7/19 to Mackinaw City

The winds had laid down overnight, so we headed to Mackinaw City.  This will be our last full day cruising on Lake Huron.  As we rounded Drummond Island, we passed the Dolomite Port.  The stones were all lined up ready to be loaded onto vessels.

We avoided the ferry that takes cars and people from Drummond Island to DeTour. 

When we passed the DeTour Reef Light, there was a Nordic Tug type boat passing the light to our starboard.  It made a perfect picture.

With about 40 miles ahead of us we cruised down Lake Huron.  The high today was supposed to be 71 but on the water even with the eisinglass down, it was chilly.  Lake Huron is deep and you could tell the water was cold as the wind blew over it.  This might be why ice fishing will be popular in just in a few weeks.

One of the waypoints took us by Martin Reef Lighthouse.

No dock space was available at the Mackinac Island Marina, because there is a big sailboat race going on.  Mackinac Island was pretty as we passed by.

We secured dock space at Mackinaw City Marina across the Strait of Mackinac but before the bridge.  We will be here until at about Saturday because the winds are supposed to come up again.  Coming in we saw people parasailing.  I did it once and would do it again.

We passed the Mackinac Light on our approach to the marina.

There are many ferries from Mackinaw City to Mackinac Island.  This one has a huge fan tail out the back.

 
Tomorrow, we are going to take a ferry to Mackinac Island and take one of the horse drawn buggy tours.

We can see the Mackinac Suspension Bridge from the marina.  Tonight after dinner, we walked to the Mackinac Bridge Museum.  It is free and located about a pizza restaurant.  Yes, you walk through the pizza restaurant and up the back stairs to a fascinating museum that recalls the building of the bridge.  The bridge had been wanted for a long time and was planned when World War II broke out and all plans were scrapped.  Building started in the early 1950's.  The Ironworkers have donated much of the equipment that they used on the bridge.  There are two movies on the building of the bridge.  The information is punctuated by pizza order numbers being called, but the movies are informative.  It was a huge project, it is amazing that only 5 workers were killed.  They worked up so high over the water!!

Lat 45 degrees 46.84 North
Long 84 degrees 43.36 West