Great Lakes Sailing

8/2/08

La Pointe Harbor

This morning at 0230, we were awakened by the bar closers from Tom's Burned Down Cafe who were coming back to their anchored boats. Despite the fact that it was a quiet, still night, the short dinghy ride from the beach must have been really rough as one of the sailors was soon heaving over the side of his boat from apparent seasickness. Later that morning, we went ashore to rent bikes so that we could tour the island. Although the brochure stated that the rental place was open at 0800, when we showed up at 0830, the young woman in charge of the store was still getting things organized and seemed quite surprised to see us there that early.

In two hours of brisk riding, we saw about 2/3rds of the island. The island is fairly rustic and beautiful and I especially enjoyed seeing the marshy areas near the shore on the southwest side. We took a brief detour into Big Bay Town Park and hiked down to the beach were we encountered some college aged kids who apparently had also been at Tom's Burned Down Cafe the night before. Further down the road, there was a very interesting "gentleman's farm" that contained among other things, a camel and a Dodge Viper sitting in the front lawn. The golf course near the Madeline Island Yacht Club was really the only area that was the least bit pretentious.

We returned to the boat with the idea that we'd go on to the Madeline Island Yacht Club to top off with diesel and fresh water and then continue on to Big Bay on the east shore of Madeline Island, but as we were motoring out, the forecast was calling for east winds 10-20 kts. Since Big Bay is totally open to the east and with a long distance for shelter in case of a blow, we elected to go back to La Pointe. As we were returning, two kids sailed by in a 420 and were soon in need of rescue, so Isak went out in the dinghy to lend a hand and eventually towed them back to the Madeline Island Yacht Club. Around dinner time, several other boats arrived to anchor close by entertaining us by their anchoring technique. One sailboat in particular came through the mooring fleet under sail and then anchored right next to us so close that several times the captain had to shorten his anchor line to keep from hitting us when the wakes from passing powerboats went by. Later that night we listened to the festivities of Pauline and Fred's wedding reception going on at the bar and restaurant near the marina. We thought it was going to be another late night of festivities, but after the garter was thrown around 9:00pm, things began to slow down.