Day 62 - To Washington Island
We didn’t need to get up early today as the weather is calm all day and we only needed to travel for three hours. I put water in our tanks and Captain fixed a track car on our main sail that broke. I forgot to mention that on our return on Thursday. When we brought down the main sail, we noticed the last track car was not attached to mast only to find the original bronze car had snapped in half. There is a lot of force there so I guess after 74 years it gave out. That is the second bronze part that has snapped in our time with Ciara. We try and give everything a look when rigging, but it is impossible to catch them all. I managed to split my lip pretty bad while managing the bathroom stall on land. It hurt really bad, but thankfully my teeth are ok, just a nasty cut on the inside that will prevent me from playing my trumpet for a few days. It just goes to show how dangerous land is! Before we left we got word that mom was coming home from the hospital and that was good news!
We finally left the dock around 10am. I made breakfast for us underway as it was calm and tried to write my log. I found it interesting that I had nothing to say about all the things back on land but when at sea life seems more interesting and I have more to type about. I had been really tired all morning so I took a quick hour nap before we came up to Washington Island. The smog from the fires is very real and everything feels like we are in a thick haze and around sun up and sun down the reds are eerie and apocalyptic. It makes sailing very strange as well as visibility is down because of it.
We counted how many times we have been here with Ciara. We counted this being our 4th time. Only one was for a real visit for our friend’s wedding and we were excited to come and use our scooters. Captain said he bought our scooters for this island in particular. Being so close to our home waters you’d think we’d have been here more often but it was just far enough that we couldn’t get here easily on a weekend and if we had more time then that we went to Michigan. The fact that it is now just 3 hours away from our new home marina is pretty awesome.
We couldn’t get on the wall near the ferry so we headed through the channel into Detroit Harbor and dropped the hook in a clear patch that was free of weeds. Last time we came in here we used paper charts and had us all on bow watch as it is a narrow cut for us. Now with Navionics (live GPS charts) Captain was able to weave in with no issues. Those electronic charts really make things easier.
We set up our new motor, the first time with just two of us managing our halyard system and took Kona to the one little sand beach we could see nearly a mile away (did I mention this is pretty big anchorage and we are far from land again?). There was a pub on the pier, a marina and a cute park. That was about it. Enough for Kona to play frisbee and swim and she was happy.
We retuned her to Ciara and packed up our scooters. Washington Island is really no bigger then 5x5 miles around so we would go explore! We scooted past “town” and headed up to School House Beach. It is a beautiful round stone beach. It is neat to see but not my favorite as it does not make a great walking beach due to the size of the stones.
As we made our way to the north and Jackson Harbor we stopped at a fire tower which had spectacular views. Both of us noted our legs really hurt on the climb and concluded that standing with legs locked on the scooters for many miles starts to fatigue them as well.
We checked out Jackson Harbor and could see Rock Island just off to the north with the large stone boat house welcoming visitors.
Of course we stopped at Nelsen’s on our way back. Nelsen’s is famous as the longest continuously run pub in Wisconsin remaining open even through prohibition. The story is the owner was also a doctor and was able to prescribe bitters for stomach ailments and apparently everyone on the island suffered from the same aliment. I joined “the bitters club” many years ago so I just enjoyed a really good Old Fashioned that was heavy on the bitters and we cheered on another couple join who was there for the first time and celebrating 45 years of marriage.
The day had slipped past to 7pm by the time we finished at Nelson’s. I was able to get some strong Wi-Fi there and check the weather. I told Captain we would have to be up super early tomorrow to make a run to Frankfort and I was still really tired. I looked at the weather and there is a better crossing window on Wednesday so we will do that and enjoy another day here and get some much-needed rest time. The winds are going to blow after that a few days but I can’t think of a place I’d rather be held up for a few days then Frankfort!
With our freezer full of food from our turn around we make Chicken Piccata for dinner and it was delicious. Dishes were done around 10 and I called it a night as I was just wiped.
