Thessalon to Mackinac Island

Once again, we get to prove our motto 'together we rock' since today is very rough leaving Thesalon. It was a bumpy 3 hour trek. Our first stop of course, is Drummond Island where we need to clear customs. Thanks to Jeff Herron who gave us the heads up to have our paperwork pre-filed and waiting for us at Drummond. It still took a couple of hours, but is was lunch time and hopefully had nothing to do with our name.

It is customary to fly the flag of the country you are visiting higher than the country your vessel is flagged in. We hung our American flag from our radar mast.

During that time a thunder storm caught up to us so we only traveled 12 more kilometers to Detour  Municipal Marina. We were happy to see Coeur de Lion, who we met in Blind River. It was so cold and rainy that no one was socializing. We plugged in the heater and tucked in for the night.



Friday morning we waited out the weather and headed over to the Cedarville area and 52 kilometers later pulled into the town of Hessel. There we were met by our friends Steve and Kathy Fountain for an evening of appetizers on the sun deck. Thanks Kathy for the crackers and the really good cheese. We had reservations at the Hessel Culinary School and had a fabulous evening of good food and much laughter.

Our friends Steve and Kathy Fountain

Hessel Culinary School



Saturday was a work day as we transported and uncrated 11 cases of new boat seats we had shipped to the Fountain's residence. We can't thank them enough!

Uncrating 11 boxes

Big project ahead installing the new seats

Old worn out seats gotta go..But Brian says whoa!! Not so quick.  Just move them to the back deck. We may be glad for them later.

Lovin those new seats!



We enjoyed a fabulous barbeque at their lakefront home.
 We loved the sunset at the dock and the evening boat tour of the beautiful Les Chenaux Islands. Brian has not seen so many antique boats in one place in all his life.

It's seems a coincidence to see the same boat at Macinac Island and learn that he is the owner of the Grand Hotel and enjoys dining at the Hessel Cullinary School.

The end of our second week finds us at Mackinac Island, MI.

This is a relevant stop for us as it's one of Janice's favorite places to visit. It's also the source of some memories of a few good laughs and one spectacular meal at the Grand Hotel with Clark and Donna on a motorcycle trip in 2002. At this stop we met some other 'loopers', Ken and Lois of Camelot, John and April and kids of Sequacious and Dave and Linda of ….can't find their boat card. We hope to see them again.


It was while lounging on the lawn here that Brian first took to longingly looking to the boats in the Mackinac Marina. He recalls musing about the people that would be staying on those boats and where into the open waters they would be heading.


We loved our time here, walking the town, touring the fort and eating the fudge. We hit the grocery store and put on a pot of chili and finally had time to get some blogging done.

Now with prevailing wind and heavy rain we get to stay another day. Snuggled up by the heater and surrounded by history, horses hoofs clopping along and we can't forget to mention the hourly cannon firings. We got to try out our oven for the first time.
















After the straights of Mackinac we entered Lake Michigan from Lake Huron. It's a very historical place where the Brithish and Americans fought and it is the joining of 2 Great Lakes.

Bridged in 1957 it was the longest suspension bridge in the world.

Now we begin motoring along the 392 miles of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and are hoping for calm seas and blue skies as we head to Chicago.