Day 97 to De Tour, Michigan

      Today we leave St. Ignace and venture to De Tour Harbor Marina, De Tour Village, MI, which is a 44.2 mile trip. De Tour is a French word meaning "the turn" and the Chippewa Indian name for this area was 'giwideonaning' meaning "point which we go around in a canoe".  The locals pronounce it like the more familiar "detour" where traffic is re-routed around road construction.
      Before leaving we took on 105 gallons of diesel and did the obligatory pump out.  While at the fuel dock a Coast Guard boat came in and turned around and headed out.  We thought for sure we would be approached once we left, but we never saw sight of them after the marina. We have not been boarded and inspected since Day 3 just east of Beaumont, Texas so we figure that it is about time...

The day started with fog and visibility of about a half mile. We turned on the running light, set the fog horn and turned on the radar. We also proceeded at slightly under our normal cruising speed. At 8 mph it takes about 4 second for us to travel one boat length so with up to a half mile visibility we have plenty of time to avoid debris in the water and other boats. We headed north and then east to go around the north side of Mackinac Island where we began to parallel the main shipping channel to Sault St Marie and the Soo Locks. We saw several freighters on the AIS, but their closest approach was abut 5 miles so we never saw them in the fog. We could hear their fog horns as they approached. Around Noon, the fog began to lift, and we saw the Martin Reef Lighthouse, which is about 13 miles west of the De Tour Passage (photo above right). It is also about 2 miles north of the westbound ship channel here.

       Our next point of interest was the De Tour Passage Lighthouse where ships turn to head more north through the De Tour Passage (or channel). The light is 74 feet above the big concrete base. The lighthouse has been deactivated, but it is possible to book tours or even make an overnight stay. However, if the weather turned sour, it might be several days before you could safely leave the lighthouse...

     At the same time we also passed the lake freighter Manitoulin down bound from Lake Superior with a load of Taconite pellets (iron ore) as she was coming out of the De Tour Passage and about to make a turn (or "detour") to the west as she passed the De Tour Lighthouse. According to the information on the AIS the 664 foot long ship had a closest approach to us of 4.8 miles, and she was travelling 14.8 mph. As you can see, the fog has largely lifted, but a thick haze remains. The Manitoulin is a little unconventional as you can see that the crane/conveyor belt for the self unloader is mounted on the bow. The majority of the self unloader had the conveyer mounted near the stern.

      As we continued into the De Tour Passage, we passed a gill net commercial fishing boat working a net. The profile of the boat is shown in the first picture where you can see large doors on the side near the bow and stern and an additional door across much of the stern.

      In the close up view in the photo at the right the net is being pulled into the door on the stern. The net is going back out through the door near the stern on the far side. There is a pull on both the net coming in and going out. This helps hold the boat in a constant position relative to the waves. They can choose which doors to use depending on the direction of the waves to help keep the boat as steady as possible. I have seen these boats on the Great Lakes since I was a little kid, but I had never had a real close up view of the whole process until today...

      As we approached our marina in De Tour on the west side of the passage we saw a huge gravel company on the waterfront across the river. The quarry is out of sight in the background. Here we see huge piles of crushed limestone waiting to be loaded onto a large self unloading barge for transport to a steel plant. The gravel plant is on Drummond Island. There is a chain of islands in a row, and Drummond Island near the middle is the only one that is in the U.S.  It makes me wonder how and why they carved up these island to give only one to the U.S. while all of the others are in Canada...

     A short distance to the north (left) of the gravel plant is the Drummond Island Ferry Terminal for the ferry from the mainland at De Tour. The Drummond Islander III is on the right and the Drummond Islander IV is on the left (photo at right). The D. I. IV had just docked and unloaded. It returned a short time later with a full load of vehicles for De Tour.

      By this time we were ready to make our turn into the De Tour municipal Marina. The photo was taken from the flybridge of Lucky Us after we were safely docked. As you can see, the marina was not very busy. Here we are kind of off the usual path for boats touring the North Channel to the east, and only the pleasure craft headed up the St Marys River to pass through the Soo Locks into Lake Superior would be stopping here.

     This is a small town and we finally thought Lucky would have a break from all the crowds, ferry horns, and fireworks.  As soon as we had taken her to shore a lake freighter went by a gave a booming master salute which is 3 long and two short blasts of its horns.  Oh well, maybe our next port.

