Bayfield to Mackinaw City delivery, part 4

The home stretch:  Whitefish Bay, locking through at Sault St. Marie, St. Mary’s River at night, De Tour Reef Light, Mackinaw City:  120 miles in 20 hours.

I had set the alarm to wake me at 0600 for a weather check.  The forecast was calling for patchy fog on Whitefish Bay with SE wind up to 20 knots, and waves 2-4 feet.  It was still dark when I poked my head out of the cabin, only to be greeted with cold spray from the waves breaking against the breakwater.  The waves may have been 2 feet in southern Whitefish Bay, but in the northwest corner with a 20 mile fetch 4 feet may have been a low estimate.  If we tried to leave the harbor in those conditions, I supposed Shanti’s keel might be finding the bottom in the troughs. The sky was clear on that moonless morning, but the wind was due south and our intended course was 145.  I went back to bed.

Later that morning after the entire crew was up, I served a hearty breakfast of pancakes with real maple syrup, sausages and orange juice.  Not minding the occasional spray of cold water, Tom did his morning Yoga routine on the breakwall while I finished the current pair of socks I was knitting.  A weak cold front was passing through, heralded by a line of clouds that covered the previously clear sky.  I saw a gust of 26 knots on the anemometer, with the prevailing wind speed in the high teens.  Just before noon, the wind died down and shifted to the east.  It didn’t take long for the lake to settle down, so we headed out of the harbor, hauling up the mainsail while still in the protected water behind the breakwalls.

Once away from shore, it soon became apparent that we were not going to be able to make our desired course of 145 degrees. The best we could do was 100-130. I tried setting the autopilot to wind vane mode, but soon tired of the frequent wind shift alarms.   I hand-steered to take advantage of the shifting winds, and we headed north of La Parisienne Island toward the Canadian shore where the water was calmer and we would be out of the busy shipping lanes.  Once we could clear the south side of the island, we tacked over to a course that took us directly to Gros Cap Light, marking the entrance to the St. Mary’s River, and the starting line of the biannual Trans-Superior race.  The wind died when we still had 10 miles to go, and then the rain started.  Our dinghy had started out dry, but by the time the rain finally stopped a couple of hours later, there was at least an inch of water in the bottom.  Chrystal wisely stayed below, but the rest of us donned foul weather gear.  Unfortunately, we neglected to put on foul weather boots, which would prove to be a poor decision later that night.

Shortly after 1800 I contacted the lockmaster at the Canadian lock and gave a 45 minute ETA.  I was not able to hear his instructions clearly and was asked to call again when we were in the approach channel.  At least I had confirmation that the lock was still open. I prefer to use the smaller Canadian lock rather than the much larger US locks used by commercial ships, but the Canadian lock closes during the night while the US locks remain open around the clock.  We had the green light and entered the lock without delay.  The lockmaster explained that he was using a handheld radio and that’s why I was not able to hear him earlier.  The gates closed behind us at 1900 and we were slowly lowered the 21 feet to the level of Lakes Huron and Michigan.  The lock is gravity fed to go down, but relies on pumps for locking up. One of the pumps was out, which meant it would take half an hour to fill the lock.  There were two vessels waiting to lock up when we exited the lock, and they would be the last boats through that day before the lock closed at 1930.  The lockmaster said the US locks were backed up and there was a wait of several hours to lock through, so we were very fortunate to have reached the Canadian lock when we did.

We considered stopping for the night at George Kemp Marina in Sault St. Marie, but there was no sign of life as we passed by, and I had promised Tom we would get him back to Chicago on Tuesday, so we headed on down the river as the sun was setting.  I had traveled down the St. Mary’s River at night once before, and remembered that the route is well-lit with range markers, pilings and buoys, but that there were also several buoys that were not lit.  Armed with detailed charts, GPS chartplotter, radar and spotlight, we made our way down the river from marker to marker without incident. With seven miles to go to the mouth of the river where it enters Lake Huron we turned off the engine, making 6.5 knots under full main and genoa.  A few minutes later we were hit by 22 knots on the beam which heeled the boat suddenly, sending a loaf of bread flying across the cabin.  We quickly reefed the main and rolled up some genoa and were still making over 7 knots.  I had set a waypoint to turn to starboard once we were in the wide part of the river, and turning downwind reduced the apparent wind to 15 knots.  I steered toward the docks on Drummond Island to keep us on a port tack, but in order to clear the shallow water to port beyond them I would have to steer more to starboard and the genoa was being blanketed by the main.  We furled the genoa and sailed under main alone, rounding De Tour Reef Light then setting a course to Martin’s Reef Light, 10 miles to the east. I sent the rest of the crew below to get some rest, and made it another 2 hours before the wind from abeam and my cold wet feet caused my entire body to become chilled and there was nothing I could do to get warm.  At 0400 I woke Lauren and asked her to wake me when we reached Mackinac Island, 20 miles away, then I replaced my wet socks with two pairs of dry wool socks and crawled into my bunk to try and get warm.

There was light in the eastern sky when I woke as we were making our way through Round Island Passage.  The ferries from Mackinaw City and St. Ignace were already starting their morning runs, carrying passengers to Mackinac Island.  The Mackinac Bridge stood tall ahead of us and I realized that the two red lights I had seen 30 miles out were actually the red lights on the top of the bridge support towers. I had last sailed under the bridge three months ago, a spinnaker run to the finish of the GLSS solo challenge from Chicago to Mackinac Island.  Shanti will not be returning to her home port on Lake Michigan just yet. Instead, she will spend the winter in Mackinaw City, waiting for summer to return to the Great Lakes, and the next solo challenge from Port Huron to Mackinac Island.