Milwaukee to Chicago to Charlotte

As mentioned in the previous post, we enjoyed the festivities in Milwaukee over the weekend. This first picture is the skyline of Milwaukee as we arrived on Friday. Also , in an earlier post, I have recapped our weekend “Irish Festival” festivities while in Milwaukee.

On Monday, August 17th, in HEAVY fog, we departed Milwaukee for a 45 mile trip to Winthrop Harbor on the Illinois/Wisconsin state line. All weather reports indicated that the fog would lift early morning and the sun would appear before noon. Using the GPS chartplotter and radar, we left the marina fully expecting the fog to lift “at any time”. How wrong the weather reports were and what a journey – we followed the radar all day and the most we saw was the nose of the bow! The picture at the right was taken as we departed the Milwaukee marina. It is essential to have great equipment at all times and especially at times like this - our trusty Garmin GPS led us all the way. Through heavy fog the entire trip, we finally arrived in Winthrop Harbor mid afternoon. I don’t think we were ever more relieved to be tied to the dock!
On Wednesday, the weather was perfect and the water was calm for our 40+ mile trip to Chicago, arriving early afternoon to our marina downtown. The next few pictures are of the Chicago skyline on our approach, the skyline with the Navy pier in the foreground, and the marina with sailboats on mooring balls. While in Chicago, we biked through the downtown area parks and river front, ate a Chicago deep pan pizza from Giordano’s, visited Soldier Field (home of the Chicago Bears), and enjoyed fireworks at the Navy Pier. A great visit to a great city!

Our flight to Charlotte is scheduled for Friday afternoon so we left the downtown marina in Chicago late morning Thursday for the short trip to a marina south of Chicago on the Little Calumet River.

These next 3 pictures are from the bow as we are coming out of the Chicago lock, are traveling on the Chicago River through downtown, and of an Amtrak bridge south of Chicago that we had to wait on so we could continue our short trip. We will leave “Still Busy” here for 11 days where she will get a much needed rest along with a wash, detail, and wax in preparation for the remainder of our journey. We have traveled almost 3000 miles since leaving Charleston in April and are now half way through the trip. This journey continues to far exceed our expectations! From Charleston, up the ICW through the Chesapeake, Atlantic Ocean, Hudson River, Lake Champlain, Richelieu/St Lawrence/Rideau/Trent Severn canals in Canada, Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan we have spent over 4 months on the trip and can only hope that the 2nd half of our journey is exciting and successful as the first half. After our trip home, we will once again provide updates to our journey down the inland rivers to the Gulf. Thanks for the comments on the blog and the emails we receive from those that have followed us all along. We enjoy hearing from you as much as you have stated you enjoy following our travels.