     I only have one scenic picture from the Village of De Tour, and that photo (at the right) shows and interesting wood carving called the pathfinder. With me for scale you can see that the carving really is much bigger than life.

      The marina staff recommended a local restaurant about two locks away for dinner. The photo at the left shows how I ended my day feasting on lemon pepper encrusted whitefish. It was just the right amount of lemon pepper and a bit of lemon juice. What a great way to end a wonderful day on the water. Well, wonderful at least when the fog finally started to burn off.

Day 95 to 96 enjoying St Ignace, MI

      I started out the day by (you guessed it) sleeping in. Of course, the Admiral was up early and captured the photo at the right of the sunrise while taking Lucky on an early morning walk. Lucky is working on training the Admiral by standing at the top of the stairs down to the galley and shaking head, which causes the various tags on her collar to make noise. So far, her training seems to be going well... As you can tell by the clear sky overhead, we are in for another very nice day.
       When we were still on Mackinac Island, I decided that it was about time for an oil change on our main engines, and I searched for the nearest NAPA Auto Parts store that I found was actually in St Ignace about 4 days down the road. I figured that even with the Fourth of July Holiday that they would have plenty of time to get 6 gallons of our motor oil and several oil filters. I called, and they could get the oil in one day and the filters within our 4 day window. So, I did not worry, but it all managed to fall apart. The store that had the oil must have sold it, and the filters never did arrive... This was our first failure with NAPA, and part of the problem was the lack of stores in the area and distance between them, which made trading of supplies very difficult and slow. Quite different from bigger cities where they can get parts from another store usually in a few hours. Today, we checked in with the NAPA store to see if our oil and oil filters were ready to be delivered to our marina.  It turned out they were not, and they did not expect to get the oil until Wednesday. Wednesday we got additional news from the NAPA store that they did not get their delivery.  Drats!  We did some researching, and I found an auto supply store in Thessalon, Ontario that has what we need.  We should be there in 3 days so they are holding it for us. We are keeping our collective fingers crossed since we are heading into more remote areas over the next 10+ days.

     Also, early this morning the Admiral got the photo at the left of a small cruise ship passing St Ignace and headed north. The ship is in the channel between St Ignace and Mackinac Island to the east. It is not in the main shipping channel that heads up to Sault St. Marie and the Soo Locks that enable passage up into Lake Superior. However, it is a pretty channel and would lead either to the Soo Locks or somewhat east to the North Channel and Georgian Bay.
      We did more exploring of the town mainly along the waterfront that seemed to contain all of the stores of interest to us. As well as checking out our third different restaurant for more fish. I had the whitefish lunch special with broiled sweet potatoes. The broiled potatoes were served covered in a sauce with brown sugar as a main ingredient. No wonder they were so good! As you know by now, we seldom pass up a hardware store and St. Ignace had both an Ace and a True-Value hardware store. After Mackinac Island and Mackinaw City with seemingly endless fudge shops, we only saw two here, but fortunately one of them also served ice cream. So, I was able to feed my addiction for wild black cherry ice cream.

     At the south end of the marina there are two sets of stairs down to a very rocky beach. Lucky found this too good to pass up. First, she has decided that the cool lake water is far superior to her water dish on the boat. Second, she has taken to wading out into the water and rooting around in the rounded pebbles until she finds exactly the right one. She then sticks her head slightly under water to pick up her prize, which she brings back to shore and drops it before hurrying back out for another. She thinks that this is great fun, and it is now impossible to walk past this location without her collecting 2 or 3 more gems. When she is finished, she also enjoys some vigorous shaking to dry off. Then she is ready to leave the beach and continue her walk.

     Just beyond her beach is a former ferry dock where the railroad car ferry Chief Wawatam docked with a load of 16 railroad cars. The Chief was the last of the coal fired, steam powered ferries to be retired from this route in 1962. Rail traffic to the Upper Peninsula now is all routed around the west side of Lake Michigan. The ferry dock had been preserved as a park named after Chief Wawatam, and it includes this wooden statue in honor of the Chief (photo at left). The wooden boardwalk in the background goes out the length of the pier, and it is also typical of the waterfront boardwalk that goes along most of the downtown waterfront. The city did not obtain access to all of the waterfront since every now and then the walkways ends for one or two lots and then starts up again.

