7/29 - St. Ignace (Mackinac Island)

Taxi ride to the Grand Hotel

The Grand

The Grand Hotel Dining Room (a Grand Lunch at the Grand Buffet)

Porch View Left

Porch View Right

View from the porch

Our ride back to town awaits

Having done some chores (laundry, boat maintenance) earlier in the morning, we took an 11:30 a.m. ferry to Mackinac. The racing boats had completely evacuated the harbor, but some of the ferry dock space was now occupied by a small American Caribbean Cruise Line ship, the Grande Mariner with 100 passengers aboard.

Today the town was really crowded with bicyclers, people horse-back riding, and the regular horse-drawn buggies as well as pedestrians. We surveyed the scene for awhile, and then George summoned a taxi (also horse-drawn) which took us up to the Grand Hotel. Upon entering we were greeted by a concierge who advised us that the fee was $10.00 per person to tour the hotel and its grounds, but that fee could be used to off-set the cost of lunch in the Dining Room which was $40.00 per person. Since this was our plan, we then made our way to the next level to the enormous Dining Room over-looking the famous football- field long porch with a stunning view of the water.

The buffet lunch was indeed lavish with many choices of fruits, salads, shrimp, oysters, cold meats, breads, and prime rib, fish, chicken, pasta entrees and potato and vegetable accompaniments. Following the tables filled with these items, came the sumptuous dessert tables. Needless to say, we enjoyed a wonderful lunch in a delightful atmosphere, and decided that considering that there was no additional tax or tipping allowed, the price was quite reasonable for the caliber of food, ambience, and service we received.

We next ventured out onto the porch to sit in the sunshine on two of the hundreds of rockers placed out there, and conversed about the numerous friends we have who would have really enjoyed being here with us. We returned to town via the elegant Grand Hotel carriage to do some shopping and then took the ferry to St. Ignace after having had a special day on Mackinac.

7/28 - St. Ignace (Mackinac Island)

Local Transportation

Stone arch

Fort Mackinac and the tea room deck

Downtown Mackinac

Lunch with a view

We boarded the ferry to Mackinac Island at 9:30 a.m. for the 5 mile crossing. As we approached the harbor, the scene was extremely festive, since approximately 100 sailboats that participated in the Port Huron - Mackinac Race filled the docks with banners and flags flying. Ashore, no automobiles are permitted and transportation is done by horse and buggy, bicycle, or foot.

We joined our fellow tourists and our first order of business was to take a carriage tour of the island in order to get an overview of things, and then we wanted to tour Fort Mackinac. The tour made various stops, and we got to see the huge, lovely Grand Hotel. We had a great time at the Fort, where we saw and took part in several re-enactments of military life in the 1880s. We also had lunch provided by the Grand Hotel on a promontory of the Fort with a view that was absolutely gorgeous! We toured several historic sites in town that were also part of the Fort tour, and then returned to St. Ignace by ferry. We decided that we would go to lunch and tour the Grand Hotel tomorrow, as well as do some shopping in this definite tourist mecca.

7/27 - St. Ignace, Michigan

Boat Houses along Les Cheneaux

St. Ignace Marina

After winding our way carefully through the Les Cheneaux Islands (meaning channels) with about 11 miles of shallow depths and twisting turns, we finally entered the open waters of Lake Huron for the final 12 miles of our journey to the St. Ignace Municipal Marina. St. Ignace is the location of one of the ferry crossings to Mackinac Island and is on the northern side of the vast Mackinac Island Bridge over the Straits. The marina is protected by a huge stone breakwater, and we decided that this would be a better place to keep "Reflection" in view of the huge ferry wakes that occur in Mackinac Island itself or in commercial Mackinaw City, another ferry crossing on the mainland side. As we approached, we came behind Mackinac Island and caught sight of the Bridge as we made our turn toward the harbor. We were tied up by 11:30 a.m., and spent the rest of the day making our plans for how we would spend our next two days visiting famous Mackinac Island. Docked next to us was "Morningstar", a Grand Banks 49, owned by Gerry and Jeanne Cilibraise from Livonia, Michigan. They had completed the "Loop" recently, and had kept the boat in Marathon, Florida last winter, so they shared lots of local information with us about Lake Michigan, and had other suggestions for us about good harbors, etc. for the rest of our trip.

7/26 - Les Cheneaux Islands

De Tour Light

With the skies still overcast and the temperatures in the low 60s we traveled 28 miles through the DeTour Passage to the Les Cheneaux Islands located along the northwest shore of Lake Huron. The winds were fairly light and we proceeded to Government Bay, one of the best anchorages in this group of 100 islands. Though the wind did come up later in the day, we spent a calm night with occasional rain on the hook.

7/25 - Drummond Island

Since we awoke to heavy rain (at least it didn't snow), we decided to stay at Drummond Island Yacht Haven another day to do chores, make phone calls, and to plan out the next segment of our trip on Lake Michigan. Dan and Mary Jo, who we met last evening, turned out to be a great source of local knowledge as to the best places to go in the next few weeks, and we made some changes to our itinerary based on their information. Later we rented a car at the marina to do some grocery shopping, and returned back just in time to host the Houles and the Florys on our boat for cocktails and stories.

7/24 - Drummond Island, Michigan

We spent our last Canadian money at the fuel dock before we left this morning, and headed out on our 43 mile crossing to the U.S. About an hour out we headed into pea-soup thick fog, and were very thankful for our radar. We also decided that sitting on the fly-bridge in cold and damp conditions wasn't that much fun, so we went below and ran the boat across from our cozy main salon. Eventually the fog cleared, and as we approached Drummond Island the sun even came out! Alleluia! As we crossed into U.S. waters, Pat hummed "The Star-Spangled Banner" and coming into the channel we were happy to see American flags flying at all the houses as we approached. Our five weeks in Canada were great, but we simply missed our own country and were glad to be "coming home"! Within 15 minutes of docking, a U.S. Customs and Immigration official came on board, checked us out, and charged us $27.50 for a decal which will be sent us to display on the boat. He didn't really care or check if we had bought anything in Canada, all he really cared about was that we didn't bring any lamb, goat, or citrus into the country. So, we threw the lambs and goats over-board, and disposed of the one lime we had left in our gimlets that evening. "Houlegan" arrived an hour later, and Ray and Caryl invited us to their boat that evening with another couple who were aboard their Island Packet 35 sailboat from Michigan, Dan and Mary Jo Flory.

7/23 - Blind River, Ontario

This morning we left under bleak skies and in cool temperatures for Blind River, a port 27 miles away from Gore Bay on the north shore of the North Channel. This location was our last in Canada. Just as George thought we would leave the country without Canadian Customs boarding our boat, two officials made their way down the dock checking other boats and then headed to ours! All they did was check our boat papers and stamp our passports, and they didn't even board our boat because they thought the boat was so beautiful that they didn't want to come into the main salon with dirty shoes! We later took a cab into town to celebrate our last night in Canada with dinner at the "Mustang Bar" at the "Iron Horse Restaurant". It was "wing" night, which always attracts the Captain. Pat ordered a jumbo shrimp cocktail and a rib and wing combo platter which came with a salad. George ordered a platter of chicken wings, poutine (a Canadian dish of fries covered with gravy and cheese), and an order of onion rings. You can imagine our surprise when this already "over the top" feast came out with a shrimp and fries platter in place of the shrimp cocktail. Our table was filled! It was a cardiologist's nightmare! We ended up taking most of the wings and ribs back to the boat, and had lots of laughs on our last night in town!