Lake Michigan

We arrived in Makinac City Marina on Friday, August 7th, after a great weather day crossing Lake Huron. We were joined in the Marina by “Dar Sea”, “Meander”, and George and Kathy aboard “Spey”. On Saturday morning, in the rain, all of us took the early ferry to Makinac Island for the day. In spite of the rain, we spent most of the day on this charming, waterfront village with horse drawn carriages, Colonial Homes, and NO motor vehicles. Travel is by horse, bike, or foot. This first picture is the Grand Hotel on Makinac Island that was featured in the movie "Somewhere in Time". After a busy day of touring, we had dinner on the island and took the ferry back to Makinac City Marina. Due to predicted high winds, we chose to depart on Monday for our trip down Lake Michigan. This picture was taken of us overlooking Mackinac Straights from the island.
This picture we took of The Makinac Bridge – which connects Makinac City to St. Ignes and claims to be the longest single span suspension bridge in the US – as we departed early Monday morning headed south. John and Dottie from “Dar Sea” had plans to return home from Muskegon and, as we turned toward Charlevoix, they continued south. We hope to join them again south of Chicago after our trip home. “Meander” and “Still Busy” arrived at Lake Charlevoix in time to walk into the city and take pictures of the cutest “mushroom” and “fairy” houses designed and built by Earl Young in the early 1900’s. The design of these stone -built houses were certainly “whimsical” with wave-like roof lines and both of us fully expected Snow White to be sitting on the front porch. On the dock we had a pot luck dinner with Ron and Marji as we planned for our departure on Tuesday.
The drawbridge leading into Lake Charlevoix opens every half hour and we made the 6:30 AM opening on Tuesday morning. Although the wind was brisk, it was from the north so not a problem for our trip south. We arrived in Leland late morning for lunch as “Meander” journeyed to Manitou Island for an anchorage. Leland, pictured at the right, is known as “Fish Town” because of the ancient ice and fish shanties that now are used as operating fish houses with fresh smoked fish as well as specialty shops. We bought smoked salmon and smoked white fish and continued our journey south to Frankfort for the night. The shoreline from Leland to Frankfort is part of Sleeping Bear National Park and is lined with 400 – 500 feet tall sand dunes and white beaches. Good to see sand again after all the rocks in Georgian Bay! While in Frankfort, we took this picture of a boat in the marina - notice the car on the deck where most boaters keep the dingy. Also notice no bikes on the bow rail - don't need them?
The weather on Wednesday was perfect with slight winds and calm seas as we departed Frankfort for Ludington - a 55 mile trip along more sandy beaches and sand dunes. We passed the Big Sable Light House, a 106 feet aid to navigation that is visible for 20 miles on the water. On Thursday, we took the bikes for the 16 mile round trip back to the Big Sable lighthouse from our marina in Ludington along the beach and state park. Upon our return, with sore legs and behinds, we joined “Meander” and Rick and Betsy from “Rick and Roll” for dinner at P.M. Steamers, a restaurant that was highly recommended.
When making the trip from Mackinac to Chicago, Loopers have the option of traveling down the East Coast or the West Coast of Lake Michigan or a combination of the two. In order to experience both coasts, we decided to cross Lake Michigan from Ludington to the shores of Wisconsin and then head down the Illinois coast to Chicago. All other loopers that we have been in contact with plan to continue down the East Coast of Lake Michigan and cross further south. We will see them in the inland rivers south of Chicago after we return from our trip to Charlotte. On Friday, in 10 knot winds from the south, we departed for the 60 miles crossing to Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Here is a picture of the sunrise as we departed. Although the winds increased as we approached mid lake, the trip was fairly uneventful and we arrived early afternoon at our marina. Good timing – the town of Sheboygan and the Arts Community was putting on the first annual “Sheboygan Shebang” downtown with local performers and acts headlined by an escape artist that freed himself from a straight jacket while suspended from the top of a crane that was borrowed from a local roofing company. Small town USA at its best! This final picture of "The Shebang" is Pia posing with the daredevil himself after the "death defying act"! Didn't get an autograph.

Our good luck (or maybe the luck of the Irish) continued as we had surprisingly calm wind and seas on Saturday for our 60 mile trip to Milwaukee for the weekend. Even better, when we arrived we discovered that the 30th annual “Irish Festival” was in downtown Milwaukee and we spent a great afternoon enjoying the festivities. “Griffin” is an Irish name so Jack really enjoyed the day. A lot of green clothing, a wide variety of Irish beer/ stout/whiskey, Irish music, bagpipes, and “Step” dancing. This is a huge festival and, although we saw no leprechauns, and we truly enjoyed the day.
We will depart on Monday for Chicago – an 85 mile trip – and will be in the Windy City by Tuesday.