     At the end of the pier is the Wawatam Lighthouse that used to guide the train ferries from Mackinaw City (photo at right). The car and truck ferries took a shorter, more direct route across the Straits of Mackinac. That is the Admiral and Lucky seated at the base for scale. With its fresh coat of white paint it is one of the more scenic spots on the waterfront. It is no longer operational as a navigation aid, but its exterior is brightly lighted at night.

      On our second day, the Admiral organized an all "volunteer" work party for Lucky Us. Lucky did her part by keeping interested observers at bay while I served as the tool handler (aka gopher). We have struggled on both of our Loops to remove the brown moustache on the bow. It is caused by organic material in the water that sticks to the bow from both the bow wave and spray. We spend a lot of the trip in these organic rich waters, including most of the Gulf and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterways, the canal across Florida that includes Lake Okeechobee, as well as numerous rivers, especially the part from Chicago, IL to Mobile Bay in Alabama. As you can see in the photo above, the marina was not crowded, which is good since I have tried some nasty chemicals in the removal process, such as phosphoric acid and acetone.

The slip adjacent to Lucky Us was empty, which meant that we could turn the boat about 45 degrees to get the bow closer to one of the piers. The Admiral had purchased a bar with two suction cups on the ends at one of the local hardware stores, and she planned to use that to hold a kayak up against the hull. This would enable her to scrub hard as that seems to also be part of the process. We had one last sure fire hull cleaner to try before reverting to elbow grease with acetone on a towel. She painted on the cleaner with a bristle brush and about 5 minutes later we hosed it off, and the stains were completely gone without any rubbing (photo above). It's a "miracle"!!! Of course, this new cleaner is also nasty stuff with an organic acid, phosphoric acid and various other cleaners. Not surprisingly, the acids eat holes in clothing, but the bottom line is that the cleaner did the job with no effort. Now, if only I can remember where I bought it?
      We had already eaten once at each of the 3 local restaurants, and so for a repeat visit we chose to have lunch at the second of the three restaurants that we had tried so far. It was a tough choice since, as I said before, all three had at least 4 different local fish on the menu. I had the whitefish special again, and the Admiral joined me. It seems that she is becoming a fan of Great Lakes fish as well.

      We had dinner on the boat, and then headed to town for some ice cream for dessert. On the way back to the boat we stopped and enjoyed a concert on the main pier of the marina. It was two local musicians who performed mainly, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and John Denver classics. The photo at the right shows the happy concert goers. Well, Lucky could have cared less, except she got lots of "lovin" during the concert.

     The last photo shows the covered area where they performed for a crowd of only 40 people, but the audience kept changing as people wandered in and out. The concert was a really nice way to end a productive as well as fun day.

      Tomorrow we will head out to DeTour, MI, which is on the DeTour Passage, which is the main ship channel up to the Soo Locks. At 46 degrees North latitude it will also be the furthest North stop that we will make in the U.S. as we will enter Canada the day after that.

      So, I will end today's post just as we started the day with anther beautiful sunset over east Moran Bay where we had watched the fireworks just 24 hours earlier.

Day 94 across the Straits of Mackinac to St Ignace

It's the Fourth of July. Happy Birthday America!

      Today we are going 7.5 miles across the Straits of Mackinac to St. Ignace, Michigan. By crossing the Straits we are once again going to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We are also hoping that by going to a much smaller town that we will have less fireworks to upset Lucky...  The photo at the right shows Lucky enjoying the 4 to 6 mph breeze and essentially just ripples on the water. There were also the inevitable wakes from ferries and pleasure craft, but she stayed awake most of the one hour trip while her ears flapped in the breeze. We said goodbye to our new friends on the go fast boats. Their reply was something to the effect that you never know when we may see you again... Sure enough, they all were yelling and waving about 5 hours later when they pulled into our marina as it seems they had decided to come over to St Ignace for dinner.

      We arrived at St Ignace just before Noon, and the photo at the right shows Lucky Us in her slip all decked out for the Fourth of July. Yes, it is a bit of an over statement to say "all decked out" when we only had the banner on the aft end of the Flybridge. We did have time to change into appropriate clothes before we went to the parade that was down the main waterfront street right in front of the marina. No one seemed to notice that my red, white and blue shirt was actually the state flag of Texas.

