Isle Royale to Marquette, 2015

We have been 7 days without Wifi. Once we crossed over into the US our phones and wifi no longer worked. And yes the different marinas boasted that they had wifi, but it was illusive. Couldn't get onto any of them. I think it is a trick. One that I fell for. Finally Marquette has wifi and we are able to connect. Yahoo! Feel like we are back in touch with the world. Good to get caught up on FB, and still working thru email.

Every leg of our trip seems to be so long. The distances between ports on Lake Superior is a long trip. Thunder Bay to Isle Royale, 45 plus nautical miles. It also seems like there is a constant 10 - 15 knots of wind from the southeast, gusts to 20,  with waves calm to 2 feet. Another trick. I think the weatherman should get another ruler! Seas are on the side more often than not, which makes for an uncomfortable ride. Oh well, that's boating.

Ranger III loading a 25' powerboat

Once we got to Isle Royale, we found that we were going to be stuck there for  3 nights. Waiting for the weather to be favourable for the next leg of our journey. The Queen, a passenger boat that brought campers and hikers to the island was disabled, which left a lot of people stranded on the island. There was one father and son who wanted to hitch a ride with us whenever we were going. As it turned out, they got a ride on the Ranger III, a National Parks boat out of Houghton on Monday.

And we're off for Lake Louise.

View of Lake Louise. Worth the hike!

While at Isle Royale we took a 6 mile  (one way) dinghy ride around the peninsula to make a short 1 mile hike up and over the peninsula to the Lake Louis Lookout. The hike had a fair portion that was uphill on uneven ground which made it feel more like 2 miles. We were climbing over rocks and along wooden planks to make the 1 mile trek. The view at the top was quite rewarding. We stopped for a snack and some water at the top before our return.

King of the Castle, on top of World

"How far is that?"

"Oh, I need a picture of that"

Jim had noticed that the fuel tank was getting low. We all crossed our fingers on the return trip, hoping that we had enough fuel. Good news. We did. It just added a little more adventure to the trip. There are few boats that travel these waters, so counting on someone to help and provide a tow wasn't necessarily an option. I don't think that the 2 kayakers  we saw, would have been up to the challenge of towing 4 adults in a dinghy for miles and miles.

After Isle Royale we made our way to Copper Harbour, another long distance. (45 plus nautical miles, ???) The historical significance for this area as you may guess is copper. The area boasts the purest copper in the world, and the largest deposit. Most of the copper mining has ceased. Apparently nuggets of copper originally could be found on top of the ground, although it took a geologist to determine where the heaviest concentration was located to start the mining process. We only spent one night at Copper Harbour as the weather was favourable to move along.

We were off to anchor in Lac La Belle. Probably the shortest destination, port to port of the entire trip. Everything we read said the channel leading into the lake possibly only had 3 feet of water as it continually silted in from the dredged depth in excess of 10 feet. Symmetry draws 4.5 feet and Deja Vu only draws 3.5 feet so we lead the way in. No problem! We never saw anything less than 10'. There was a lesson to be learned here. Do not always believe what you read. Sometimes it is good to be brave and just try it. In this instance it sounded like the restriction was due to silting, not rocks. So glad we did. The lake itself is quite deep throughout and then it shallows up very quick as you approach shore. In about 2 boat lengths, we went from 24' to 8.9'. Hmmm. Perhaps we will back up a little and set the anchor. We had a wonderful evening at anchor.

The following morning, we had an early start to make our way to Houghton/Hancock on the Keweenaw Peninsula Waterway that bisects the peninsula. The waterway is 22 miles across, and cuts off about 100 miles of travel to circumnavigate the peninsula itself. The big freighters use this waterway in the spring and fall as a safe passage when the weather turns nasty on Lake Superior. We didn't see any freighters on our travels in the waterway. Hancock was on the north side and Houghton was on the south side of the waterway. (I apologize if I have this wrong, my sense of direction is really being challenged on this trip.) Hancock had the marina with full services so we stayed there. It was a short walk across the bridge to Houghton.

Little Mac, Houghton/Hancock Keweenaw Peninsula

The bridge was the heaviest bridge in the world when it was built. It is the second largest bridge on Lake Michigan, second to the Mackinac Bridge. It is called the "Little Mac". Hancock's fame and existence was due to iron ore mining. And an unused mine shaft still stands on the top of the hillside. They offered tours down 1.5 to 2 miles below ground level. Not for this girl. I think my claustrophobia would kick in big time. No one wants to see an out of control, panicked 63 year old losing it 1.5 miles underground.




Houghton on the other side of the waterway boasts that they get the most snow. Last season the total snowfall was 246.4 inches. Snow started falling November thru April, with a dusting recorded in October and May. And this recorded amount was not the greatest which happened to be 374 inches in 1978/79 (I could be corrected on this, but close enough, you get the idea) We may complain bout the snow at home, but it is nothing like this. Another thing to be thankful for!

Well we had another good weather day so we agreed that we would be on our way by 7:30 am, with a destination of Marquette if the weather would hold. 70 plus nautical miles, 9 hours on the water. Lake Superior / Keweenaw Bay was mirror smooth when we started out. Something to behold. These are really long distances along this shore, with very few anchorages, or harbours of refuge. Big Bay Harbour was the only opportunity in between Hancock and Marquette.  Marquette was only 24 n. miles away from Big Bay, the winds were southeast 10 to 15 and the waves were about 2' and we were travelling into them. The decision was made to push on for Marquette. The last hour of our trip was really uncomfortable once we made the turn towards Marquette. Now the waves were on the beam, and every so often there was that wave that was 3' or so that would knock the boat around.  We were really glad to make our way around the breakwall into calm waters. I will maintain that they make breakwalls so wives can compose and collect themselves a little before getting the boat ready for docking. Frazzled wives are not very pretty at the dock.

When we finally stopped and went below ....... what a mess. It looked like a tornado had touched down inside the boat. Almost everything had moved. The sofa was in the centre of the salon, and any bottles of pills that had been left on a counter was on the floor. Peter said "it gave new meaning to 'over the counter' drugs." We had about half an hours work to put things in order.

Washed my hair, and we were off to explore Marquette and dinner out. Ice cream cones after dinner. Jim and Peter wanted to do some more exploring, and Linda and I returned to the boats with a hot shower and some relaxing top of mind.

Marquette was established around the iron ore mining in the area. There is a huge structure on the waterfront for the loading of the ships. Trains would bring the ore in on the top of the structure and dump into the hoppers. And then once the boats were alongside, multiple huge troughs/arms would lower and fill the ships. There must be 20 troughs along each side of the structure. What once had been a 1-2 day job, now was reduced to 92 minutes. And they could fill 2 to 4 boats simultaneously.  What an innovation. There are a number of these structures around the lake. They now are dormant. It is such a shame to see such a marvellous structure unused. Perhaps someday, someone will come up with an idea of how to put these to an alternate use.

Perhaps a better view. 

It was decided early this morning that we would layover in Marquette. The weather pattern has rain today, followed by a good day, next day rain, followed by another good day. Seems like every other day for the next while. Linda thought that it could be Tuesday before we get another travel day. And Marquette is a good place to be. It is only about 100 n. miles plus,  to Sault Ste Marie so we can choose our travel days. Once again there are very few places to stay along this shore so the next leg will be another long day.

APetunia Tree, Marquette

Breakfast out at Dunckers. Highly recommended. Then we crossed the street to the Bookstore and Music shop to stock up on some new books and tunes. Jim and Peter wanted to explore some local museums and Linda and I chose to return to the boats for R&R.