Lake Huron 2026: Part II
- Lori S
- 8 hours ago
- 7 min read
The Plan
The Lake Huron cruise was conceived as a trip to visit all our friends who have boats or cottages on the Sunrise Side. Our former Baker Road neighbors Matt & Beth have a cottage at Presque Isle. John & Francie, also formerly from Baker Road, keep their sailboat at Tawas about 70 miles down the coast from that. The carefully choreographed plan called for us all to converge at Presque Isle for a couple days. Then the two boats would proceed to Tawas with an intermediate stop in Harrisville because it's a long trip for a sailboat to make in one hop. Besides which we wanted to see some new ports. To make it just a little more complicated, our friends Jim-O & Kat were renting a cottage near Tawas. They would drive up to Harrisville to and cruise down to Tawas, after which we would borrow John & Francie's car to retrieve Jim-O & Kat's car. Easy!
July 31, Rogers City
We made the 50 mile hop from the Straits to the port of Rogers City arriving by mid-afternoon. Rogers City is known for its maritime history and the Calcite Mine which is the largest source of that mineral in the world. We hopped on our tandem bike and went to check out the town.
The first place we stopped at was Mr. Mustache, a toy store with a strong Pied Piper vibe. Mr. Mustache was not there but Mrs. Mustache (actually a very friendly, grandmotherly lady with no significant facial hair) was eager to show us the model train that ran around the ceiling and her nickelodeon that played an awkwardly lengthy rendition of "It's a Small World" that showed off each of it's many slightly untuned instruments. (I was right about the Pied Piper.) She had a lot of very nice toys and puzzles in stock but we don't have any kids in the right age bracket so we bought a couple of Klondike Bars while politely ignoring all the religious tracts at the cash register. Overall impression: equal parts weird and cool.
We rode a mile or so out to the grocery store on the highway and restocked our produce and soda pop. It was a pretty loaded bike going home but we didn't spill anything. Rogers City is a pleasant little town. You could do worse.
August 1 & 2, Presque Isle
Presque Isle State Harbor is part of a State Park so there are a couple of lighthouses you can hike to and a bit of sandy beach for swimming. Also a grocery/deli across the road that also serves ice cream. Actual town is a couple miles up the road but you don't really need to go there unless you want to mail something.
John & Francie were already waiting for us, having sailed up the day before. Matt & Beth came with a car to take us all to the apple orchard where we enjoyed pizza and hard cider while Matt & Beth's granddaughters played with the goats. The weather was beautiful.
Unfortunately, the weather didn't hold so the next morning the boaters all huddled up and slept in. Afternoon brought clear skies and Beth came to ferry us all to the Seeger cottage on Grand Lake where we were treated to dinner with birthday cake in honor of Jim becoming eligible for Medicare. Later we all took a boat ride on which we saw a loon with a loonlet! Matt docked the pontoon boat like a boss and we assured him the minor dings from previous docking did not even register on the scale of boat mishaps.
August 3-5, Harrisville
Harrisville was a stop that was only added to our itinerary because John & Francie thought it would be a very long sail to go directly to their home port of Tawas. There is not much to the town of Harrisville but the marina is fantastic. They have plenty of helpful, friendly staff who seem to spend all their spare time clearing spiderwebs from the docks. More marinas should do this! There was also an herb garden for boaters which Francie and I took advantage of to punch up our dinner. I wonder if I could get Escanaba to put in some herbs...it seems I'm continually searching for basil or mint.
Jim-O and Kat showed up with their pup Bella as planned. We took advantage of the marina's courtesy shuttle to take us to the brew pub up the road for dinner. The menu was limited but healthy (for pub food) with vegetarian and allergy-friendly options. The drinks were great!
John & Francie left the dock early since they anticipated sailing into the wind. I heard them go but slept in a bit longer so I was surprised when I awoke to see the "Wind Song" limping back into the harbor. Seems they had gone out but immediately had trouble with their diesel overheating. It's true they could sail without it but the odds of getting the boat docked without a functioning motor were not in their favor.
