Month: August 2022

Way too late for it to matter, our friend Deb reminded us that Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in Detroit.  One of us—but only one of us—would’ve taken the long Uber ride out to 6676 Telegraph Road, where the Red Fox was the last place anyone admits seeing him alive.*

Instead, we bravely took the dangerous walk downtown to breakfast.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t overly dangerous after all.  Or maybe we just got lucky.  Either way, we weren’t murdered.  In fact, the streets we saw actually looked kind of nice.

We also may have been quick to misjudge Detroit’s public art, although the Bible verse on the municipal building comes pretty damn close to violating the Establishment Clause.

Although we’ve likely exceeded our quota of Edmund Fitzgerald references, before leaving Detroit we stopped by the Mariners’ Church.

“The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times, for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  It was this church.  While we’re at it, we also passed the museum on Belle Island where they have the Mighty Fitz’s anchor.

It’s a tad misleading though.  This anchor wasn’t recovered from the watery wreckage where those twenty-nine souls were condemned to the icy depths of Lake Superior.  Nope.  It’s one the ship left in the Detroit River a year before the gales of November came early.

Up at the north end of Belle Island is the now-abandoned William Livingstone Memorial Lighthouse, supposedly the only lighthouse in the world built out of marble.

It seems impossible for anyone to know the construction specs of all the planet’s lighthouses, of course, but Livingstone contributed greatly to the big shipping channel we’ve enjoyed so far, so we won’t quibble.

Then out of the river and into Lake St. Clair.  As we approached the Safe Harbor Jefferson Beach Marina, the world’s tallest lighthouse led us in.  Obviously we don’t actually know that it’s the world’s tallest, but we do know it’s the tallest one we’ve ever seen.

If it looks more like an apartment building than a lighthouse, it’s probably because it is an apartment building.  But up there on top is a navigation beacon, marking red and white sectors every five seconds.

They put us at the end of G Road.  Not G Dock, G Road.  At this joint, they don’t need dock carts, because every slip has a parking spot.  Crazy.

Friday was a great day to cross Lake St. Clair and start up the St. Clair River.  Sunrises finally have started to occur at a much more reasonable hour, such that we can enjoy them.  We got a crazy awesome orange one.  It looks fake, but isn’t.

We made it as far as Algonac, which was fine because that’s where we planned to stop anyway.  Algonac is about a quarter of the way up the St. Clair River, which connects Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron and looks to be the last river we’ll run this year.

The trip was so tranquil we dang near dozed off, but fortunately didn’t because we’re still on the St. Lawrence Seaway.  Which means huge ships zipping downstream and throwing big wakes at us.  At least Integrity had the decency to sport a pleasing beachy color scheme.

Algonac is famous as the home of one Christopher Columbus Smith, who in 1874—at the tender age of 13—built his first boat.  By 1930, he would sell you an all-mahogany 48’ 30-passenger cruiser for $35,000.

In 1970, Chris-Craft closed the factory, although the Algonac Harbor Club—where we spent the night—still uses some of the old buildings for storage and parking and whatnot.

An RV company currently makes fiberglass Chris-Craft boats in Sarasota, Florida.  Yuck.  At least the original water tower—more than a hundred years old and now painted with a pleasing beachy color scheme—still stood above Tumbleweed.

The marina is a jumbled angled confusion of narrow fairways, such that a less observant pilot easily might wander into an unforgiving alley that looks kind of like Doug’s Okeechobee ditch, albeit with more tiny boats and fewer stumps and alligators.

But we made it out and back to the St. Clair River, where we passed what might be the last Chris-Craft connection to Algonac.  The former president’s house is filled with mahogany fanciness crafted by the factory woodworkers.  A South Carolina couple with no interest in boats recently bought it.  We forgot to take a picture.  Liming, however, took a picture of us as they zoomed by a bit later.

Saturday was just slow going, against current that was someplace on the continuum between acceptable and St. Lawrence-under-the-Jacques Cartier-Bridge.   We thought we’d never get by the Cargill Salt Plant, which collects product from local salt wells and ships it around the world.  Anyone who enjoys soft water or pretzels should appreciate this place.

Hey, it’s reunion time!  Although we’ve only known her for two weeks, Oakglen was a familiar sight.  She probably was happy to see us as well.

Our old nemesis Saginaw was next up.

That horrible day with seven hours of fog in 2018 almost ended with Saginaw creaming us just yards from the safety of Muskegon.  At least that’s how we remember it now.  For anyone who doesn’t want to follow the link, here’s the proof.

Just as the storm clouds gathered—and shortly behind two jackasses in Formulas who blew through to catch the bridges and damaged boats with their wake in the process—we pulled off into Port Huron.

