Day 14 - Biking Beaver Island
I had so hoped to spend today with nothing to update with you. I knew we had at least two more days here and I was greatly looking forward to cuddling down with a book and chilling some more. That isn’t the case, and that is ok!
Captain was awake at a good hour this morning. We took Kona to shore and said hi to everyone while we played frisbee. While ashore the marina guys told us, again, we were welcome to use their curtesy bikes and we decided that our plan for the day was going to be to explore a bit further into Beaver Island.
We returned to Ciara to make good Bloody Mary’s. Complete with Bacon, pearl onions, olives, and pickles. The nice folks on the boat Iphigenia (from Arboles, CO of all places!!) stopped by to chat on their dingy. We gave them some freeze dried ice cream after going on and on about how much freeze drying, we did this last year. It is always a joy to watch people’s faces when they have astronaut ice cream for the first time. Especially sailors. They invited us over for cocktails for happy hour.
After breakfast and all my log work was done we loaded up a bag with water and a little gear and gave command of the ship to Kona.
Free use bikes terrify me. Mostly because I’m short and nothing ever fits me well. Today I was a child mountain bike I lovingly called Baby Barney. At first I really didn’t like the bike it clanked on on. Stuck in its baby gear in the front I had 4 small rear gears to work with. Thankfully the island isn’t very hilly. Somewhere in the first mile Baby Barney stopped whining and so did I. We bonded really well enjoying the island go by at a whopping 6 miles an hour. Just like sailing. Captain had wanted to go the entire 11 or so miles to the south shore. My memory of the little exploring said we only had a few miles of paved roads and I didn’t really see making that possible. I went into first mate mode and made a destination half way down the island. Sure enough, about 5 miles into our 8.5 planned the road stopped being paved. Sometimes it was packed dirt and that was fine, but a lot of was round Michigan stone and very hard. We were making a steady climb the entire time. At one point Captain asked me as his neither regions were starting to give out what we were going to see. I told him “We are going to see a big rock.” “Really, a big rock???”
Eventually we got there. There were actually three things to see in a short distance. Fox lake came first. A beautiful in island lake. Followed by the big rock. The big rock is actually a large boulder that is a glacial erratic that was transported here by a glacier from Canada. Just a few yards away stands the oldest birch tree in Michigan. Between 250-300 years old she is now fenced in to protect her and it is sad to see that humans had defaced her in the past. Humans greatly disappointment me. Often.
Thankfully the ride home wasn’t too bad. The rock was, indeed, within feet of the highest point of the island so we coasted our sore tushies home reminiscing that we used to be Ironman.
Once back to Ciara we poured some drinks of choice, grabbed some Wisconsin Spotted Cow beer and headed over to Iphigenia to enjoy happy hour with Michelle and Bill. We had a lovely chat and loved their Island Packet sailboat. After about two hours I had to be the one to break up the party as I was starving and wanted dinner!
I made homemade tortillas again for Taco Tuesday. Michelle had given us a bottle of “spicy wine” from near their home. The wine was from New Mexico and had a little spicy kick. So good and an easy and yummy meal. We walked/played with Kona after 9pm Taps. On time! A sailor at the marina thanked us for the Taps as we came in saying “It is the best ending to a day.” I enjoyed some freeze-dried ice cream when we got back since I had now opened the bag. It was delicious and what a treat!
And with that we finished two weeks out. I feel very much that this summer is going to fly by. My legs are sore and I can look forward to a laid-back day on Wednesday. Maybe. I think we are heading out Thursday so we may need to do some chores too.
