8/21/11 - 9/8/11   Saint Ignace is a nice tourist town just before you turn into Lake Michigan.  We saw more fudge shops than one can count and the usual local art.  We did enjoy a tour of a retired ice breaker ship that was used to clear a path for freighters.  Maybe the center of tourist attention in Lake Michigan is Macinac Island (pronounced mac-in-aw (but why?)).  The only ways to get there are by ferry or private boat.  It has no cars so transportation is provided by several hundred horses or bicycles.  After talking to friends that had gone there we decided to bypass it knowing we would miss overpriced meals and more fudge shops.  In the summer time the prevailing winds on Lake Michigan are moderate and from the southwest then they shift into the northeast and get stronger and harder to predict.  Over the next three weeks we found ourselves dodging into anchorages or marinas waiting for the weather to change so we made little progress.  When we did move it was usually in marginal conditions and at least once we encountered 5 foot waves.  We were not enjoying Lake Michigan.  The highlight was when we got to Saint Joseph.  We wanted to spend some time in Chicago when we eventually got there but it is expensive to park the boat near downtown.  When we got to St. Joseph we expected to be trapped by high winds for several days so we decided to take the train into Chicago, an adventure in itself.  We took the two hour ride in, got aboard a topless bus, jumped off at the Art Institute for a couple of hours, got back on and finished a very entertaining two hour tour of downtown Chicago.  We then got back on the train and got back to the boat in time to feed the cats.  A great day.

8/17/11 -  8/20/11  A nice little town called Little Current separates Georgian Bay from the North Channel.  We stopped for provisions, anchored out and then came back in the morning to attend a radio show for cruisers.  We spent the next several days cruising the channel.  It is similar to Georgian Bay but easier to anchor and I enjoyed it more.  It was late in the afternoon when we came across the U.S. border.  We weren't up to continuing on for another hour to make it to Drummond Island, which is the customs port, so we put up our yellow quarantine flag (indicating that we had not cleared customs) and anchored for the night.  I forgot to put on the anchor light which may have had something to do with the visit we got from U.S. Customs / Border Protection.  They woke us up at 10pm and after waiting for us to get dressed put two officers aboard to check our documents and a brief search of the boat.  We know the drill since we have been boarded twice before but not in the night.  They were very pleasant but cautioned us about not showing a light.   The next day we went into Drummond and cleared customs without incident.   It felt good to be back in our home country and we went to DeTour Marina, Michigan.  DeTour is the crossroads between Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Superior and quite a few freighters passed by us carrying corn, wheat, gravel, rock salt and taconite (processed iron ore).   These freighters are up to 1000 feet long and work until the lakes freeze over.  We took caution cruising these waters remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald, a 700 foot freighter that went down with all hands in November, 1975 after encountering 35 foot waves on Lake Superior.   We attended church Sunday morning at Union Presbyterian in DeTour and departed to an anchorage near Government Island.

8/9/11 -  8/16/11   Georgian Bay is called the land of 30.000 islands.  Some of them are only a few square feet but they must be navigated around just the same.  We like to anchor out most of the time rather than go to marinas not only because of the obvious savings but also the quiet and privacy.   Anchorages were sometimes hard to find though because the banks were so steep that when there was a protected area large enough for the boat, the water was too deep to get an anchor down to the bottom.   Also many of the islands are inhabited and they get electricity by way of underwater cables that are marked on the charts so that you can avoid anchoring there.   The water is so clean and clear in the Great Lakes that as soon as we entered Lake Ontario Lace began doing a little laundry every day in a bucket.   It only took a few minutes and kept us from spending time in a laundromat when we did get to a marina.  We spent the next 8 days wandering about, only making about 20 miles a day.  Probably the highlight of Georgian Bay was a fjord like bay called Baie Fine.   It is long and narrow with vertical sides rising 200 feet in some places.   We anchored for the evening and rowed the dinghy to explore the rocky shoreline.

