We got up and took showers before we left Ford Yacht Club and then left mid morning for Put-In Bay. A couple of milestones today. Our first journey into Lake Erie and we are leaving the state of Michigan and entering the state of Ohio. We only have about 30 miles to go today since we broke up our journey to Put-in-Bay into 2 days. We had light winds out of the… Read More

We woke up early this morning at North Star Sailing Club intending to leave early this morning to head about 70 miles to Put-in-Bay, OH. However, once we woke up and looked outside, we are fogged in! If we were to make 70 miles today we would have to leave early which would mean leaving and navigating in dense fog on a very shallow Lake St Clair that would require careful navigation… Read More

We spent a nice 3 day weekend at North Star Sailing Club. Thank you to Mike and Mike & Cheryl for the recommendation to stay here and being our hosts. We are staying in Mike’s slip while he is out and about exploring. The harbormaster at North Star Sailing Club was welcoming and accommodating! Other members welcomed us as well and stopped by to chat. Our first full day at North Star,… Read More

We left Lexington about 6 am. We have about 57 miles to go today. Our destination is North Star Sailing Club which is located up the Clinton River on Lake St Clair. Today we will have a variety of geography. A couple of hours on southern Lake Huron before we enter the mouth of the St Clair River. The picture above is the Blue Water Bridge that marks the entrance to the… Read More

We left Harbor Beach at about 6 am, but only have about 38 miles to go today. That should be relaxing and a piece of cake compared to our 80 mile day. We know we have some weather coming in for the next couple of days, so we want to get there as early as possible to avoid any weather that might be earlier than expected. We were a little anxious about… Read More

Alpena, MI to Harbor Beach, MI is about 80 nautical miles. At 5 knots per hour this trip would take us about 16 hours. We hope to make the journey in less time than 16 hours, so we will have to go faster than 5 knots for sure. Why are we going so far today? Remember I was saying that good harbors are few and far between on this side of Lake… Read More

It was a beautiful morning when we slipped the lines at St Ignace and made our way for one of our first Lake Huron destinations – Rogers City. We had heard great things about the marina in Rogers City from other boaters and heard that it was a must stop kind of place. We have about 48 miles to go today, so we were up early and left around 6:30 am. Getting… Read More

Our next stop was Alpena, MI which is about 48 nautical miles from Rogers City. The harbors along the Michigan coast of Lake Huron are a bit more spaced out than what we experienced on Lake Michigan and the harbors are a bit more exposed, often with just a break wall separating the marina from the large lake. We left about 6:30 am. Let’s talk about what passage making looks like aboard… Read More

After our relaxed anchoring out in the Les Cheneaux islands, we headed back to St Ignace to drop off Camille so she could head back to Minneapolis. It was a windy day to head back and it was rather nerve racking to approach the marina and dock in 20 knot winds. But Mark did fabulous, as usual, and no dock or gelcoat was harmed in any way. We had some dinner across… Read More

First, let’s start with how to pronounce these beautiful islands that are about 30 miles north of Mackinac Island. It’s pronounced Lay-Shen-O. They are a grouping of about 36 islands, some inhabited but most are very rustic wilderness and unspoiled natural beauty. It is in the northern most portion of Lake Huron in the upper peninsula of Michigan. This is as far north in our travels as we will go without the… Read More