About that time, Jim-O and Kat showed up expecting to hop aboard and cruise to Tawas with us. That was not going to happen until the mechanical issue got sorted out. Kat really wanted to go swimming but the beautiful sand beaches we could see from the marina had no public access so Jim agreed to take the dinghy out in front of the private beaches and swim from there.
By the time they returned from swimming, John had determined he must have a bad impeller and commenced the search for the spare. It was not there. A few phone calls later he determined there was no impeller within driving distance and one would have to be ordered online for next day deliver. Next day became 2-day when he asked to ship it to Harrisville.
The impeller turned out to be a bit of a red herring. True, it needed replacing by the time John extracted it for inspection (Impellers are NEVER in an easy spot.) But it didn't seem bad enough to be the root cause of engine overheating. In spite of having two engineers and a music major troubleshooting the problem, it was Francie (statistician) who concluded there must be something preventing the cooling water from getting to the engine.
There are basically two ways to test this theory. One, jump in the. water and try to check the intake from the outside. Two, unscrew the through-hull fitting and inspect from the inside, hoping the water doesn't gush in fast enough to sink the boat. Since no one was volunteering for option one, they chose option two. The fact that water did not geyser into the boat was a pretty good indicator that Francie's theory was correct. The blockage was soon confirmed by use of Jim's boroscope (the mechanic's version of an endoscope.)
Many proposals were made for how to extract the blockage. It was finally decided they would try hooking up our big foot pump for the dinghy to the blocked tube and jump on it try to force it out with a blast of air...like a toy stomp rocket. It is unclear whether this suggestion was from an engineer or the band teacher, either is plausible. Everything attached, a mighty stomp was applied and a powerful gush of water issued from the open cover of the cooling pump directly into neighbor John's face, proving the theory and most of the execution to be solid. .Unfortunately, once the cover was reapplied, the weeds proved to be jammed in too tight for that pressure to dislodge, so they pivoted to Plan B, basically snaking the drain. "Perseverance" has a box in the engine room known as the "Bin of Requirement" in which you can usually find the odd item you need to solve a problem. On this occasion it produced four (!) different drain snakes all of which were used to extract yards and yards of seaweed from the water intake. Problem solved!
August 6-8, Return to the Straits
Our return trip took us back by Presque Isle where Matt and Beth brought us ice cream and we visited for a couple hours. Another night we stayed at Hammond Bay, a 'harbor of refuge,' where there is absolutely nothing around except some pretty beach. We were the only ones there and it was like anchoring out except we were connected to shore power and didn't have to worry we were drifting.
The weekend found us at Duncan Bay Boat Club in Cheboygan where we caught up with our friends Missy & Amy. Duncan Bay is the opposite of Hammond Bay. It's basically a dense condo community except you buy a dock instead of an apartment. With the clubhouse and pool I can see the attraction, though I'm not planning to move at this time. The four of us enjoyed a nice food truck dinner at Cheboygan Brewing Company and Jim brought home a growler of mead from The Hive across the street.
August 9-10, Last Stop: Mackinac Island
We've been to Mackinac Island many times but never on our boat. You generally need to reserve months in advance to be assured of a slip but I had checked on a whim and there was exactly one opening during our time in the Straits so I booked it. The marina there is well-staffed and sits right on the main drag. You can sit on your boat and watch the parade of humanity go by...or see the circus of tipsy patrons at the Pink Pony Patio (kinda loud but entertaining.) We hopped on our bike for a quick 8-mile trip around the island. We got not only the usual parade of tourists but also witnessed a triathalon swimming leg as we rode by. Later we made a dinner reservation at the Grand Hotel, not the main dining room but the Jockey Club across the street. It was a lovely evening to dine outdoors, there were a lot of families with kids dressed up for dinner, the food was excellent. A very nice treat for our last night out.
The best part of staying on Mackinac is after the last ferries give their "long-short-short" farewell blast. The atmosphere changes completely as you watch the scouts retire the colors and a very accomplished bugler sounds "Taps" from Fort Mackinac high above the harbor. We slept soundly and slipped out of the harbor before sunrise on our 116nm cruise back to Escanaba.
Five stars: would do again.
Comments