Days 349 and 350 - Sault Ste. Marie

Miles. Cruised 50, fuel purchased $974 (ouch) there are real dollars not Canadian dollars, fuel purchased gallons 325, slip fee $60, daily high temperature 79°f

We spent our last night in Canada at Meldrum Bay on Manitoulin Island. We have been in Canadian waters since July 29. That is when we crossed Lake Ontario from Oswego, NY to Port Trent, Ontario.

Dinner at the Meldrum Bay Inn was superb as always. The owner Sharina is a delightful hostess. We have enjoyed coming here each year for five years except 2015 when we were starting the Loop. Yes, we unloaded every penny of Canadian money we had to pay for dinner. However, Canadians are much smarter than the US because Canada eliminated the penny from their currency several years ago. Now they just round up or down to the nearest nickel. It costs 1.6 cents to make a US penny.

Our hostess and owner of the Meldrum Bay Inn – Sharina

The weather continues to be favorable. It is another quiet night in the North Channel. We are plugged into the dock at the Meldrum Bay Marina. The temperature has dropped into the mid 50’s but we are delaying turning on our heaters because that would admit it is getting colder. We have been chasing 80°f for a full year but 80°f is becoming more elusive.

The remaining two weeks of our cruise will include checking back into the US at Drummond Island. Then we will go to Lake Superior so we can have bragging rights to claim we have cruised all five Great Lakes. The easiest way to remember the names of the Great Lakes is to use the word HOMES – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Our Next stop after Lake Superior will be St. Ignace to have BC pizza and then on to Beaver Island. Our usual trip plan is to cruise down the east coast of Lake Michigan but this time we will cruise across the top of Lake Michigan to Green Bay. We have been to Green Bay on a sailboat when racing the Hook Race. That resulted in only staying in Sturgeon Bay for one or two nights then heading home. This time will visit Marionette, Fayette, Menomonee, Egg Harbor and Fish Creek. Our key decision point will be how many days do we want to spend visiting harbors on the west side of Lake Michigan that we have visited many times before.

We cast off from Meldrum Bay at 11:00 am and cruised to Drummond Island to clear US Customs. We tied up at the Drummond Island Marina and were visited by two customs agents. They asked if we had any fruit of pets. Then they asked if we had any plants. I suspect the agent was looking at out rose bush when she asked the question. Melanie and John Allen had given us a miniature rose bush as a boat gift when we were in Lakefield, Ontario. We had to surrender the rosebush for agricultural inspection.

The Drummomd Island Marina has it all.

After clearing customs we cruised one mile to Harbor Island to anchor for the night. The wind is forecast to be brisk from the south so we are tucked in nicely behind a long peninsula. The water temperature in the harbor is 80°f so I went for a swim.

Harbor Island provides good protection all around. We are the red triangle. I put a pin in the middle of the red triangle when we are anchored. At any time during the night I can look on my iPad chart and see if we have dragged anchor.

There are three boats in our harbor for the night including us. A power boat and a sailboat. The winds are light at 10:00 pm so we will see if the blowy stuff comes later.

A little wind blew through around midnight but it was not sustaining. We woke up in the same place we had dropped anchor the day before. At 9:00 am we hoisted anchor and cruised up the St. Mary’s River to the George Kemp Marina in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan.

We passed this gaff rigged ketch as we cruised up the St Mary’s River.

We are just south of the Soo locks that connect Lake Superior the other Great Lakes. It was very windy today so we decided to stay over at the marina and will enter Lake Superior on Tuesday. Very few Loopers go to Lake Superior unless they live there like Mitzvah. 99.99% of Loopers head south to Lake Michigan once they have crossed Georgian Bay and the North Channel.

Bonus photo

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote of the day.

“Confronting a storm is like fighting God. All the powers in the universe seem to be against you and, in an extraordinary way, your irrelevance is at the same time both humbling and exalting.”
–Francois LeGrande