8/4/11 -  8/8/11  After raising us over 800 feet above the level of Lake Ontario the locks of the Trent-Severn were now lowering us back down to the level of Lake Huron.  Lock 43 took us down 47 feet and we spent the night on the lower side.   One of the final locks is called the Big Chute and is not a lock at all.   It is actually a marine railway and lifts boats out of the water on slings and transports them over land down to the next level.   If there was a primary goal on this entire trip it was to enter the Georgian Bay and North Channel on the north side of Lake Huron.   This area has been described as the best cruising in the entire world by veterans.   The area is part of the Canadian Shield which is characterized by granite with a thin layer of soil or gravel with coniferous trees growing out of the cracks.   Some of these rocks date to the origin of this planet, some 4.5 billion years.   The scenery is spectacular but we actually found Georgian Bay to be somewhat uncomfortable because the channels through the rocks are often narrow and the penalty for inattention to navigation could be a bent prop or worse.   We actually did bump the bottom once but came away with no damage.   When we were in Elizabeth City, NC we met a fellow on his boat that lives here and he invited us to call him when we were in this area.   We anchored at Beckwith Island and he and his wife, who is a native Ojibwa Indian, came out to pick us up in one of his boats.  They took us to shore and then drove us to a restaurant for lunch and then the grocery store.   The Ojibwas experienced somewhat the same treatment from the government that American Indians did.   They were shuffled onto three remote island reservations as refuse and expected to expire.   As it turned out they survived and now struggle to hold on to their heritage as young members of the tribe move away the the native language becomes obscure.  

 7/30/11 -  8/3/11   The locks along the Trent-Severn Canal are often remote.   Several that we went through have no roads leading to them and are only accessible by water for the operators.   As we are nearing Lake Huron we seem to be seeing more cottages along the shore some modest and others large and ornate but always with a dock and boat(s).  Our luck didn't hold very long.   The three month old pump that transferred fresh water to the faucets quit and we were forced to go a little out of our way to Barrie, ON to get a new one.  The Confetti holds 250 gallons of water but it is inaccessible without the pump.   On the way to Barrie we passed quite an impressive home with it's own helicopter and we were later told that it belongs to the Swanson family (of Swanson dinner fame).   Barrie has both bus and rail service to Toronto so after installing a new pump we took the bus in.   Toronto is an impressive town.   It reminded us of New York city in a lot of ways.  We saw new and impressive architecture growing out of very old surroundings.  It has the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame which we didn't go into because we don't know the second thing about hockey (everyone knows the first thing: missing teeth).   It obviously has a vibrant business community,  the Toronto Stock Exchange is there, and even a smaller version of Times Square with ten story television screens.   We walked until we couldn't walk any more on pink granite sidewalks and then went to the train station and did a crossword puzzle until the "GO" (Government of Ontario) train came to take us back to Barrie.   The next day we were off again with still more locks to pass through before we reached Georgian Bay in northern Lake Huron.

7/16/11 -  7/29/11  We were continuing down the Trent-Severn Canal and I began to have trouble shifting one of the transmissions.  It eventually locked up and we limped into Buckhorn, Ontario on one engine.   After I did a brief investigation and talked to a transmission shop on the phone, it became apparent that the transmission had to be removed and sent in for overhaul.   This is no small project in that the engine has to be moved before the 150 pound transmission can be disconnected and lifted up through the floor of the cabin.   Luckily the marina where we landed had the equipment to do the job.   By the time we shipped it to Wheatley, Ontario, some 300 miles away, had it overhauled, had it shipped back and then installed it, we were laid up for 12 days.   We took the opportunity to get some overdue things done on the boat and to catch up on paperwork.   We found Canadians to be very pleasant, low key folks who revel in their brief summertime.  One shock was when I walked into the state run liquor store (there are no private liquor stores in Canada) and saw the prices.   I refused to pay what they were asking for a bottle of scotch and settled for the cheapest booze in the store which was a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka for $52.00 !!!!   How I longed for Texas free enterprise.

