Day 11-12: Grand Marais - brewery and a pickle house

Nest stop Grand Marais, 44 miles traveling on Lake Superior! I still can't believe we are here! I was nervous, but having respect for the lake and how winds can change a calm lake to an angry one, we only move when weather is good. So far, so good so we keep moving!
Ben is prepared for fog as this is pretty common along the shoreline of the lake as temperatures on land become warmer than the water temperature. We got to experience this for ourselves...joy!! It wasn't bad but for a bit we could not see anything but fog. I was nervous but with radar running we knew there were no other boats around us. Thankfully it burned up pretty quickly and we could focus on relaxing!

You can see the clouds along the shoreline

pretty cool to see the clouds this low

But not cool to see them surrounding us! The fog has rolled in.

We are surrounded by the fog

Sawyer was not bothered by the fog at all!

Approaching our stop...Grand Marais

Fog starting to lift near the marina

This is our spot for two nights. Nice wall to dock and lots of grass for Sawyer to run. 

The dark grey building near our boat, will be a new bath house and fish cleaning station.

We learned from a couple locals about the best brewery/restaurant in town, called The Lake Superior Brewing Company. We spent both evenings here for dinner and drinks, maybe a lunch drink as well! Grand Marais is a small town with two restaurants/bars, a grocery store, hardware, one gas station a couple small shops, a food truck, coffee in a VW and a Pickle House! We hit it all! While we were here there was a kayak symposium happening so there were a lot of people in town. We were lucky as the kayakers were holding learning sessions in the water right outside our boat. Ben enjoyed watching them learn rolling over and rescue practices.

The Pickle Barrel House was built to resemble two barrels. It is based on cartoon characters who are two inches tall and lived in a pickle barrel.

They had a good taco and excellent cheese fries

Our boat is docked behind us

Excellent coffee and a great smoothie came out of this VW! Oh and a couple homemade cookies lovingly baked by a lady who is almost 100 years old.

Cute Sawyer hanging out with his dad

Overlooking the beach and all the kayakers

Cute town

If we were not on the boat, you probably could find us here!

Just a small walk up the road takes you to this gorgeous beach.

 From this picture it is hard to believe how ugly Lake Superior can turn.

Day 10: Whitefish Point Park -Locks and Shipwreck Museum

Sawyer loves his boat rides! 

Our plan first thing in the morning was to top off our diesel and head to the locks, which are located just outside the harbor. Unfortunately, we learned that the locks were shut down for two hours for repair and there were several freighters lined up to enter, which means our wait could be five hours. Lucky for us the most used lock by pleasure craft (which is what we are considered) is the locks located just across the St Mary's River on the Canadian side. Only they don't open until 9am and we were ready to go at 8:00. We waited a bit, walked Sawyer one last time, and then headed to Canada! (Canadian locks are located just across from the US locks) This lock is much smaller than the US locks. It still raises us 21 feet but here there are plastic covered cables you wrap your line around as you ride up/down. While the US locks throw a line to you and you hold that while riding up/down. We shared this lock with a car ferry, much bigger than us.

Entering the locks

In the lock! We are being raised 21feet 

Sharing the lock with a carferry

Leaving the lock

While in Sault Ste. Marie, we ran into a couple we met sometime ago and they are heading to Whitefish Point as well. We will spend some time with them visiting the Shipwreck museum. They travel slower than us (if you can imagine that!) at 8miles/hour. They left before we were awake and will be waiting for us just in time for lunch. The run is a short one with only 33 miles of travel time but will need to add at least 45 min for transiting the locks.

Whitefish Point State Park offers a free dock but no power, no water and no toilets. All is totally fine with us as we have a generator and an inverter for running A/C/microwave/TV...etc, we hold 300 gallons of water and we travel with two heads (toilets)!
We have had wonderful weather so far, temps have been in the 70's during the day and the evenings have been cool enough for windows to be opened. We love the sound of the water and the smell of fresh unpolluted air, it's been great for our souls.

We were the only boats on the dock with the exception of some old fishing boats...

The old fishing boats

This was a scary metal dock (for me), narrow and open to the water and loud. Thankfully Sawyer got over his fear of this sort of dock back in Leland.

Cool old fishing processing sight, still in operation

We enjoyed our visit to the shipwreck museum where they have the actual bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald. The bell was removed from the wreck as a request from family members. They replaced the original bell with one that has all the crew members names engraved on it and it is with the wreck off the point of Whitefish Point.

