Northern Michigan August 21 - 26

We arrived at Drummond Island on August 21st, two months and two days after entering Quebec. Drummond Island was originally part of Canada and was fortified after the War of 1812, but was given to the US after the Treaty of Ghent and is now part of Michigan. This is where we cleared US Customs which went smoothly. The marina notified the Customs Officer who came to our boat asked a few questions, checked our decal (which seems to be just revenue for the government to pay for customs personnel), and filled out a form. We were done and taking down our quarantine flag in less than 10 minutes. After a night at the Drummond Island Yacht Haven we headed back out into Lake Huron for a trip to Mackinac Island.





We entered the harbor and after settling in went for a walked down the main street. Quite of bit of the downtown is like a beach tourist trap but there are interesting parts such as the ostentatious Victorian houses and Inns.














The next day we took the traditional horse drawn trolley tour. Kaye gave me scathing reviews later for not taking any pictures of the horse drawn vehicles since that is the hallmark of Mackinac Island - no motor powered vehicles allowed! But I did take pictures of the first stop on our tour, the butterfly house.

Inside the glass hot house were butterflies from all over the world with plants that are their favorites. The butterflies would land on you and you had to be inspected before you went out to keep from carrying a "guest".

Of course the highlight for me was the last stop which was Fort Mackinac (which you seasoned travelers know is pronounced Mack in augh not Mack in ack.) The forts exhibits exceeded my expectations and included in one exhibit a hologram of an 1840's doctor and a doctor from this century telling how they did or would now treat various illnesses or injuries.

The fort is up on the tall hill with an excellent view of the harbor.

This view shows the Mackinac Island State Harbor in the foreground the main street on the far right and four of the many ferries that ply the waters around the island. One companies ferries are designed to shoot up a stream of water behind which I assume is just for show. Two shown are catamarans.

After two nights we left the harbor heading west and caught sight of the famous Grand Hotel.

Within a couple hours the Mackinac Bridge came into view. This bridge built in 1957 connects lower Michigan to the upper part called the UP or upper peninsula. The total length is 3.64 miles and the suspension portion is 8,614 feet making it the third longest suspension bridge in the world after being surpassed by two others in 1998.
There is more information about the bridge at this web sit.
http://hunts-upguide.com/st__ignace_mackinac_bridge.html

We came down the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan and turned up into the bay containing Harbor Springs. There was a neat wooden tour boat coming out as we made our turn.

We had some nice days although a little cool while we were there. The first night a local community band played a concert on the grass next to our marina.

The downtown was upscale. Many boutiques, cafes and restaurants lined the street. I had to sample a malted milk drink at one cafe to see if it matched the delicious one I had in Hyde Park, NY.

Kaye liked the glass blown items at this shop, the Boyer Glassworks. She found a round paper weight with glass flowers embedded that showed marvelous craftsmanship so we made a purchase after watching the owner actually do glass blowing.

From Harbor Springs we went down the coast to Charlevoix. This was the first harbor that had the typical breakwall of large rocks forming a safe path into the town harbor. Every harbor the rest of the way down Michigan had this same type entrance usually with an old lighthouse at the entrance.

We anchored in the NW corner of Lake Charlevoix just east of the main Charlevoix harbor and dinghyed into town. We located a grocery store and a movie theater and decided to go for the 4:30 showing of Julie/Julia which was very good.

As we were leaving the dinghy dock we saw the Trawler "Pearl" with the Ashbey family (John, Phillippa, Alice and Lloyd) from New Zealand aboard. We had first talked to John at Port Severn while waiting to lock through. We had noticed his boat had a home port of N. Zanesville, OH which was about 30 miles from Coshocton Ohio where we used to live so we talked to him then. We soon found out they had bought the boat in Florida with the goal of doing the Great Loop. At Charlevoix we checked in with them and I told them about the Carp Barrier problem in the canal/river south of Chicago. We had seen the news on the American Tug web site a day or two before.



We left Charlevoix the next morning passing what I believe to be modern facsimiles of the famous stone houses of national known local designer, Earl Young. Earl Young's houses employed rough-hewn stones and curvilinear roof forms to blend with the landscape. They have very rounded storybook shapes.

I thought these little wooden boats parked in front of one of the "Earl Young" type houses were neat.