7/6/2011 - 7/15/2011   When we were in Kingston we met a fellow on the dock named Joe who said we HAD to go by his brother's house on our way past so we did.   Chris and his wife Lies live in a beautiful cottage on Hay Bay.  They are Canadians but spend winters (November through April) in Alabama.  Nice work if you can get it.  A few more days at anchor on Lake Ontario and we turned into the Trent-Severn Canal which would take us to Georgian Bay.  The canal is 240 miles long with 41 locks that will take us more than 800 feet above lake level and then back down.  We bought a season mooring pass which allowed us to tie up every night on a wall adjacent to the locks.   That gave us access to state maintained restrooms and often, towns along the way are within walking (or limping) distance.  Most of the locks are still hand operated by two guys that crank the doors open and closed and manually open the valves that control the water flow.  A week and 20 locks brought us to one of the wonders of the lock system.   The Peterborough Lift Lock puts the boat in a sort of pan and then lifts the pan hydraulically 65 feet to the next level.  Quite an experience.

7/2/11 - 7/5/11  Our first look ever at the Great Lakes was coming into Lake Ontario out of Oswego, NY harbor.  We had to put a bucket over the side and take a slurp just to believe it's fresh water.  We heard a story of a guy who was on a jet ski whose engine stopped far out in the Lake.  By the time he was rescued he was severely dehydrated.  When asked why he didn't take a drink from the lake he replied that he assumed it was salt water.  Our first stop is Whites Bay, in Henderson Bay.  It was a Saturday evening and we anchored surrounded by residences and boat traffic which means we had to endure constant boat wakes until dark.  We were compensated though because we had a ringside seat to a spectacular pre-Independence Day fireworks show on the shore line.  The next day (a Sunday) we moved on to Cedar Point State Park Marina and again more fireworks.  Monday July 4, we crossed over into Canada and cleared customs at Confederation Basin Marina.  Surprisingly it just took a phone call from a pay phone and we were in.  One night at anchor and then we checked into Portsmouth Olympic Harbor.  It is right next to a maximum security prison and museum (formerly the warden's residence) so I went to take the tour.  Also,down the street is an artillery emplacement built in the mid 1800's to protect the town of  Kingston, Ontario from attack by the U.S..  I visited it but as I was trying to get a better vantage point for a picture of the canon I missed a step and severely sprained my ankle which caused me to limp in pain for four weeks.  Such is the cruising life!

6/20/11 - 7/1/11   The town of Waterford, New York goes out of their way to accommodate cruisers so they provide free dockage, free electricity, free water, free wifi and $1 pump out.  Also they have a web cam that was pointed at the boat and our children were able to see us live, albeit in slow motion.  We stayed there 4 days and caught up on groceries, maintenance, mail and paper work.  The Erie Canal was built to facilitate shipping between New York and the Great Lakes..  By way of the locks it takes boats from the Hudson River up 405 feet and then back down to the level of Lake Erie.  Some of the lock machinery that is working today dates from the early 1900's.  They keep the machinery spit shined and I saw lock operators using rags to keep from touching the shiny brass control levers.  We very much enjoyed the scenery and the temperatures (highs in the 70's) but recent rains caused a huge amount of tree debris to be in the canal and we had to dodge logs most of the way.  We wanted to go to Lake Ontario so mid way on the Erie Canal we took a right up the Oswego Canal and entered the Lake at Oswego, NY.  We had gone through 30 locks in the past 11 days.

6/15/11 - 6/19/11   The Hudson River is very pleasant.  It is up to 100 feet deep and has steep rocky shores.  I kept thinking that some of the rocks hadn't moved since Revolutionary War soldiers traversed these waters.  The first night we anchored and just decided to stay there the whole next day and recuperate.  The next night we found a free dock (if you patronize the restaurant) at Highland Landing and had a great meal.  A night under Rip Van Winkle Bridge (Catskill NY) and a night behind Rattlesnake Island and we bid adieu to the Hudson and turned into the Erie Canal at Waterford, NY.