June 28, 2013
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| Mystic - ready for our departure, Lime Island |
A young kayaker stayed on the island last night and left before us this morning. He travelled an amazing distance before we caught and passed him heading north. He was fighting a good strong current. We were duly impressed with his progress and the adventure before him.
We arrived at the Sault St. Marie lock at around 1:15. In general, pleasure boats go through the Canadian locks while cargo ships go through the American locks. The NE wind was pretty strong as we approached the lock. We have been through several locks before but this was our first time through the "Soo" locks. We secured Mystic on a waiting pier where we could see the entrance light (like a traffic light). Soon we saw water moving near the lock doors and the light turned green. We slowly motored into the lock chamber. A couple college students were there to help us and instructed us to grab one of the lock cables. We wrapped our line around the cable but did not tie off. Dave was at the stern and I was at the bow. By the time we were ready for the flooding of the chamber it was raining pretty hard. Luckily we had put our rain jackets on while waiting.
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| Beth holding on in the Soo Locks |
All of a sudden there was a load noise from the stern. I turned to see paper flying through the air, and something crashing into the boat barely missing Dave's head. Apparently, the young college student had dropped his clipboard from 20 feet above us barely missing Dave's head. All of the day's boater information was now floating in the water. He was embarrassed but no one was injured. The whole lock through took about 15 minutes and was an easy passage.
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| Dave at the stern in the Soo Locks |
We crossed paths with some crazy kayakers on St. Mary's River. They were in the middle of the channel, bobbing in the waves at the same time a tanker was in the middle of the channel south of us, heading right for them. We thought the tiny floaters would move out of the way but they paddled directly toward the ship. This must be a kayaker thing because the ship kept course and the kayakers stayed put within 100 feet of the vessel, sitting back in their seat and gazing straight up the side of the ship. We took photos of this strange scene. To us, it was like the kayakers were petting a whale.
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| Kayakers boldly approach cargo ship on St. Mary's River |
We don't always have the option to sail if the conditions aren't right. We have to be somewhere each day and only have so many hours to move. We arrived at Waiska Bay at 5:00 pm after nine hours of motoring. We anchored in 8 feet of water with a fishing boat off of our stern across from Brimley, Michigan. I made soup for dinner. Our plan was to leave early in the morning. We have to cover 70 miles to stay on track but our options include either 30 miles to Whitefish point or 70 miles to Grand Marais. We plan each day as though either option could happen. Eventually, we would learn that cruising is all about making several plans with the hope that one would actually work out in the end.
Mystic is very dirty from the bug massacre. Our new fly swatters are tattered and worn. and have been repaired twice. It's possible they won't make it all the way to Knife River. The bugs are tenacious! We battle biting flies, horse flies and mosquitos every day. My bite sites are swollen and sore due to an over-reaction to bug bites. All I can think of is Lyle Lovett's song, 'If I had a boat'. That damn pony came with horseflies!
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| Twice Repaired Fly Swatters |
Musings:
- Downloaded 458 photos today. Putting that in perspective, I take about 30 photos of each lighthouse.
- Rain Gear is AWESOME!
- We travelled about 40 miles today, ran the motor 9 hours
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