Waking up on day two of being husband and wife Cindy and I were excited to get started off on our Honeymoon. Cindy had made the suggestion that we sail the north channel of lake Huron early on and it sounded like a very adventurous way for us to celebrate our wedding so I was all in. So over the past year I have been researching, planning, and outfitting our boat to meet the challenge.
Originally I had hoped to roll out about 6 am and head north to Sault St Marie to cross in to Canada but that did not pan out so it was a little after 8 am that Jerry was taking this pic of us before we headed north.
Finally, we were pulling out of the Cottonwood Inn in Empire MI and heading north to set sail! The drive up was very relaxed and the weather was near perfect. As we passed through Charlevoix MI where we would be sailing in a week, there was a car show going on as we passed through the downtown area. We saw lots of cool cars but this van? really caught my eye.
We had no clue what it was but if one of our readers does please let us know as we are still curious. We had a ways to go before we reached the Mackinac bridge so my bride decided to catch up on the sleep she lost the night before since we stayed on the beach till midnight.
Soon we were pulling onto I 75 just south of the bridge and as I merged onto the interstate the bridge came into view in the distance
About now is when people started passing us blowing their horns and giving us thumbs up. They must had read the sign on the back of the boat. Before long we were crossing eh 7 mile long Mackinac bridge to the UP of MI.
It was a gorgeous day and we could see for miles and miles from the bridge. Quick stop at the toll booth and we were in the UP! Next stop was the border!
One of the things I had read was how to prepare for the border crossing with the boat. I read enough horror stories of boat searches that I erred on the side of caution and made sure I had all our paperwork straight and went so far as to get a file folder and even drew a diagram of the boat in AutoCAD labeling all the storage area with what they held in case they wanted to see what all we were carrying. AS we crossed the international bridge I grabbed my folder as Cindy looked out on the shoals that separate lake Superior from lake Huron.
The shoals are the whole reason for the Sault St Marie locks and dams. Our phones welcomed us to Canada as we crossed the boarder and we pulled up to the customs booth. The lady working the booth took our passports and drivers license and asked us four simple questions. Where are we going? Spanish Ontario. How long will be staying? One week. Do we have any firearms? No. Do we have any alcohol? 4 bottle of wine. Have a great trip and enjoy your time in Canada. Well that was easy. But I had somewhat expected that as almost everyone who has trailered to the North Channel has said it is far easier to get into Canada than back into the states.
We worked our way through the streets of Canadian Sault St Marie and finally found a grocery store to get our fresh food for the boat at. We brought all of our dry and canned goods so all we needed was the perishable items we wanted, and more alcohol! We found pretty much everything we wanted minus a few small items but all was good and we were headed east to Spanish in no time. About now is when our phones informed us that we were now international travelers and we need some sort of international calling plan. Guess I never really thought of crossing into Canada as international travel. We would have to deal with that when got a signal as we lost it shortly after leaving the east side of Sault St Marie.
It was very pretty as we traveled east towards Blind River. We were keeping our eyes out for a liquor store and finally found a beer store. Hard to miss as it said BEER STORE in big letters. This was one of the first big differences we noticed between life in the states, other than the 90 kmh speed limit. Turns our in Ontario, the beer and liquor stores had to be separate stores unless they were so far from another town that had them then they could combine both into one store. We walked in and the first thing we noticed was there was no beer anywhere. We watched the guys in front of us go up to flat screen and start punching around on it so we went to the other one and learned that you found what you wanted on there and then placed your order. The workers in the back would then place your items on a conveyor and send them up to the cashier. A bit strange but when in Canada do as the Canadians do. So we picked out what we wanted, they have Bud light lime in cans north of the boarder! They sent our items up and then we were informed that 2 twelve packs of Bud Light Lime, a 12 pack of Strawberry Ritas, and 12 pack of Lime A Ritas, were almost 85 bucks!!!! Holy Smoke!!! I handed her an American hundred dollar bill to which she did do the currency conversion for and gave us back around 50 in Canadian bills and coins. For some reason I felt violated as we walked out. Back on the road east and glad we did not live here full time, we continued our journey to Spanish.
We pulled into Spanish about 4 and the first thing we notices was how impoverished the area looked. It had defiantly seen better days. Once the mines closed down the town really went into decline. I am not sure Cindy was thinking the same thing I was but I was sure hoping the marina was nicer than the town. Luckily it was! The Marina was probably the nicest building in town, minus the Liquor store that was right on the corner where we turned off the highway to go to the marina. After checking in with the marina workers and paying for our slip for the week we pulled up next to a MacGregor 26S named Deja Vu and started getting the Memory Maker ready to launch.
We had not been working on the boat for five minutes when I ran my forehead into the grill mount on the rear pulpit and took a chunk out of my forehead. I turn the mount down so it does not stick out when we trailer down the road. I had yet to turn it back up and it caught me. First drops of blood shed on the honeymoon and we had not even got to the hard part yet. Bad sign...
We made quick work of stepping the mast and within the hour we had her ready to launch. Cindy and I made use of the nice restrooms one last time before we launched and then backed her down into the water. One nice thing about the marina was the workers would help you launch. Their boat ramp was very nice and you just had to back down beside the dock and let your boat float off the trailer then tie her off to the dock. It was so much nicer than what we have to deal with back at our home lake where Cindy backs me down in the boat till I can float away then I have to come back and get her at the side docks. We were spoiled.
