Great Lakes Sailing

8/1/08

La Pointe Harbor Via Bayfield

Overnight dense fog developed, but was lifting by 0800. We left by 0900 into a building west wind that soon had us scooting along at over 7 kts. A boat ahead of us was motoring so naturally, I began trimming the sails a little harder in order to catch up and then pass. With every puff we got a little closer and right before the Apostle Island Marina entrance, we were behind by only a boat length so we considered that a moral victory anyway. In the Apostles, Bayfield is really the only game in town with regard to provisioning and even there it is limited but they do have a nice albeit small IGA and an Ace Hardware store. Temporary transient space is limited, but we found that it is possible in most cases to lay at the end of the C dock opposite of the fuel dock and then ask the dockmaster permission after doing so. In our case, it allowed us grab some groceries and a "real" shower, send e-mail and plug into shore power for a few hours to charge our batteries that between the layovers and the excellent sailing that we've had the last few days were beginning to suffer. Soon we were on our way over to the bay near La Pointe on Madeline Island where we swam, went ashore to visit the library and watched the boats go by as this area is an excellent people watching spot.