August 25, 2016 We did it. We untied our lines at 4:00 p.m and pushed ourselves away from the dock. (seawall)  LOL Our first few hours took us up around Algonac & Marine City. I don’t know if words can even explain our excitement. We had North winds so as we approached Lake Huron our ride was a bit bumpy.

The first thing Bryce noticed was that Beauty was handling differently. Normally as the waves hit her bow, often, the next wave crashes over her. Now her bow just glides over the next. It is amazing but it is as if the hoist is a perfect fit for her in many ways. The added 500 pound weight of Sea-doo and hoist in the stern has caused her bow to lighten up and she has no tendency to plunge into succeeding waves and slow down.  The result is Beauty is much faster in the waves!

We owe a big thanks to our expert welder who did such an excellent job of welding up the aluminum hoist.  Bryce has no ability to weld aluminum.  So his timely service was instrumental in our leaving on time.  The most complicated part of the welding was the two cradles that support the Sea-doo hull. Thank you Terry at Pin-Point Welding.  This picture shows the cradle that he welded.

George is relaxing again. We can tell he loves being back on the boat… What a sailing cat…LOL

As we traveled between Algonac and Marine City we noticed the Pride of Michigan. This vessel is a component of the U.S Naval Sea Cadet Corps. For the young boys and girls between the ages of 13-17. This is a non-profit organization that gives first hands on deck and engineering as crew members.

  

You can tell my the smile on his face that he is happy to be back on the boat. While we were on somewhat smooth water Bryce cleaned the bugs off the enclosure.

 

As we navigated though the St. Clair River we came upon the Algoma Transport it’s a cargo vessel. It was built in 1979. Its overall length is 222.59m x 23.17m and has the gross tong weight of 23,399 tons.  She carries the Canadian flag.

 

Well, we had planned to anchor on the West side on Lake Huron but the North-East winds did not allow that to happen. After given it some thought, we decided we wanted to try and make up for some lost travel time. So we motor sailed up to Port Sanilac and arrived around 5 a.m. a little over 12 hours. We slept for nearly 4 hours and then continued to motor sail up to Port Austin. Port Austin also had a great anchorage for the night. It seems like all we have been doing is pulling into the anchorage areas and sleeping and waking up. Then pulling up anchor and heading to the next port. This has been okay because we have been to these ports several times. But I miss stopping and socializing.

   

Light house just off the entrance of Port Austin                                      This is our Trackmytour map of our distances so far.

The weather has been on the cool side. No Bud-light on bow on Beauty so far.  We are still pushing the calendar to catch up with the week we lost. Bryce woke up early and worked for work till around 12:00 a.m.so we could pull up anchor before the heavy winds rolled in. Although we only had 10-15 knot winds we had rollers coming from the East out of Canada That just made Saginaw Bay messy. We arrived at Harrisville Harbor. This is also a nice deep harbor with great anchorage or take a slip.

We fueled up at the gas docks before we left Harrisville. I just really like how friendly people are.. 

We are anchored up in Presque Isle Bay. We plan to stay here till the winds moves through Wednesday night.  This beautiful bay is a must stop for anyone cruising Lake Huron.

 

Also a big Thanks to our friends Dirk and Silvia who came by to see us off… Dirk and Silvia will be leaving soon for their next adventure. They have already completed 4 years of sailing around the world. 

As always thanks for following us and remember if you have a question I will do my best to answer it.