With the truck parked we were ready to head off on our grand adventure of the North Channel. With Cindy at the helm we made our way out of the marina and into the marked channel that lead our into the lake. The Spanish river dumped all of it's sediment at the confluence where it meets the lake and it had gotten very shallow. So they had dredged a channel 9 or so feet deep. Get out of the channel and it very quickly drops to 2 or 3 feet. We need at least 5 feet with keel down so we stayed in the channel. Soon we were clear of the last marker and up the mainsail went. We were sailing on the North Channel!
Our spirits were high as we felt like we had done it! A year in the making and all the work and we were finally on the North Channel and it was beautiful. It took us a few minutes to figure out the charts and where we were at in relation to the rocks and islands but soon we had our bearings and we set course for Shanly Island to spend the night on a secluded little beach.
Turns out the winds in this part of the channel were much like they were at home. Indecisive would be a good way to describe them. So we had to tack back and forth a bit but we were getting there and should get to our destination well before dark. As we worked our way south we took in all the sights of the granite islands.
Picture just don't do them justice. It was very pretty. Sadly, someone beat us to our desired location so we planned on going around the south side of Shanly and anchoring on the southwest corner of Green Island. It was about now I went below to check on things. I opened up the keel locker and peeked in to find about an inch of standing water!!!!! TURN AROUND!!!!! WERE TAKIGN ON WATER!!!!!
Talk about letting the air out of your sails in a hurry! I soaked up the water with the chamois I keep aboard and then removed the port side cover plate for the keel bolts. More water there. As Cindy motored us back to Spanish on the path we just came on it was hard for me to fight back the tears. This was a serious issue and I knew it. Water was coming in around the keel bolts and the only way to fix it required the boat to be in the air. That would take me 20 mins at home but I cant do that in the marina parking lot. We were screwed. I felt so awful as I know one of the big reasons Cindy suggested we do this was because she thought it was something I would enjoy. I knew it was not her first choice so I did everything I could do to make the boat as comfortable for her as possible to maximize her enjoyment. Right now it was looking like that was all for nothing. I felt totally defeated. Here is how far we made it on try number one.
The blue line is the path we sailed and then the way we motored back to Spanish. At least we got to see Little Detroit. Not looking like we will get to go through it though...
The best I could do was hang my head on the way back to Spanish. I felt like I had already let my new bride down. Cindy was awesome in spite of the set back. She kept saying it will be fine. Oh, how little did she know...
We made it back to the channel and back to the boat ramp right before dark. Sadly I walked back to the parking lot to get the truck and trailer then we recovered our boat and headed to the parking lot where we would be spending the night in the boat. We arrived at our new "campsite" at the same time as every last mosquito in Ontario!!!! I can't begin to describe how many there were as I don't think there has ever been a number that counted that high!!! I knew were in trouble now as in order for us to be able to sleep in the boat we had to get the pop top up and the tent top I made for it on as that is was sealed the boat up. Between swatting mosquitos we climbed up the boat like squirrels being chased up a tree by our boys back home! We threw the top up and tried as fast as we could to get the tent top on. Normally it takes 5 to 7 minutes to install it. We did it in 2 but that might as well be two years instead of minutes. My white legs were black, and I mean black they had so many mosquitos on the. I would run my hands down my legs and sling them off but there were a million more ready to replace them. I had never seen anything like this even in the movies!
Finally we had the top on and we dove into the safe refugee of the boat, only to discover we had trapped at least a 1000 mosquitos in the boat with us!!!!! The next two hours were spent engaged in close quarters combat as I tried to kill all those blood sucking dirty bastards that invaded our love nest!!!
I guess I should say at this point I am having a complete and utter come apart!!! I wanted to burn the boat or at least shoot it full of holes. Oh, that is right, you can't carry in Canada. Good thing as there would be a lot of boats riddled with bullet holes! At one point my new wife of 48 hours had the audacity to tell me it wasn't that bad. My response? "Not that bad???? Look around you Cindy!!! Were on the threshold of HELL!!!!!" As I continue to swing the fly swatter. Remember the Deja Vu? Well they were parked about 10 feet from where we parked and they were already shut up in there boat. Basically boats are like tents and I am sure they heard every part of my melt down. Cindy told me at one point, "Sam, the neighbors." It was her attempt to get me calm down a bit. Sadly it did not work. My response to her is something I can't write in this blog, but Deja Vu, if you read this. I just want to apologize for my response. I am normally a very quite and laid back neighbor. Sadly when I get like this I resemble a runaway nuclear reactor in full blown meltdown mode. Luckily the half life of these come aparts are much shorter than the half life of plutonium. Not only had all the planning and preparation for the trip been in vain, now these darn Canadian blood suckers were trying to drain Cindy and myself of what little blood we had left. It was kill or be killed and kill is what I did.
It was almost midnight before I had then beat down to a manageable number. My pulse rate and blood pressure were still off the high ends of both scales. Cindy was still hiding under the covers in the v birth as I hunted down the last few of those dirty dirty bastards. My incredible wife finally coaxed me under the covers with her sometime after midnight where I finally calmed down enough to just collapse from exhaustion.
We woke up sometime after the sun came up and took stock of our surroundings. The inside of the boat looked like a OJ Simpson crime scene there was so many blood spatters from all the mosquitos I had killed. WE finally were able to laugh a bit as we crawled out of the boat on our way to the marina to get cleaned up. We saw our neighbors in Deja Vu, who quickly retreated inside their boat when they saw us. Probably fearful Dr Jeckle was going to return to the area.
We laughed our way to the marina only to discover the building was closed sue to "Hydro Outage" Hydro is what Canadians refer to as electricity. I tried not to figure that one out. All we could do is laugh and say it continues. We were able to get inside and used flashlights to use the restroom and get cleaned up a bit. So far the Honeymoon is off to a very memorable start!!!