Great stop.  Least expensive diesel fuel we’ve seen since last year— which isn’t saying much—plus we got an extra 5¢ off per gallon.  Whooooo!

We tied up right there by St. Clair County Community College.  Go Skippers!

Sunday brought clouds and drizzle, which sucked.  Mostly, however, it sucked for the floaters.  For two days we heard periodic notifications from both U.S. and Canadian coast guards about boats being banned from a good chunk of the St. Clair River because of the annual “unsanctioned float down,” which apparently has occurred for the last 45 years.

In 2016, high winds blew some 1,500 drunk, injured, and/or freezing Americans onto Canadian shores “without identification, money, or a means of communication.”  Now this is the kind of event we didn’t want to miss, rain or no rain.

Meh.  We waited over an hour before a smattering of floaters came by.  The drone photo was barely worth the risk of a mid-air collision with the Coast Guard helicopters.

Maybe the weather was to blame, but regardless, we didn’t walk a full half-mile just to see almost as many law enforcement vessels as drunk revelers.

On the way back from what we forever will recall as “The Great Float Down Disappointment of ’22,” we passed another first.  Based on the paint job it looks to be some sort of visual emetic.  Or possibly a fancy latrine.

A few more things.  The Cobras were playing Team Juicy in 14u softball at Pine Grove Park, right next to a huge boulder that the Rotary Club planted in 1929 to commentate the years that a youthful Tom Edison played here.

Just a boulder’s throw away sits the Huron, which was the last lightship the Coast Guard used on the Great Lakes.  It’s hard to believe that a ship with an 11-member crew is more economical than just a regular old lighthouse, even one built out of marble.  But between 1921 and 1970 Huron’s beacon could be seen for 14 miles.  

So yeah, Port Huron has it all going on.

Plus the rain went away just before sunset.

A couple of hours ago we took off after dithering about whether it was foolish given the predictions.  With hindsight, it was foolish.  We made it under the Blue Water Bridge just fine, although the current slid much closer to the Jacques Cartier Bridge end of the previously-referenced spectrum.

We’re damn glad to be done with rivers for a while.  The last one where we weren’t fighting upstream like salmon hoping to spawn was the East River through New York City.  It’s literally been all uphill since then.  And as we’ve previously noted, the East River isn’t even a river.

From the bridge onward, however, things have been significantly unpleasant.  We’re cranking out the post while underway, because (1) we need a distraction from the gruesome waves and (2) if we make it to Lexington we’ll be too spent to do it.

Also, we now have a final destination.  Tumbleweed will hibernate in Green Bay, tucked warmly in heated storage.

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*Coincidentally, that same only one of us thought Redd Foxx made an excellent Fred G. Sanford.

After Lake Huron beat us up for a few hours on Monday, we pulled into the welcoming safety of Lexington, where the British efforts to disarm the American colonists in 1775 sparked the Revolutionary War.  What’s that?  Wrong Lexington?  That was Lexington, Massachusetts?

Okay then, Monday afternoon we pulled into Lexington, where the world’s largest such factory churns out peanut butter and where inveterate whiner John Calipari is just the latest in a long line of dirtbag Wildcat basketball coaches.  What?  That’s Lexington, Kentucky?

Lexington, Michigan, may be the best of them all.  This Lexington is famous as the home of Gielow Pickles, which unfortunately was closed on Monday.

But we were able to buy some dill Cool Crisps at Jeff’s Market, and the village is dang cute.

The sign outside the Village Pub said Ted Nugent was playing Monday night.  We confirmed it.  Ted Nugent.  “Cat Scratch Fever.”  The Motor City Madman himself.

This would seem to break our lengthy streak of always missing out on the cool stuff, except, you know, it’s Ted Nugent.  First, we don’t like his music.  Second, the dude hasn’t been relevant since 1977, as confirmed by the fact that he’s playing bar gigs in Lexington, Michigan, (population 1,180), on a Monday night.  Third, we have no interest in joining Michigan militia types on an FBI watch list.  So no, we didn’t go.

We also didn’t join the kiteboarders who came out to enjoy the wind that whipped up the waves that we didn’t enjoy.

We actually wanted to join the kiteboarders, but quickly remembered that we have no kites.  Or boards.  Or wetsuits.  Or core strength.

Anyway, we enjoyed a fun chat with Bruce and Jan—Michiganders aboard Family Times—who kindly shared their anti-spider secrets and their anti-spider spray with us.  Bruce follows the blog so knew we were coming and waited on the dock to help us in.  Which was quite handy in the perpendicular wind that threatened to overpower our thrusters.  Very nice folks.

