Day 60 - 63

Rogers City -St Ignace

• Start 6:45AM
• End 11:51AM
• Underway 5:05 Hours
• Distance 47 miles
• Total Miles on Trip 1378
• Av Speed 9.3 knots
• Weather Sunny 75 Winds 10+ North building as the day went on

Compared to our recent runs, we slept in and left late this morning. Something is wrong when you are retired and you call starting your day at 6:45am sleeping in. But it is nice getting into port and still having the day to do things.

St Ignace is the most northern point of our trip. St Ignace is on the Upper Peninsula and right the other side of the Mackinaw Straits Bridge. When we leave the Mackinaw area we will head to Lake Michigan and start out journey south.

Monday afternoon we explored town on our bikes and had a lazy afternoon. Because of the sailboat race, slips are still hard to come by. We are at St Ignace Marina, while our friends are in Straits Marina about 6 miles away. We will be joining them at Straits on Friday.

One of the places we went to was Bridge View State Park. It was a three mile bike ride, but what Google Maps did not tell us, was one of the roads it took us down, was really a dirt road only used by ATV's and snowmobiles in the winter. It was a fun ride!

Tuesday was a boat maintenance day. I spent most of the day doing minor repairs, and Angel cleaned the boat. St Ignace has turned out to be the perfect place to get these repairs done. There is a True Value Hardware Store, a Ace Hardware Store and a lumber yard within ½ mile of the dock. One of my projects was to finish installing the replacement helm refrigerator. In order to install it I needed wood to trim and shim it in place. The employees at the lumber yard were very helpful. They helped me find the exact pieces I needed and even cut them to size for me. Then because they were able to find the wood in the left over bin, they did not charge me for the wood. I love Small Town America!

As we were finishing up the boat chores, Nick & Ginger sent us a photo of them at a local restaurant, and talked us into joining them. They have a rental van so we can go exploring while we are hear.

Wednesday, we went with three other couples to Picture Rock National Park. What do four boating couples that have traveled thousands of miles to get to the top of Lake Huron do? We go for a tour on a boat. Short of taking one of our boats to Lake Superior this was the next best way to see the rocks.

We considered boating to Lake Superior, but that would have been at least a 8 day side trip. As least we can say we did go boat in Lake Superior, once we get to Lake Michigan, we will have been in all five Great Lakes.

Thursday we took a ferry to Mackinaw Island. Mackinaw Island does not allow any motorized vehicles on the island. All transportation is either horse and carriage or bicycles. It is funny to see FedEx boxes being delivered by horse drawn trailers, as well the garbage truck not being a truck but a horse drawn trailer. As nice as it was it seemed very crowded compared to everywhere we have visited in the last 2 months. The Grand Hotel is everything they say it is. We enjoyed cocktails and appitizers on the longest covered porch in the world. To say they are pricey is an understatement. They had a Tomahawk Steak on the menu that goes for $575.00, and their signature anniversary drink that goes with it is only $199. No worry we did not order either.

Tomorrow we will be leaving St Ignace tomorrow going 6 miles to Mackinaw City.