Killarney to Mackinac - The North Channel

One of the many things we have learned on our adventure is that we can’t control the weather. Our trip from Killarney through the North Channel was affected by strong winds but we made the best of it. We are now in Makinaw City, Michigan and will leave tomorrow to begin our 300+ mile trip down Lake Michigan to Chicago.
When we entered the Georgian Bay channels, we became aware of many stone figures on the rocks. We have since learned that these figures are known as Inukshuk and were originally made by Northern Canadians to serve as guides pointing the way to return home. They are now abundant on the shores of both The Georgian Bay and North Channel - this picture was taken somewhere on the Georgian Bay of a stone figure pointing the way. Most everywhere we traveled in the Bay and Channels, the Inukshuks were around every bend. However, we continued to rely on our Chartplotter and paper charts to guide our way.
We left Killarney on Thursday, July 30th and traveled 12 miles in the small craft channel and headed north another 6 miles to one of the most beautiful side trips we have made on our trip. Baie Fine is described as the closest thing to a fjord we will ever see. We traveled 10 miles through Baie Fine to an anchorage known as The Pool. The weather was ideal and the site was breathtaking. The 3 pictures below are the entrance to Baie Fine, anchored in the Pool, and a

cottage we were anchored close to that is owned by The Evinrudes (as in outboard motor!). We took the dingy to shore for exploring (Pia hiked a couple of miles to another smaller lake that was turquoise in color) and blueberry picking as well as a ride back down the entrance to The Pool.

Friday morning we retraced our journey back to the small craft channel and arrived in Little Current on Manitoulin Island just in time for the Haweater Weekend festival, an annual homecoming event for locals that featured parades, fireworks, water competition, live entertain, etc. We, along with “Dar Sea” and “Meander” departed Little Current on Sunday with intentions to travel 15 miles to Kagawong to visit the water falls, have lunch, and travel across the Channel to an anchorage in The Benjamin Islands. Mother Nature and the wind had another idea! Because of strong winds, we stayed in Kagawong overnight and traveled to Meldrum Bay on Monday – a trip of 40 miles – again with intention of a one night stay. We were “trapped” in Meldrum Bay for 3 nights along with 7 other looper boats. The picture to the right is of all the loopers having a happy hour in the "clubhouse" at the marina. The village of Meldrum consists of an Inn – with a great restaurant – and a small general store with very limited provisions. (and nothing else, but a few local homes, and a one room museum, in the old net shed !)
Although the forecast on Thursday was still “iffy” with winds, ALL the looper boats decided we had enough of Meldrum and left at 6 AM in a flotilla headed for Drummond Island and US Customs. As we departed the Bay, the winds and waves were real choppy but finally smoothed after a couple of hours. We arrived in Drummond late morning, cleared customs after lunch, and continued our trip another 7 miles to DeTour Village at the entrance to Lake Huron where we walked into town for some much needed re-provisioning. It felt good to be back in the US after 2 months in Canada. As stated in our last posting, we really enjoyed our time in the beautiful country and would recommend trips to Canada to anyone.
Friday weather could not have been more perfect for our trip across Lake Huron to Mackinac Island at the beginning of Lake Michigan. Winds were calm, the entire Lake was smooth as the sun warmed the cool nighttime temperatures. This final picture is of the "flotilla" of loopers as we departed DeTour Village into Lake Huron at the lighthouse. We arrived in Mackinaw City Marina early afternoon with plans to spend the weekend in this area – including a day trip to Mackinac Island. Tomorrow, August 10th, we will leave to head south (the first time we have traveled south in a long time) down Lake Michigan. With good weather we should be in Chicago in 7 – 10 days with plans to travel home for a couple of weeks to visit family and friends. Chicago is the half way point of our trip and we look forward to the second half of our journey down the inland waterways to the Gulf of Mexico.