The Bell

Family photo at the Shipwreck Museum

After our trip to the museum we walked the mile or two back to the boat, enjoyed our time with our friends for a bit, had some dinner on board and called it a night. Tomorrow we are off to Grand Marais, MI. We are picking our way west along the southern shoreline and going to enjoy our time and get as far west as possible.

Sawyer is always up for some play time! He is loving boat life!

Day 8-9: Sault Ste. Marie...Last stop before Superior!!!

We left Detour, MI for Sault St. Marie, MI traveling up the St. Mary's River. It was AGAIN a beautiful day on the water. We had less than four hours to go so we slept in a bit before taking off. Sault Ste. Marie is our last stop before we head into the Soo Locks and then to Superior. We planned for two days here as they have a lake freighter called the Valley Camp, which is located next to the marina for touring. We will top off our diesel here, do some laundry and get our large round fenders blown up and ready for the locks.

Passing a freighter heading up the St. Mary's River

Gorgeous on the river today

While walking Sawyer (I really need to work on leash training with him) and checking out the cute town, which is bigger than the last few stops we've been at, we decided our next few meals! Prime rib and mexican will be our two dinners!

Shop after shop after shop with a smattering of restaurants and ice cream

We enjoyed our time here, we spent our first day touring the lake freighter Valley Camp. Ben was in heaven, they had the actual life boat from the Edmund Fitzgerald. To me it smelled but I enjoy seeing how people live and what the galley (kitchen) and heads (bathrooms) look like on these freighters. Surprising, the accommodations were pretty nice for ship life considering it was built in 1917. Pretty awesome to walk through one of these huge (550 feet) ships knowing that she served on the Great Lakes for almost 50 years. 

Inside the belly of the ship

This freighter is massive

the wheel house

Galley for officers and guests

The life boat from the Edmund Fitzgerald 

We watched as two freighters were locking through the Soo Locks. One was going up to Lake Superior and one coming down. All ships/freighters pass through these locks going into Superior, commercial traffic takes precedent over us pleasure craft. So we will be calling the locks first thing in the morning to see what the freighter traffic looks like for our travels. These locks are said to be the busiest in the world by cargo tonnage. Something between seven and ten thousand ships pass through in a year! We will be going through these locks on our boat, raising us 21feet. We have locked through more than 80 locks so this is not new to us, but it has been a few years so I may be rusty!! I'll keep you posted...

Soo locks: The freighter on the right is heading down while the ship in the parallel
lock (left) is going up.

This was the park where everyone
is checked by security to watch the ships in the locks

Beautiful grounds with a foutain...we are ready for the locks but better yet to be on Lake Superior

Sawyer pants...it is fun to have a puppy onboard

My little shadow

Sawyer is either sleeping while underway or chasing flies but he sometimes can be found getting crazy dog with dad!

Day 7: Detour, MI...Loopers and pizza

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, they claim to have the largest porch in the world.

We slept in a bit after our bar crawl the day before while in St Ignace. I love sleeping in!! We didn't leave until 9:30 for Detour, MI. Weather again was looking good for our travels...thankfully! Our three hour cruise took us past Mackinac Island and across the top of Lake Huron. No sooner were we docked, when a gentleman approached handing me his boat card, while informing me at 6pm was "docktails" with several other Looper boats, also docked here. It's funny because I forgot what it was like while on the Loop...this is what you do... You travel from town to town and in each one you look for the white Great Loop burgee (flag flying off the bow or front of the boat) on all boats. These are people traveling the loop (since we completed the loop we fly a gold burgee). Every evening is a get together, you bring an appetizer to pass, whatever you're drinking and you discuss next stops and where you've been. So, for one night while in Detour, MI Ben and I got to be loopers again. Actually, we were the ones with the information so that was fun to feel smart!! hehe!

Our friends took this shot as we were leaving St Ignace

Sawyer is loving his boating life!

Another lovely day on the water

Before heading out to walk Sawyer around this small, quaint town, we asked the locals (boaters/harbor masters...etc) about the best places to go, eat and see. When I heard there was a place that makes really good homemade pizza...I didn't need to listen any further!! We already planned dinner on our boat, but pizza would be great to have on the boat for lunches on our upcoming travels. So, a large pizza, chips from the gas station and our MI fishing licenses in hand, we walked back to the boat to relax and enjoy our dinner onboard. The town doesn't have much but a couple restaurants/bars and a gas station. But we didn't need much more that that. We ended our evening walking Sawyer and stopping for some ice cream. It was a great stop and we may have to stop for another pizza on our way back home in a few weeks! 

The tiny tour of Detour...

Sawyer loves taking in all the new smells in every town.