Ontonagon to Raspberry Harbor Bay in the Apostle Islands

Friday, July 5, 2013 

Today we will make the crossing to the Apostle Islands. We will leave Michigan behind and enter Wisconsin.  If the weather cooperates, we'll be at Knife River Marina, Mystic's new home, on Saturday. We are travelling at 5-10 mph; the wind is gusting at times.  This may prove to be our roughest ride yet.

Dave messing with the halyards

Windblown day on Lake Superior

We move along the shoreline after leaving Ontonagon and pass the Porcupine Mountains. The ski slope is unmistakable. It took us almost 2 hours to round the point. We could see the mountains the entire time.

Porcupine Mountains

Today's conditions were hard on us.  It was a very long day of rocking and rolling in wind and waves. We both put our seaband motion sickness bands on to help us tolerate the motion. We did not get sick but we were both just a little green.

We were headed for Stockton Island, Presque Isle Bay to anchor for the evening. The wind did not lighten as we entered the island waters so we decided to keep moving westward through the Apostles and closer to MN. The first lighthouse we could see was the Michigan Island Light. I sat on the bow of the boat, wedged between the dinghy and the mast with my harness clipped to the jack line and took photos.  It was interesting trying to time the shots between wind and rolling waves and holding on for dear life.

Michigan Island Light ~ Apostle Islands

As we moved between the Islands, we kept getting weird temperature gusts from hot to cold to hot with what felt like a 20 degree change in temperature. Raspberry Harbor was busy with 26 boats anchored in the bay. The biting flies have lessened but they are not gone. By far, we encountered the most flies ever, on this portion of the trip. This has been the worst thing we have had to deal with! We've had four long days with wind and waves but we always knew it would end once we were at anchor. Not so, the bugs! We become easy targets in the evening. We pulled into Raspberry Harbor Bay to anchor around 6:30.  The wind was out of the south which made this harbor the best choice.

Raspberry Harbor Anchorage ~ Apostle Islands

The Raspberry Island Lighthouse is just off our stern. It flashes every 2.5 seconds. I wonder if I can get a photo of it at night. It is warm and breezy here so we will be on deck until the sun sets. We settle into the cockpit with a bottle of Cabernet relishing the quiet evening sunset. We are so excited to be so close to Knife River! Like so many other special moments in my life, I stop, take a deep breath, and I note to myself...THIS is a special moment. Enjoy it!

Sunsets and Cabernet ~ This is the life!

Musings:

• Traveled 74 miles today over 11.5 hours per Garmin
• Engine hours read 394.8
• Lost one of the boom shade posts overboard during the windy night
• VHF calls for possible t-storms tonight. 
• Awoke in the middle of the night to look at the sky.  We could see the Raspberry Island light flashing off our stern.  Lovely evening, no photos, but we breathed in the vast sky, bedazzled in white and counted our lucky stars!