Moving on
20 July 2007 | Harbor Island, MI
Mike-Great sail
The morning dawned clear, cool, and and breezy. We got rid of the trash and picked up a bag of ice before departure. We had a great sail from St. Ignace to Harbor Island, which is one of many islands on the north side of Drummond Island. It is really beautiful here and is called the beginning of the North Channel, yet we are still in Michigan. We went for a dinghy ride and Mike fished. Unfortunately, I think one needs worms to catch the perch or bass that most people fish for in this area. There were deer wading the edges in the evening and sand hill cranes serenading us in the morning.
We have at least one TV channel here-I turned the TV on just to check and something was on...it always amazes me. I quickly turned it off. We may check later or in the morning for weather.
A "great sail" for those unversed is such things, is any time you can operate on wind power for an extended period of time. This morning we left St. Ignace with a steady 15 knots of wind from the north. We were able to sail on a broad reach (wind at 90 degrees) for about 6 hours. Gusts were up to about 25 knots and put our rail in the water on numerous occasions. The only minor problem was the temperature....52 degrees at our departure ,climbing to a pleasant 65 in the late afternoon. Kathy had at least 4 layers of clothes on most of the day(Yup, jeans, fluffy(fleece-thanks Sam and Mark), and rain gear to stop the wind). There are five boats here and another 6 or 7 in the inner harbor but everyone is well spaced so there isn't the worry of being too close .
Tomorrow we will head into Canadian waters and will have to stop somewhere to clear customs and hopefully buy some bait.