Port #8: Freighters, Fishermen, Flotsam and Mayflies...

Great Loop II Date: 8/10/2014

Day #11 (Sunday): 50 miles (458 total miles)

Port #8:  Sault Ste. Marie, MI

Another great sleeping night led to an exciting day.  After cleaning the mud from the anchor chain and anchor, the Captain set a course for George Kemp Marina in Sault Ste. Marie, MI.  The morning broke clear and beautiful.  Our weather window has been long and given us a full week of travel days.  Forecasts predicted it would come to an end Monday afternoon.

Sunrise over Harbor Island Bay.

Today we were in the St. Mary River which would take us to the Soo and eventually into Whitefish Bay, Lake Superior. It was a day of many small fishing boats cluttering the channel as well as freighters coming from and going to the Soo Locks and Lake Superior.

 

Freighter anchored between Drummond and Detour waiting to load quarry stone.

Southbound freighter coming down the St. Mary River from the Soo Locks.

A northbound freighter passing us.

We moved out of the channel and slowed down to let him by...the law of bigness!

There he is, passing a southbound freighter.

Another southbound freighter...passing what looked like a lighthouse.

This wasn't listed on the charts...

...so we weren't sure if it was a lighthouse or a house built to replicate one.

There were at least 30 of these little fishing boats in the channel.  Don't know if they had a Sunday Special on rentals somewhere or it's just a popular style fishing boat.  At any rate they were out there with those big freighters!

Suddenly we started having flotsam (this was a piece of a railroad tie)...so we started a watch.  Flotsam this big could mess up a prop and we've had that kind of experience before!  Also, that other stuff is mayflies.  Their hatch is about 6 weeks behind ours.

That was another nice sized log.

Along came this tour boat.

Charlie decided to navigate too.

There's those nasty mayflies!

Todd followed the downbound channel to the Soo.  At some points we could see we were in a ditch much like the Tenn-Tom Waterway…just shorter.  The Army Corps seemed to have some kind of project going in the area on both sides of the channel.

First the islands were all spread out like this...

...then they got closer together...

...and the channel markers got bigger...

...making sure we didn't run aground on something like this.

The channel would widen and there were all kinds of pretty houses...

on both sides.  My preference is this one!

This is what the area in the above three pictures looked like on our GPS Navigation System.

I couldn't figure out the contraption this fellow was working on.  It looked like a little draw bridge to nowhere!

We came upon this project by the Army Corps of Engineers.  Both sides of the channel looked like they were being worked on.  However, it wasn't evident just what they were doing.

The upstream side of the Army Corps barge gave us no clues either.

Then there was this little car ferry running back and forth from one side to the other.

The 'ditch' looked like this...very obviously shored up after it was cut out.

This is what that section (the ditch) looked like on our navigation screen.

We arrived at the last turn in the St. Mary River before Sault Ste. Marie.  I called my cousin and told her to keep watch, we were on our way.  My cousin lives on the St. Mary River and just down the street from the marina and the Soo Locks.  As we passed by, the whole family, as well as other condo dwellers from their building were out on the dock and on their decks waving.  We were able to make a loop close in to their dock which was quite a thrill for all of us.

Last turn in the St. Mary River before Sault Ste. Marie, MI.  The Soo is on the left and Sault Ste. Marie, ON, CA is on the right (two Soos...who knew!)

They came to OB so Jennifer and Bill could see how we are traveling.  Afterward we spent a wonderful evening at Don and Marilyn’s condo and had a scrumptious dinner of ribs, chicken, local sweet corn (my absolute favorite!), beet and kale salad, and a wonderful cherry pie Jenn and Bill made from local cherries.  Are you hungry yet?

That's our family!