Thursday, July 28, 2016

Underway Once Again

     The weather settled down again as we headed out into the North Channel. This is another really beautiful area. Lots of islands and some really challenging navigation in the inland channels. Lots of rocks again but beautiful. We pulled into our first anchorage at McTavish Island and dropped the anchor. It didn't set the first time so we pulled it back up to try again and the bolt between the two swivel shackles broke and the anchor dropped back into the water. We lost our Rockna anchor. I just couldn't believe it, I was really upset but nothing much I could do about it. I had a spare, a Fortress anchor which I attached to my chain and managed to get it to set for the night. Only a couple more days at anchor and we were in US waters at Drummond Island. We cleared customs and the next day headed for Mackinaw City Michigan. It was a good run across the northern part of Lake Huron and into Mackinaw City but bad weather again delayed our journey into Lake Michigan. We finally got a break in the weather three days later and headed out for Little Traverse Bay. We spent one night there and then headed for Grand Traverse Bay and Northport Harbor. We are still here today, and will be heading out early tomorrow morning for Frankfort Municipal Marina which is 72 miles from here. We were going stop a Leland Township Marina which is about half way to Frankfort but they are booked solid until Saturday because of a sailboat race so we have to try to make Frankfort in one day. That 72 mile run is going to take around 11 hours so we have to get an early start. The weather is supposed to be good although the winds are going to kick up a little from the northeast but the seas are forecast to be two feet or less so it should be a good run hopefully.

I was going to attach some pictures to my last post but didn't have a good enough wifi connection to do so, so here are a few pictures of some of the locks and the rocks.
One of the towers on one of the hydraulic locks

This is the cylinder that lifts the container, water, and your boat up or down.

This is a view from one of the hydraulic locks. You can just make out the channel down below the lock. This is a lock that dropped us down instead of up.

This is a picture of one of the houses sitting on a huge rock on one of the islands.

2 comments:

  1. Hi There,
    You don't know me from a hole in the ground, but I came across your blog from someplace else on the Interweb. I felt happy to see that you completed construction of your boat (really, that you turned a dream into a reality), and that you and your wife are out enjoying it. I wish you much of the very best. Stephen

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  2. Thanks Stephen, I don't often get an internet connection, that's why I'm a little late with my response. Good to hear from you and thanks again.

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