have any equipment aboard to identify us digitally). Richard answered the hail and they were just wanted to know if we made it back to the USA alright. We were dumbfounded to to welcome committee and couldn’t understand. About 20 minutes later I finally got a service bar and my phone lit up with missed calls from the coast guard and my parents. By taking for granted that we had cell service this whole trip the instructions we had given of “we can never be certain if we will have coverage and will check in always if we can, but no news is good news if you don’t” was forgotten and the coast guard was called . The coast guard hailed us one more time and I had to spend some time on the radio with them giving information about how many were aboard, if we all had life jackets (yes), a life boat (yes) and our EPIRB numbers if we had any (yes). For those of you learning at home, EPIRB’s are water activated emergency beacons. Richard and I both have one attached to our life jackets. If either of us goes over board, or of the ship sinks they will automatically sent gps coordinates to the coast guard along with emergency contacts etc (hence the “no news” is good news part of our instructions). I apologized profusely to them for their time and assured them we were well. I know my parents love us and worry, but I’m sad they had to worry for nothing and I was pretty upset that the coast guard was used improperly.
Thankfully that was the only issue of the day. Richard was able to hot spot from my phone and clear customs underway letting us avoid a detour to DeTour, MI.
We caught really nice wind and were having a great beam reach. The boat traffic picked up a lot now that we are in bigger waters. Two huge freighters passed in front of us as they were on their way to lake Superior. The trimaran sailboat that had followed us into last nights anchorage followed us and had caught up. You can take a racer off a race boat. It you can’t take the racer out of the sailer, Richard was determined to race it out with him. The wind was on and off and our day was getting to be almost twice as long as it was planned. Kona was whining (a sure sign she’d like to go potty) so I forced him to give way and turn on our motor so we could get in.
The Cheneaux islands are nestled on the south shore of the UP. Almost a little north channel of their own except not remote with beautiful lake homes and boat houses. Richard and I had been here once before and it was a perfect place for the night. We got Kona to shore and made dinner. The trimaran followed us here which felt odd so we took the dinghy over to say hi and say we enjoyed racing him. Really nice couple from Russia (!) who are now living in Ohio. They saw us the day before and figured we knew what we were doing so, yes they picked the last two night anchorages on blind trust that we knew what we were doing!
Just Taps now that we are back in the USA and our last night as a family at anchor. I sent the kids to shore to explore and walk Kona. Some kinda protest but encountered with “I’m doing dishes, whomever stays behind is also doing dishes.” Magically they all left.
Tomorrow on to Mackinac Island where I’m certain the masses of people will be quite shocking!