      It was a really small town parade since the timing was really off. The lead vehicles came past at 1:20 pm, and they were 6 fire engines with lights flashing along with sporadic horns and sirens. The kids were scrambling about to collect candy that was thrown. Someone must have gotten a really good deal on Tootsie Rolls because over the course of the parade at least 90% of the candy was Tootsie Rolls. Then we were treated to our first gap of just several minutes.

      The photo at the left shows two typical parade watchers, including my Texas shirt. With only the very gentle breeze it was actually hot in the sun at the parade so we sought shade in front of one of the stores. The parade route covered just over a mile, and it was very well attended.

      Since school is out, there was only one "band" and that was the pep band from the local high school. They were very enthusiastic, and no one managed to fall off the packed trailer. Bands are one of my favorite parts of any parade, and I was a little disappointed that there were not more musical groups of any kind. The gaps in the parade continued to lengthen, but we hung in there.




      The last photo (at left) from the parade shows a golf cart that was pulling a float. I did not zoom in enough, but the golf cart is owned by "Captain's Quarters - Wash and Dry Dock". We had actually seen this Laundromat a short distance from the marina, and I was fascinated by the name as I think that quarter's and dry dock are marvelous plays on words. After about 40 minutes, we headed for lunch after another 10 minute lapse in the parade. We headed across the street to the Mackinac Grille and got seats in front where we could continue to watch the parade in air conditioned comfort while we waited for our lunch to be served.
      We had meals in a total of three restaurants here, and all three had at least 4 of the local fish (whitefish, lake trout, perch, walleye and/or bluegill) on the menus. Not only that, but you usually had a choice of how they were cooked (e.g. broiled, fried or pan fried). Up until here I had been unimpressed by the selection of local fish at literally all of the restaurants that we had eaten at on the Great Lakes. St Ignace certainly has been the exception so far.

      The rest of the afternoon involved several walks with Lucky, and the Admiral and I went "shopping" for ice cream... We had dinner at "The Galley", which is another waterfront restaurant with  a large selection of local fish. It was a first for me as I had the Lake Trout. It was quite flavorful and had an excellent texture. It did not just fall apart when you cut it like some fish.
      We got back to Lucky Us in time to see the sunset from the flybridge (photo at right).We are close to the southern end of the town that wraps about a mile around this small bay to the north. The fireworks display will be on the waterfront at the far right.

       The fireworks began at almost 10:30 pm (photo at left), and it was still not totally dark. There were, of course, plenty of other fireworks shot off by locals all around the bay before the main event. The dock master had been right when he said that our view from the flybridge would be one of the best views in town. We took two swivel captains chair out on the back of the flybridge and used light jackets with beach towels over our legs, and it was very comfortable. We left lucky in her kennel under the chart table at the lower helm station and cranked up the volume on the TV to hopefully drown out some of the noise.

      I really will not comment further on the fireworks, except to say that the display was unexpectedly good, especially with the reflections off the quiet water of the bay.

       The last one is one of my personal favorites...The camera has a huge 1200 mm zoom with an electronic stabilization feature that is truly amazing, especially on extreme zoom. However, it seem that even I can manage to fool the stabilization feature...

      One great thing about watching the fireworks from Lucky Us moored at the dock was that after the show was over, all we had to do was go below and crawl into bed after a long but wonderful day!

Day 93 enjoying Mackinaw City, MI

       The Admiral was up early walking Lucky, and she caught this sunrise  over Mackinac Island with the bridge lights still on (photo at right). We had a leisurely morning that included another nice long walk with the dog.  

       We ate lunch out at a fast food style joint that served fish and chips.  The perch were lightly battered the way they are suppose to be and were delicious. We had thought that we were headed to more of a restaurant, but they had plenty of seating with tables where you could people watch at all of the shoppers. The photo at left shows kind of a typical view of the main street shopping. It was sort of t-shirt shop then a fudge shop and then something else like an ice cream shop. So, of course, we stopped for ice cream on the way home. I had my usual black cherry in a cup.