Tuesday sucked for kiteboarders.  Which was great for us, and frankly, it’s all about us, so we got in a decently-nice run up to Harbor Beach. What a difference a day makes, indeed.   Bruce’s advice for avoiding fish nets was spot on.  We didn’t see a one.

The entrance to Harbor Beach harbor is marked by a lighthouse that has been lighthousing since 1885.  That makes it nearly as old as Ted Nugent, and, given the advent of electronic navigation tools, nearly as useless.  Regardless, we’d put it in the top tier on our list of picturesque lighthouses.

Harbor Beach is a bit hardscrabble, with essentially one place to eat on a Tuesday afternoon.

At 3:30, the bar part of the bar & grill was filled with folks who were “born to ride,” if their shirts are to be trusted.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but it really isn’t our vibe.  Plus, we’re pretty sure those good folks would sneer at pickleball and Dana’s Acura MDX.  The hike to and from town, however, was as pretty as the dockmaster described it.

Apart from the lighthouse, Harbor Beach’s only attraction seems to be Grice House, a small local-artifact museum that was closed.

The brick portion is one of the few structures in these parts that survived the “Thumb Fire” of 1881.  That cataclysm—which we’d never heard of until we started researching Grice House—burned over a million acres of Michigan’s “thumb” in just one day.  Hence the name “Thumb Fire.”  Duh.  The following day smoke from the fire blanketed New England, leading the more fervent in those states to proclaim the arrival of Armageddon.

That sums up our report on Harbor Beach.  Except we also had a most excellent time aboard Dutch Treat with Kevin and Pam and Bentley.

Wednesday brought an early morning, because Wednesday also brought a long day.  Fortunately it was the best of our small sampling of Lake Huron this year.

Heck, for a good part of it we even forgot to activate the stabilizers.

Most of the route was spent crossing Saginaw Bay.  If Saginaw Bay sounds familiar, it’s probably because that’s where the great Lefty Frizzell grew up in a house and loved a rich girl and then duped his greedy fool of a father-in-law into buying a worthless claim on cold, cold ground in Alaska.

People talk about crossing Saginaw Bay in the same trembling way people talk about crossing the Albemarle Sound and the Bay of Chaleur.  Meh.  Our luck held the whole way.

Eight hours of smooth cruising got us past the thumb and past the bay.

As evidence of how slow we travel, a bat sized us up and then stuck a landing on the starboard pilothouse doorjamb some ten miles from shore.  Dana insisted on a port tie in Harrisville so as to not disturb the little freeloader.  We  counted on him paying us back by gorging on the spiders and midges his presence prevented us from hosing off.

But he mostly just hung there upside down until we decided to have a marina guy take us and Dutch Treat to the only restaurant in this town of four hundred people and it looked like rain so we needed to close the door so we shooed him off and when we got back he was gone.  Apart from all that excitement and chatting with Loopers Darin and Susan—who live aboard Sea Gem—our Harrisville stop wasn’t much noteworthy.  In fact, We didn’t take a single picture to remind us of the place until we were heading out.

Next stop, Alpena Marina.  Mostly we stopped at Alpena Marina because Dana enjoys saying “Alpena Marina.”  And if we’re going to be someplace for two days because of forecasted weather, we might as well be someplace with a name that makes Dana giggle.

Alpena is at the edge of Thunder Bay.  Michigan, not Ontario.  And it turns out we were lucky to make it in safely, and will be even more lucky to make it out safely.  Because the cool shipwreck exhibits at the maritime museum suggest that about half the boats that travel around here, sink around here.  Heck, there are so many well-preserved shipwrecks that they actually created the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary to protect them from looters.

The museum is loaded with tidbits and artifacts, some of which were repossessed from said looters.  Very cool museum.

Just to confirm the perils of our chosen path, the museum even offers glass-bottom boat tours to see sunken boats.  Which means there are a bunch of them.  And means they’re in very shallow water.

Although Thursday was a gloomy rainy day and our navigational future still looks grim, this morning brought the promise of at least a smattering of sun.

And, in fact, things slowly cleared up enough for some outdoorsy activities.

Alpena understandably is proud of its eighteen miles of designated bike path.  We’re pretty confident that by “bike path” they meant “electric scooter path,” although the dude on the bicycle we zoomed past gave us a look suggesting that he hadn’t read the memo.  Anyway, lots of cool stuff along the electric scooter path.

Alpena also is proud of its murals.  There are a bunch of them scattered throughout town.  Frankly, most of them are just okay.  The one with the 3D fish, however, is dang worthy of noting.

