Haulout Heck Begins

Drummond Island,  MI
August 10

We left Bear Drop Harbor at 6:45 on a nice calm day.  We had thought about making it a two-day trip to Drummond, but the weather was with us and we went straight over.  It was a beautiful trip. 

I was preparing lines and fenders for docking, and tripped on the forward hatch and went down hard.  Knocked the breath out of myself.  I am sore, but was very lucky that I didn’t hit anything on the way down and I wasn’t badly injured. 

We came in to Drummond and they decided to put us in the lift since they planned to haul us tomorrow, but the fenders wouldn’t fit in the lift right and we got some damage.  We tied up and were pretty settled – though rather tired and out of sorts after scratched on boat and fall for me. 

In a little while, we looked out by the island and there was a large powerboat lying at an angle after running aground.  They were going to lift them immediately, so we had to vacate the lift and tie on the wall.  It was just a hassle. 

We cleared customs at Drummond Island Yacht Haven with Denny Bailey.  Clearance number was 0338030499DY.  Clearance was a joke after the inspection we went through in Canada.  They just wrote down the number and sent us on our way.  They didn’t take away my tomato plant, which I expected. 

We were both pretty tired when we got all done and I went to bed before dark.

August 11, 2003

We hauled out at the lift in a pretty stiff breeze.  They hauled another boat before us then removed the 3^rd and 4^th straps on the lift before they came back to get us.  Then they had to go get the other straps.  I could not imagine why they bothered to remove the extra straps. 

We managed to get most of the boot stripe and the filler under it off with a heat gun so it could dry over night.    

Caper rode in the lift for nearly 1/2 mile

Jan & Dave Robinson aboard Ashanti invited us for drinks, so we went by after working on the boat.  I took some cut herbs and the recipe for the Boursin style herb cheese.  I hate to go empty handed and a recipe is a great thing to pass on.  We visited for a while and enjoyed it very much.   

We worked every day on the boat, did the post office run, made dozens of disks, took out all of the tools and materials, put things away, bought groceries, cleaned up, fueled, fueled the dinghy, dumped the tanks and did laundry.

Marquette Bay, MI
August 15

They put us in the water at about noon and we left the dock not quite knowing what we were going to do.  We ended up in Marquette Bay after 44 miles of travel.  The wind had been pretty stiff leaving, but fairly comfortable, then it began to calm and then gusted back so the last 30 minutes or so were pretty uncomfortable.  I was very glad to be settled as I was quite exhausted from 5 days of work and travel.  We went to bed before dark again. 

We spent a couple of days playing and resting in Marquette Bay.  It was a beautiful place with little traffic.  A guy came by and invited us ashore at his cottage and we took him up on it.  It was a nice family.  They showed us charts of the channels through the islands and were very friendly.  They came to visit on the 16^th for a little while to see the boat.  They had been very curious.  

Another trawler was anchored near us.  The anchorage was behind Long Island and was very protected with good holding ground, but more flies than I have ever seen. 

We went down through the channels on Sunday and saw that it was quite populated, though not crowded.  We could have taken the boat in any place there.  We even got to go out to lunch. 

We went into Hessel – the little town on the bay – and made some phone calls and picked up email.  It took at least 25 minutes to pick up the e mail as the trawler list was still turned on. 

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