      After feeding the dog we headed to another movie, "Legend of Tarzan".  It was interesting, but once again I was thankful that the popcorn was better. On the way to the mall area across the street we passed this human statue (photo at right). We remembered seeing him on our stop here during the first Loop. When the Admiral dropped a dollar in the donation pot, he made a quick swipe to give her his business card and then hardly before anyone could notice, he was back frozen in his pose. It was not very warm so he had it easy, but when it gets hot, I think that it would be a very tough way to earn a living.

      At this dock we are right across from four go fast cigarette style boats.  Each day they go cruising for several hours, and then would congregate on the dock for several hours in the evenings and morning while they cooked dinner and breakfast for the group. They usually had lunch in another town on one of their cruises.  It has been fun visiting with them each day as they were nice folks who were seriously having fun on the water. We had been initially afraid that they would party late, but the groups broke up about 9:00 pm each evening.

      The retired US Coast Guard Ice breaker Mackinaw is moored on the pier adjacent to the marina to the east. Since she was retired, the U.S. has not had a true icebreaker on the Great Lakes, and they have had to rely on there large tugs and buoy tenders to break ice and escort ships. In a relatively mild winter this is not a problem, and fortunately, Canada often diverts one of its icebreakers from the Arctic in the winter to help on the Great Lakes. The photo at the left shows her propeller that is on display near the street side ticket booth. The photo was taken at sunset during Lucky's final walk of the day.

      The photo at the left shows a view of the Mackinaw from the stern that was actually taken as we pulled into the marina yesterday. She is decorated with lots of flags probably in honor of the Fourth of July, which is tomorrow. You can see how the sides slope fairly steeply inward. The bow is also kind of spoon shaped so that she rides up over the ice. The weight of the ship pushes the brittle ice down and breaks it. She was designed to do this in a continuous motion so that icebreakers are rated by the thickness of ice that they can break while slowly steaming. The smaller tugs and buoy tenders often have to ram the ice to break it, and then they have to back up in order to repeat the process, which is not very efficient.

     Well, another fun day, and of course, once again we go to bed early and tired... Speaking of tired, Lucky has taken to sleeping in her kennel that is built in underneath the chart table. She knows that we cannot reach in there to try and drag her out for another walk. If you even look like you are going to try, she will start with a very soft growl just to let you know...

Day 92 leaving one Mackinac (Island) and heading to another Mackinaw(City)

      Yup, it is confusing with two spellings (Mackinac and Mackinaw), but the locals all pronounce both of them with the "Mackinaw" spelling...Mackinac Island and the Straits of Mackinac (and bridge over the Straits) all use the Mackinac spellings, and everything else is Mackinaw...
     It is perhaps very fitting that we departed Mackinac Island in the company of a classic wooden yacht. We never got that close to her while there, but she is a well loved and lovingly cared for "woody". However, just to rub it in she quickly outdistanced us. In the background is St Anne's Catholic Church, it has had a presence in the Straits of Mackinac since the arrival of Jesuit Missionaries in the 1670s, and parts of the present church date from 1780. Sadly it was closed the day that we tried to go there due to a malfunction in the sprinkler system that flooded large parts of the church, but it was due to reopen the day we left.

     Another parting view is shown in the photo at the right. Up of the hill is Fort Mackinac, along the waterfront are ferry docks, and at the left of the picture is a long ferry dock with warehouses (not in picture) for goods coming to the island.  The back side of the warehouse is the start of the main shopping district that extends off to the left. Part of the marina where we stayed is in the foreground in the center and right.

      We also had a great final view of one of the many classic old, Victorian hotels that are on the island (photo ar right) and contribute greatly to the historical nature of the island. We had a great time here, and it will definitely rate as one of the highlights of our second Great Loop!
     Now it is time to make a turn and head away from the past. Today our destination is Mackinaw City Marina.  This is a whopping 7.4 mile trip, so less than an hour of travel time.  We  left at mid morning and arrived less than an hour later.  We will be staying there for two nights.

      On the trip over we had another great view of the bridge over the Straits of Mackinac (photo at left). However, the real reason for this photo is to show the great weather. The sky was clear and blue, and the wind was 4 to 6 mph, which produced little more than ripples on the water. However, with 6 or more ferries departing and arriving every half hour plus lots of pleasure craft our "smooth" ride was constantly interrupted with wakes from every direction.  

