Day 76: Harrisville to Rogers City

28 June, 70 miles. A more relaxed start today; we depart the tidy Harrisville Marina on an overcast morning with a bracing breeze. One rec fisher is (waaay) out, and a bulker heads NW on the horizon, perhaps to Alpena for cement (we turn out to be wrong about that).

We have a NW wind on our port bow which is producing a 1-2 ft swell and keeps the stabilisers busy.

We head on, while Alpena, a Great Lakes cruise ship destination, passes off our port-side. Away on our starboard we can soon see two vessels heading on a converging course with us. Looking it up, I see that one is an Articulated Tug-and-Barge vessel, the "Karen Andrie" making about 9 mph and headed for the farthest lower reaches of Lake Michigan in Indiana while the other is the Self-Discharging Bulk Carrier "MV American Integrity", one of the 13 famed '1,000-footers' - the largest vessels on the Great Lakes (these vessels are prisoners to Lakes Erie, Huron/Michigan, and Superior, since they don't fit through the Welland Locks). She's making about 14 mph and is headed for Two Harbors, MN, on Lake Superior, probably to load taconite pellets at the CN Dock there for discharge back at Conneaut, OH, where it is again transloaded to CN-owned trains on their Bessemer Subdivision, the old Bessemer & Lake Erie RR. The ore is then railed down to steel mills in the Pittsburgh region, mainly to the blast furnaces at US Steel's Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock, PA.

At 1050, a rather momentous event occurs; 45 North crosses Latitude 45N. If we could just mount the line and ride it west, it'd just about take us to Preston's house in Leland, MI. But sadly, we will have to take the long way round.

Preston has a second look at our planned route, and decides to bring us back a little, nearer the shoreline. This 'cut-off' immediately reduces our voyage today by about 30 min. It also enables us to come directly abeam the tug-and-barge away off our port side. Runnng at the same speed, we maintain station on it until our next turn.

Another moment of interest shows up as the "TS State of Michigan" away on the starboard-side horizon, and we arrive--in a stiff northerly breeze--at the RTogers City Marina. The marina folks drive us uptown to get some needed grocery items and--after putting that away in the boat--we walk a few blocks to have great food at Barilik's 406 Cafe.

We repair to the boat and I repair my almost brand new suitcase which has a seized extension handle. Tomorrow, a comfortable run up to Mackinaw [MACK-in-awe] City.もっと詳しく