More importantly, Alpena opened brand new pickleball courts just a couple of months ago.  Good times with Kevin and Pam.  We haven’t known them long and we’re heading to different places starting tomorrow, but we really enjoy them so hopefully we’ll meet up again next year someplace.  By then maybe they’ll have scooters.  And boat cards.

Hudson was just down the dock as well.  We last saw Debbie and Shane in the shadow of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but this time it was Debbie’s birthday.  Turning birthday convention on its head, Debbie brought us a present of delicious cookies.  Safe travels, Hudson.

In a couple of days we’ll be back to the Straits of Mackinac.  We’re looking forward to Deb and Sam and Lea staying with us for a night or two, while poor Tom is left with 109° highs at home in Scottsdale.

Our friend Erin is from Michigan and is an unreasonably-big fan of all things Michigan, including Michigan’s many lighthouses.  So for Erin, here are some lighthouses.  Thanks to modern navigation tools now they’re just relics, of course, but still.

First up, the Alpena light, which we passed way too early yesterday morning.  This one was built in 1914 to replace several successive predecessors, is covered in red lead paint, and is in danger of disintegration.  But in silhouette, it almost appears useful.

In 1855, the crumbling mess of a lighthouse on Thunder Bay Island was replaced with what now is another crumbling mess, although it still looks cool from the water.  At least one poor slob in a sailboat apparently tried to get a closer view.  Oh, the irony.

Fabulous Middle Island is for sale, with an asking price of $3.9 million for all 227 acres.  The Coast Guard owns the unmanned 1905 lighthouse, but whoever buys the island will have use of it and “can sip a morning cup of coffee from its top.”  Nice, but we don’t drink coffee.

Presque Isle has not one, but two lighthouses.  The first—now called the “old” light—was completed in 1840.  It wasn’t very effective, however, because ships kept right on hitting rocks and sinking.

So they built the “new” light in 1870.

On September 16, 1901, a poor doomed sailor put a grisly message in a bottle just before his steamship sank in a Lake Superior storm.  The New Presque Isle Light keeper found it the next summer all the way down here.  The ship was Hudson, but that probably isn’t a bad omen or anything for birthday girl Debbie, also on Hudson.

Anyway, we made it past all the rocks and limestone reefs, no thanks to any of the cool-looking but completely unhelpful lighthouses.  We’d planned to stop at Presque Isle for closer lighthouse inspection, but there’s crap weather in the forecast so we headed on.  Not even Algona Buffalo’s selfish and rude decision to anchor right in our path could keep us from reaching Rogers City.

Rogers City.  The proud home of the world’s largest limestone quarry.

Anyone who follows this blog knows that we’re suckers for anything that claims to be the world’s largest anything.  Doug thus tried to fly the drone over but it was just a bit too far.

How do we know that Rogers City is proud of this enormous Lake Huron eyesore?  Easy.  They put up signs.

Rogers City also is home to Nowicki’s, which has been in the sausage business since WWI.

In 1977 Phil Nowicki cranked out what then was a record-breaking 8,773-foot monster.  That’s dang impressive, although everyone knows it’s not the size of the sausage that matters.

Regardless, the Rogers City Marina was a decent stop.  It also gave us the added treat of hanging out with Dutch Treat again.

Today brought another long day, because that same forecast promised rough going most of the week.  So we bailed on Cheboygan and headed straight to Mackinaw City.  Sunrises are the only redeeming thing about long days, although now that we’ve figured out the secret to a good sunrise photo— zooming way in—they’re all starting to look the same.

Forty Mile Point is so named because it’s forty miles from Mackinaw City.  At Tumbleweed speed, that’s still over five hours away and the waves were building as we went by.  So it isn’t one of our favorites.  Plus this isn’t even an awesomely friendly-looking compound.  But it does have a lighthouse so we took a photo.

Poe Reef Light was the last of Tumbleweed’s Lighthouse Extravaganza.   Built in 1929, it’s the only one of these things that remains useful to mariners, because it sits atop Poe Reef.  Duh.  Avoid the lighthouse, avoid the reef.  Duh.

Around the corner and past the second Bois Blanc Island we’ve encountered in as many weeks, Big Mac was waiting right where shown on the charts.

The Mackinac Bridge spans the Straits of Mackinac for the purpose of allowing Deb and Sam and Lea to cross from the Upper Peninsula to where we docked Tumbleweed after Dana persevered despite annoying shenanigans by the Michigan Parks people.

The next few days look terrible for boating, so we ain’t boating.  Plus, the Wi-Fi at the state marina is awesome for live streaming and the annual disappointment that is Tennessee football starts this week.