Penetang to Killarney - Georgian Bay

We enjoyed our few days at Bay Moorings Marina in Penetang with 20+ other Looper Boats. A time to revisit with some folks we met in Charleston in April as well as some folks we met somewhere along the waterway. We also met a few Loopers we had not seen. Good time visiting and learning about the journey from here to the North Channel.
The trip from Port Severn at the end of the Trent Severn waterway to Killarney at the top of the Georgian Bay is 168 miles as measured through the small craft channel and offers the opportunity to see every type of scenery without having to cross a large open body of water. The most striking feature of the Bay is its topography – land both above and below the water consists of granite with a very thin soil cover. The entire inner route is dotted with small granite islands – most with small cottages that are only accessible by water. Most of these “one cottage islands” have no facilities (with the exception of a gas powered generator ) and the locals use these for vacation and/or rental property. The area is referred to as the 30,000 islands but in reality should be called the 100,000 islands. There are so many destinations in the Georgian Bay that you are forced to be very selective in the destination you chose to visit.
We departed Penetag on Thursday morning in a steady rain traveling with Ron and Marjie on “Meander” and John and Dottie aboard “Dar Sea”. We met “Meander” in Kingston and have traveled with them on and off for the last 3 or 4 weeks but just met “Dar Sea” in Penetag. Most of the trip on Thursday was in the rain – but no wind – and we stopped at Henry’s Fish Restaurant on Frying Pan Island for a late lunch of fish and chips before anchoring in Echo Bay a few miles from Henry’s. The narrow channel into Echo Bay is lined with granite rocks and shallow water. As we made our final turn into the protected bay, we were really surprised to see 23 other boats – all local – anchored in the small bay. On the advice of a local boater that was anchored, we rafted our 3 boats together, dropped 2 anchors, and tied the stern to the granite rocks on the shore. We dropped the dingy, explored the area, picked wild blueberries, and had appetizers aboard “Meander”. A great first night in the Georgian Bay in spite of the rain.
The trip on Friday from Echo Bay to Parry Sound was once again through narrow, rocky channels that are clearly marked with channel markers. Stay in the channel and everything is fine – venture off course and the bottom is not sandy or muddy but hard granite rock. When I look at the granite, I see bent props; Pia sees counter tops! Nonetheless, our 15 mile trip to Parry Sound was uneventful and we tied up to the town dock (a brick wall) – intended for overnight but, due to strong winds and thunderstorms on Saturday, became two nights. We were able do some grocery shopping along with touring the Bobby Orr museum which was located close to our dock. The picture on the right is of Parry Sound as we departed - notice the brick wall we spent 2 days tied to!
Sunday we departed Parry Sound for an anchorage we had heard about in Hopewell Bay where we once again rafted and tied the stern to the granite walls in this narrow – and still rocky – bay.

The winds on the Georgian Bay are often unpredictable so we were encouraged the next morning when the weather called for 10 knot winds. As we departed the channel at Port Au Barel, the winds were relatively calm with slight waves. About 1 mile into the bay, the winds and waves increased substantially. Suddently we had waves 4 - 6 feet with frequency, taking waves over the bow on a few occasions. We were forced to duck into the closest inlet at "Hangdog Channel” – a channel we were advised to avoid. Although the channel is very narrow - and yes rocky – the water was calm. We had traveled less than 5 miles but we felt like we had been on the water all day! We traveled 5 more miles up the channel to Bayfield Harbour– a small facility with very limited amenities but out of the wind. Once again, due to strong winds in the bay, we stayed here for two nights. Here is a picture of John, Dottie, Ron, Marjie, and Pia on "Meander" as we relaxed after our hectic day in the winds and waves.

On Wednesday, the weather was ideal so we departed the small craft channel and made the 60 mile trip to Killarney across the Georgian Bay. The water was as smooth as we had seen since leaving the canals and the trip was great! The picture below is of "Meander" and "Dar Sea" as we crossed the Bay.

The most important event of the day was in the early morning as we received a call from Jennifer that our newest grandchild, Stella, had arrived! Both Mom and new baby were fine. The crews from “Dar Sea” and “Meander” celebrated with us as we had a champagne toast to Stella upon arrival in Killarney. Obviously a great day for travel and a great day to celebrate and be thankful for life! We wish we could have been home for this important event but look forward to meeting Stella when we travel back to Charlotte late August/early September. The next picture is as we arrived in Killarney after a long day crossing the Bay.

On Thursday the 30th, we plan to leave Killarney to begin our 100+ mile trip through the North Channel before arriving at Drummond Island, Michigan to reenter the US. We have really enjoyed our time in Canada and are very impressed the beauty of the country and the friendly people and look forward to our final few days in the North Channel.