Nearly to the “Top”

We’re almost to the farthest point north that we’re going to travel.  We’re already above 45 degrees north latitude, which is half way between the earth’s equator and the North Pole.  When we pass under the Straights of Mackinac Bridge, we’ll finally turn south for the next 1000 miles or so.

Expensive homesteads along the St Clair River
in Port Huron, right at the southern edge
of Lake Huron

We left Port Huron on August 21 after the cold front passed through, hoping to take advantage of a weather window to travel about 275 miles in 3 long (8-10 hour) days up to Mackinaw City MI.  As we passed under the Blue Water Bridge connecting Port Huron with Sarnia Ontario, we hit as much as 4 mph head current.  Since we only travel at 10 mph, it cut our headway by 40%.  All the water that flows from Lake Huron down into Lake Erie must pass through this narrow neck of water only a couple hundred yards wide.  From what I’ve read, slow sailboats sometimes have a heck of a time passing this spot northbound.

The old lightship is now a tourist attraction in Port Huron

Our 3 days of cruising were all about the same, so here’s the “Executive Summary”.  After a cold front, the weather gets cold & windy.  We wore jackets & long pants – in the middle of August!  Haven’t done that in quite a while.  And the winds were generally west at 15 gusting to 20, which made waves in the middle of the Lake up to 6’.  The only reason that we could travel for these 3 days was because we were hugging the western shore of the lake to be somewhat in the lee, where the waves were only about 2’.  But we still had our share of rockin’ n rollin’, and lots of things inside the boat found their way to the floor.

The third day, we got underway from our anchorage long before the sun got up, trying to make Mackinac before the next cold front with severe thunderstorms got there.  Unfortunately, the storms beat us by about 3 hours, so we diverted to our alternate marina in Cheboygan MI.  CHEBOYGAN?!?  I had never heard of this place, but now I can’t say that!

A beautiful sunrise still turned into a snotty windy day!

Since we left Port Huron, the water has been a rich blue, and the clearest I’ve seen since we’ve been cruising.  When we anchor for the night, we can see the bottom 10-15 feet below us.  Sure would like to go swimming, but 60 degree water temps tend to spoil all the fun.

We’ll travel the last 16 miles to Mackinaw City when the winds die down, and spend a couple days acting like tourists.  Then we’ll make the jump into Lake Michigan & start south.  We hope to take a couple weeks visiting the Wisconsin side of the lake before passing through Chicago into the Inland River system of the U.S. of A.