25-26 August 2014

We left Manistique first thing in the morning. There was a light rain falling, but according to the weather radar that would clear pretty quickly. The winds were from the Southwest at about 8kts in the prediction, shifting to West so that shouldn’t be a problem either.

We were about 45 minutes out of Manistique when the wind shifted to a more southern direction. That put the waves we were quartering into now on the beam. (Before we were cutting into the waves at about a 45 degree angle. Now the waves were hitting the side of the boat.) So there was a lot more rocking side to side. Across the next hour the wind speed built up, so much for a milder 8kts.

I scouted for a cove to go into to wait some. As I looked there wasn’t any real good choices but I was hoping that Portage Bay would help some as the wind moved to the west. Turned out not to be the case so we kept moving. But the little detour helped, as I moved down the coast we were going more Southwest again so we were back quartering into the waves. A little more up and down, but very little roll.

We were soon at Point Detour and headed towards Summer Island. The charts looked like I could go around the point, but it looked a little iffy in spots. So we went down around Summer Island and headed into Big Bay De Noc. The water now smoothed out for us since the waves were behind us pushing us along. Whew!

Two hours later (almost 6 in total) we came into Snail Shell Harbor. It really does curve around like a snail shell. At the inner most point is a long dock big enough for 5-6 boats.

The harbor was originally home to the town of Fayette. Named after Fayette Brown the Jackson Iron Company agent who chose the site, it was once one of the Upper Penisula’s most productive iron smelting operation. Started in 1866 the town grew from one smelter and a few people to two smelters running full time and almost 500 people. In 1891 the market for iron made using the charcoal method started to decline and the plant closed in December of that year. The town tried to transform itself into a farming / tourist / vacation town, but by the 1950′s the town was almost empty. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources bought the entire town and turned it into a state park. They have slowly been restoring the buildings.

We docked the boat about 4 in the afternoon. There are no facilities other than water from a single spigot. There is a visitors center that you can buy ice, ice cream and tshirts at. The center also holds a huge diorama of the village and gives you a visual tour of the town.

By the end of our first afternoon there were four boats on the dock, all but us were from about 30 miles away. It was very quiet and pristine there. And as we found out, very remote, there was no cell phone coverage from the dock. Bummer. We were cut off from the interwebs. It reminded me of a trip that Jen, Pam and I had taken to Lake Wallenpaupack near the Pocono Mountains. There was no cell coverage, the only phone was a pay phone in the parking lot.

Susan set up her chair and table on the dock and read while Belle and I took over the flybridge to read and nap. The weather, as predicted cleared and it was a great evening. Later we ran the generator long enough to make dinner, Susan made chicken breasts with gravy and mashed potatoes. Very nice!

After dinner Susan tried fishing some, but the long roly poly day we were both tired.

During the day we walked the village and marveled again how good it was to live now. The day to day existence for most of the people was pretty hard. The parks people had done a great job with setting the buildings up with period artifacts.

Also during the day there was a change over from the night before with some boats leaving and some arriving. One was a Gold Looper, the Passport. I spent some time talking to them about their loop experience. Meanwhile Susan was making friends with the boat behind us, she had eyed the 6 fishing rods mounted on the sides and knew she had found a kindred fisherman.

Both of us did manage to bike to the outlook way above Fayette in search of phone service. Both of us were able to grab voice mails but the data service was just enough to get email headers and no text.

After dinner of sausages and pasta we headed down to the swimming beach on the other side of Fayette (about a 5 minute walk). One of the boaters had come here as a child and one of her favorite memories was a fire on the beach. We sat and talked to the two other couples about their experiences growing up on Lake Michigan. We meet the nicest people.

In the morning I awoke to the sounds of rain on the deck. It was just a short cloudburst, but one that had not been in the forecast. I’m getting the hang of Lake Michigan weather, it’s never quite what the forecast says.

We got dried off and did some more (unsuccessful) fishing. But there was hope for the day, we were going to circumnavigate Big Bay De Noc in search of fish!