Family Reunion and Mackinac Is

Woke up early today to a nice clear sunny day. I blogged a little too early yesterday, and thus have a few things leftover from yesterday to start with. While walking through town after we had lunch at SeaBiscuit Café, we walked past Yankee Rebel Tavern. Rosanne noticed a meal special posted, a Prime Rib Caesar wrap. That kind of stuck with me the rest of the afternoon, and while we hadn’t planned to go back out for supper, I just couldn’t get past having that Prime Rip Caesar wrap. Rosanne still had some of her lunch sandwich left over that she was going to eat, and I was ok to just go do the wrap as a takeout. However, Rosanne said she’d walk back over with me, and maybe get some fries. So we walked back over to the Yankee Rebel, and then sadly found out that wrap was just a lunch special. Not available at supper time. But they did have a Prime Rib Melt on Sourdough that looked pretty good, so figured we’d stay and order that. It came with fries, but Rosanne saw on the menu that they charge an $8 to share a plate. So she figured she would just order an $8 cup of soup and still share my fries. I’m starting to think I should have just walked over for takeout. Lol! The Prime Rib Melt was good, and Rosanne enjoyed her soup. Walking back to the marina and boat, we passed the Grand Hotel carriage again with Jake and Elwood. I asked the driver if I could get a picture with the horses, and he obliged. After Rosanne took my picture, another lady walking by offered to take a picture of both of us in front of Jake and Elwood. Fairly friendly horses, as Elwood was either nuzzling me, or trying to see what was in my pocket…. Getting back to the boat, saw the wave action had broken another one of my dock lines. It’s not so much the motion that is bad, but rather the jarring jerk/stop as the end of the rope stretch is reached. (Most these waves are the results of the ferry boats running in and out of the harbor.) The boat swings from side to side, and then also glides back and forth. Regardless how tight I made all four dock lines, there was still enough stretch and slack in the lines to allow for quite a bit of movement. Some of the motion was rather violent! Fortunately, I do carry plenty of line, so pulled another one out, this one a bit larger diameter, and I placed a snubber on it. Things finally calmed down around 10pm, as usual, once the ferries stopped.
After a quick breakfast of cereal, I started getting the boat setup for the 5 mile run back to St. Ignace to load out. I have a small 3 gallon gas tank I keep in the bilge as an auxiliary tank, and I only put non-ethanol gas in it. I had planned to run on that over to St. Ignace, and then run the kicker into the boat launch harbor to flush the ethanol gas out of it. Normally I leave the kicker tilted up unless I’m using it. However, with the positioning of the stern dock lines at Mackinac, I had to leave the kicker trimmed all the way down. I guess I need to make myself some tags to keep at the helm when I have the kicker in the down position, so I don’t forget. This morning I ended up running on plane, at 15 kts, about half way over to St. Ignace, before I remembered I had not raised the kicker. I also leave it in gear when it’s not in use. I have no idea what RPM’s that prop was spinning the motor, but it didn’t appear to have any damage. I’ll check the oil content tomorrow….But it did run ok when I started it up. Which brings up the second snafu this morning. I wasn’t paying attention to my fuel flow while running on plane with the main, as I usually get 2.0mpg and with 3 gal in the little tank and 5 miles across, figured I had enough gas. But apparently running the first half across with the kicker in the water, I must have been using more fuel. So when we got close to the boat ramp harbor, I wasn’t able to get the kicker to start. And then the main died. Didn’t take me long to realize that I had ran out of gas in the aux tank. So, switched back to the main tank. So much for flushing and leaving the motors with non-ethanol fuel in them…
Got the boat loaded back on the trailer, stuff put away, and then a nice drive home. We had a great time on Mackinac Island. Weather was nice, other than the one day of rain. And even that wasn’t a bad day. Nice fireworks display. And plenty of fudge and Ice cream! This ends this trip. Next one planned is last week of the month to Door County.Read more