Day
Four - Presque Isle to Cheboygan MI (Tuesday, August 5)
In the morning, the marine forecast for our part of Lake Huron was 2' to 4' waves.
We decide to do some sight seeing while the boat was drying out. Juan and I visited
the Old Presque Isle lighthouse, then I walked across the road to the marina store
to buy a couple of disposable cameras and some
large vinyl letters. The letters J A M E A. In honor of
surviving our green water adventure, I christened my boat JAMEA which stands for "Juan
And Mike's Excellent Adventure"
We spread out everything that got wet onto the dock. Most everything dried
out pretty well, the only permanent
casualty was my Nikon EM which was pounded one too many times.
Here we are Tuesday morning drying out everything that wasn't in the waterproof seabags.
With nearly everything we had in the boat spread on the dock, we drew the
attention of a few other boaters. One gentleman, who had seen us in the high
seas navigating through the islands yesterday,
commented that we looked like we were
holding our own out there and thought we were "locals" out fishing. Another boater
was amazed at the equipment we had. He had never heard of the Coast
Pilot 6 reference (which was lying on the dock, in a zip-loc bag), he
had a GPS, but said
he didn't use it.
Old Presque Isle lighthouse
We finally left Presque Isle at 1:45 PM and headed for Cheboygan. We arrived at
Cheboygan at 4:55 PM, a distance of 60 miles in three hours. The waves were hardly
anything when we left, building to 2' to 4' near Cheboygan. Thankfully not at all like yesterday.
The icebreaker Mackinaw was in port, keeping the Cheboygan harbor ice-free.
(After all, it was August).
We get the boat squared away, and right after these pictures were taken, the same idiot
with the 34' Four Winns that had careened off the docks in Presque Isle was assigned
to slip #5, right next to us again. This time there was no finger dock
between us. His boat handling skills had not improved a lick. He started into the slip bow
first, managed to bounce around enough to give that up, and finally wound up backing into
the slip. The dockhands pulled him in with his motor stopped. We stood by to fend him off,
but fortunately he didn't get that close
The Cheboygan harbor is a mile or two from the nearest place to get a hamburger and a
beer. We met a 67-year-old Cheboygan resident in the bar who had a ton of stories to
tell. After a while, Juan discreetly asked me, "Why does this guy smile at us
after every sentence?" I told Juan that this gentleman is really not smiling;
he just has no teeth.
We didn't have a problem walking to that bar, but walking back to the marina seemed like
an awfully long walk.
