Day 37 - Beaver Island to Canada
We have one more really long pull today. Captain and I talked about our options. We could motor 8 hours and get to Les Cheneaux Islands in north Michigan or we could go the entire 13 hours and get all the way to Canada. Both of us agree that the sooner we get East the better. We can enjoy our time in the North Channel and allow more time on the return trip. Wince the weather was favorable, we decided to make the push. Getting into Canada late in the even would also allow us to do the pesky chore of customs that evening rather then worrying about it punching a hole in the middle of another sailing day.
With 13 hours ahead of us, Captain and I were up at 6am to take Kona to shore. WE tried to run her as much as we could and made sure she had emptied all her bowels. We woke the crew when we returned and they emerged from the cabin house sleepy and half awake. The engaged in their chores of getting the dighy away and cleaning the deck while I prepped the anchor for hauling by pulling up the extra rode to the chain.
The kids did really well weighing the anchor as Beaver Island will always bring up a huge weed ball. We let the anchor drag just below the water line for a bit to wash off the eccess mud and then pulled it up on its roller full of just seaweed. The kids secured the anchor and pulled off weeds as I managed the helm.
Kona spent the first two hours sitting on the benches in the cockpit and not on the floor. She never feels that comfortable and Captain and I joked that even she has gotten her sea legs after Sunday and now is very comfy while underway. It was super nice to pet her while I steered.
The Straights of Mackinaw begins shortly after we leave Beaver Island. A fog rolled in around 10am leaving us to blow our conch every few minutes for a short while. Thankfully the radar is helpful here and it didn’t last too long. There is a lighthouse in the straights that is candy cane striped named While Shoal Lighthouse. Captain and I had recently learned that you could actually (in good conditions) bring your own private vessel and take a tour. We tried hailing them on the VHF and calling by cell phone but sadly no one answered. I was able to later get a hold of someone and they were said to have missed us but also said they probably won’t be open for tours until August so we wouldn’t have been able to go anyhow. This would be an amazing experience to go on a free-standing lighthouse and take a tour. I hear they lower down a bucket with a liability wavier before you can climb up the foundation. That sounds like fun to me! If you are every interested, you can actually stay the night there and they bring you out from the mainland Michigan.
The fog cleared and the Mighty Mac stood before us. I called all kids to the deck to recreate pictures of us going under this bridge. It is always such a wonderment to see this bridge, be it from land or sea. Captain and I believe that was our 12th time going under her.
I had managed to grab a little extra sleep so I relived Captain at the wheel around 2:30 and was in command for about 2. 5 hours. Captain got to nap!!! I will say his wheel lock is an absolute game changer and makes motoring and staying on course 99% easier!
The day drew on and I thought about this way of travel. Its not unheard of for our family to load a car and go for 2 plus weeks and have 10 hour or more drive days. I like sailing a little more because we get to lay down, we get to use the restroom, we get to cook and eat all while moving. Living while moving is fun, even if sometimes not so much fun! The first few weeks where Captain and I did as much sitting at anchor as possible has quickly done a 180 and is more about moving. It ebbs and flows, I guess. Soon we should be in the protected waters of the North Channel. Where if we move it will be no more then 3 hours at a time and those three hours will have the most amazing scenery and sailing.
After dinner was made and dishes done we finally made it to De Tour Passage at the end of Michigan’s eastern upper peninsula. There is another stand alone lighthouse here that has had people standing on the foundation each time we come by. We can buzz very close as the water right up to the lighthouse (on the correct side!) is 50 feet deep. The other side….1 foot! We sounded our conch and waved to the people looking down at us. Captain looked up the lighthouse and found we could actually rent the entire lighthouse for a week for something like $1500 and now we are dreaming of maybe a 50th birthday party…at a lighthouse! Who wants to join??
The De Tour Passage is a major shipping channel as the Sault Ste. Marie river joins Lake Huron here and we steered cleared of the large ships. With less then a mile until we dropped anchor I raised our yellow quarantine flag to indicate we had officially crossed into Canada but not cleared customs. We tucked up in Whiskey Bay and readied the dinghy for Captain to go ashore. I armed him with my trapper keeper of documents and held Kona back as he motored to shore. Poor Kona really had to go potty but had to wait.
I watched Captain from the boat with the looking glass. Last year he had to stand 2 hours at the little pay phone on shore to clear customs. We must have had a new guy and he decided to ask exactly how much alcohol we had on board. It took 2 hours to figure out our duty and it hit the pocket book hard. Even as hard as that was, we had done the math and for the price in Canada we would have spent the same regardless. It worked out last year as there was a strike and we couldn’t even buy it if we wanted for most of the time we were here. The sad part last year was we had too much aboard. Our “ship stores” aren’t really meant to all be consumed in that short time but we paid the price as if we were going to. This year we still had a lot on board but apparently the connection was bad and the Canadian agent didn’t feel like doing the math. I was overjoyed to see Captain back on the dinghy in 10 minutes!
As he motored back, I played Taps and then Last Post, reversing the order now in a different country.
Captain, Cory and Bert really got into old stories and stayed up nearly to 1am. I was out at 11. We only have an 8-hour motor tomorrow and we will be in the heart of the North Channel. We go to sleep tonight surround by land and islands everywhere, the welcome of the protected waters we will call home for the next 3 weeks