     We did get a close up view of one of the Star Lines water jet powered ferries (photo at right) with the spectacular (artificial) rooster tale. The rooster tale gives these ferries a very distinctive look, and since you can see them from miles away, it is also probably great advertising... My quick calculation is that they go at least 25 mph, and they do our nearly hour long trip in 17 minutes. It is fun to watch them race past us, but we could probably travel for a week on the fuel that they burn on just one trip.

      Once at our dock in the Mackinaw City Marina we went ashore to the office to check in and take Lucky for her obligatory walk. The marina shares the entrance and main channel with one of the ferry companies, and they blow one long blast on their horns as they are ready for departure. Lucky could do without that "strange" noise. After getting back to the boat, we had a very light lunch as we were headed for a movie at 2:00 pm. On the way to the movie we stopped at the marina store, which had a very good inventory of boat "stuff", and we made several purchases for on going projects. The movie theater is in a large mall directly across the street from the marina. The mall has an interior park like mall with a small concert area as well as beautiful landscaping, and the theater is at the far end (of course) so we passed all of the fudge shops, t-shirt stores, etc. We saw "BFG" that stands for Big Friendly Giant. The movie was okay, but the popcorn was above average, which made a big difference in my movie experience... After the movie, we exited the mall and walked back to the marina down the main shopping district. We mainly window shopped, but my favorite store was our stop for ice cream. I tried the black cherry ice cream, and I am definitely hooked on that. It is full of locally grown black cherries, and it has a strong cherry flavor without being sweet.

Day 90-91 living the life on Mackinac Island

      We arrived on Day 89 at about 3:30 pm.  We did not have a reservation after all, but they were able to accommodate us for not only our original plan of two nights but an additional third night too.  The photo at the right shows Lucky Us (center, left) backed into her slip. We had declined help from marina staff, but we coordinated a smooth docking in spite of a cross wind (and with a fairly large audience...).

      We had dinner out at the Yankee Rebel Tavern.  We shared chicken lettuce wraps for an appetizer. I had the pistachio crusted whitefish, and the Admiral had their famous pot roast.  It was a very good meal, and we also had time to check out the location of the Post Office where the Admiral was expecting to pick up some mail in the morning. The photo at the right shows one of the many private gardens. The island is 83% owned by the state of Michigan. The houses are privately owned, and they pay up to $50,000 per year to rent the land. Of course, we enjoyed an ice cream on the way back to the boat

       On Day 90 we slept in and then had a wonderful lunch at the Chippewa Hotel waterfront restaurant with a great view of the harbor (photo at right).  The Admiral had fish tacos and I had a fish sandwich without the bun. Before lunch the Admiral made two trips to get our mail, first from the post office and then to the UPS store.  The photo at the right shows us with lunch just having been served -more Whitefish for me. The background is washed out by the bright sun, but we switched to seats on the other side of the table to watch ferries coming and going.

      The photo at the left shows one of our other views at lunch off toward the marina. Most of the waterfront buildings in the photo are Victorian guest houses or small hotels. The main street runs in front of the houses and continues along the water's edge all of the way around the island (8.2 miles in all).

      We were also treated to a great view of the cruise ship Pearl Mist that made a day long stop at the island (photo at left). The ship makes10 or 11 day cruises starting in either Chicago, Illinois or Toronto, Ontario and ending in the other city. She has only 108 luxury, waterfront staterooms each with a private balcony. Pearl Mist is a beautiful ship, but  she looked kind of out of place here in an island that is a step back in time.

      After lunch and ice cream, we did the hour long carriage ride tour with one other couple.  It was a two horse tandem that pulled the carriage, which had two seats. We sat in the front of the two seats, and it was like we had our own private carriage. The photo at the right shows us headed up a hill toward the Grand Hotel. It was really like stepping back in time. We are crossing a golf course on the right and a park on the left in front of the hotel.

      We also had a treat as our carriage went past the entire length of the front of the Grand Hotel. The businesses here do not miss a beat when it comes to making a dollar. In order to protect the privacy of their guests, the hotel charges $10.00 per person to walk along the front of the hotel, and we got to do it in grand style in our carriage...

     The carriage made a short bathroom stop where we could also walk through a small museum of restored carriages that showed changing carriage styles over the years. As we were departing, we had a chance to see a really elegant carriage and smartly dressed driver leave the stables (photo at right). It was headed to the Grand Hotel for a private tour...

     We had done one of the longer horse drawn tours on our last stop at Mackinac Island in 2014. Those "carriages" are more like big wagons with rubber tires, and they range up to 35 passengers pulled by three big draught horses. The shorter tour in a real carriage was definitely worth it!

      We also got to see some of the beautiful Victorian homes close up on our carriage ride (e.g. the photo at left). I mentioned that the land is rented, add to that taxes and especially up keep on these historic wooden houses. There are only a couple of winterized private homes on the island. The rest are uninsulated and are not ever allowed to be used in the winter.

      Oh well, just one more picture of one of the Victorian beauties (photo at right). I love looking at these houses, but I decided long ago that I would never buy one. The thought of all of the exterior maintenance really scared me...
      In the evening we ate on the boat and then enjoyed a free concert while walking around town and yes, enjoying another ice cream. I will readily admit to an addiction for ice cream and there were plenty of ice cream shops. However, the island is really known for its fudge, and the fudge shops out numbered the ice cream shops by at least two to one. 

      We are at our dock at the Mackinac Island State Harbor Marina, and about 6:00 pm, the bulk carrier Edwin H, Gott passed by the new Round Island Passage Light. She is most likely headed up bound to the St. Marys River. I really liked the first photo (at left) with the flags, ferry with a rooster tail spraying upward and the Round Island Light. The Gott is in the channel off the main channel through the Straits of Mackinac, and she is headed to the St Marys River where she will go through the Soo locks and into Lake Superior.
      The second photo of the Gott shows her a little closer so you get an even better view of the immense size. She is 1,010 feet long and 105 feet wide, which is about as big a ship that can pass through the Soo locks. There are 13 "footers", as the 1,000 foot freighters are known, currently sailing on the upper Great Lakes. They are too long to fit into the Welland Canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario or to fit through the St Lawrence Seaway Locks so they could never leave the upper lakes. They were all built about the 1980s as bulk carriers for iron ore or coal in response to new longer, wider locks at the Soo. They were limited in the number of ports that they could enter because they could not make the turns in many harbors with winding channels.

The photo at the left shows part of the aft super structure, including the pilot house. They have advanced self unloading systems and can unload their entire cargo in about 8 hours.

      On Day 90 we also had a leisurely morning and then ate lunch out at Huron Street Bar and Grill.  The Admiral had chicken pot pie, and I had fish and chips.  Following lunch we unloaded the bikes and rode the waterfront ring road to the arches.  We thought we might go around the island, but since we could not use the electric portion of the bikes and the wind was so strong, we decided not to and turned around shortly after seeing the natural rock arch (photo at right). 

      There was a lot of rock art along the shore, but none of it rivaled the fantastic delicately balanced rock art that we see on Face Book, etc. However, it added a fun touch to the views along the beach.  After riding back to the marina, I decided that I was finished bike riding for the day, but the Admiral went on after the marina. She  went though downtown and on about another mile before turning around and joining Lucky and me at the boat. 

      Friday evening we walked to the other side of downtown and enjoyed sitting in the Windermere Park (photo at right) watching the ferries arrive and depart while eating ice cream... This red buoy is permanently mounted here, and it marks one end of the Chicago to Mackinac sailboat race. The race has been held annually in July since 1898, and at 330 miles it is the world's longest inland sailboat race.

      Dinner was at Mary's Bristro where we both had a petite salad. Then the Admiral had Mac and Cheese with real pieces of ham in it, and I had a Margarita Pizza.  We then shopped our way back to the boat.  We crashed early after a really fun filled (but tiring) day.  It was nice to hear Taps played at the nearby fort as an ending to each day. 

      Of note, for Lucky, this location was one of her worse stays.  She did not like the canon firing from the fort up the hill from us, and she did not like the sound of the horse's hooves on the pavement. She also did not like all traffic with people and bikes rushing everywhere.  During the day, there are constant wakes from ferries and pleasure craft causing a great deal of rocking and rolling of Lucky Us. It was all we could do to get her to get off the boat long enough to take care of her business.  I think she will be happy to move on to a new location, and this is certainly part of our decision to only stay here for 3 nights.