Sunday 080715– in De Tour Harbor, Michigan

Weather/Sea   Sunny, wind 5 to 10,  temp 60 to  70

Captain - John C. Kwak crew Chuck Livingston

We are back in De Tour Village Harbor for 2 days to catch up on rest and boating business. Our return trips from Grand Marais and White Fish Point were very pleasant and faster than the trip into lake Superior. We sailed down wind from  Grand Marais at about 8.4 mph with motor a 1600rpm. Then sailed without motor, on Jib and Main and got 5 mph on  10 mph wind. The wind is very fickle here and changes constantly. The wind dropped to zero and we rolled up the jib and dropped the main and motored to White Fish Point a total 7.9 hour run while the up trip took 9.1hr.

The run from White Fish Point to Sault ST Marie took only 6.5hr while the up trip took 9 hours. It helps to go with the current rather than against.There was no wind so we motored all the way. DUTCHESS went through the Canadian Lock again in record time with 3 other boats in the lock. Motored right into the open lock, the water was lowered to Lake Huron level and we motored out. We wanted to do the large Mc Arthur Lock but it had three huge freighters backed up. The Sault ST Marie marina is very near the lock. In fact that is the main tourist attraction here, go see the locks and see the huge over 1000’ lake freighters pass thru.  The next day we traveled down the St. Marie River to De Tour Village Marina. Our next stop will be Mackinaw City Marina and then to Harbor Springs MI.  I have a diesel mechanic coming there on Monday to change the main seal on the Cummins diesel which is leaking oil. While the Velvet Drive transmission is out of the boat I will have them change the seals because it is leaking oil also. Here is the reality of boating Bring On  Another Thousand that is what BOAT stands for.

My SIMRAD NSS8 chart plotter has been misbehaving. It has a touch screen, which freezes repeatedly during a run and then goes black but when we push the ON button it comes right back???. Also sometimes it recognizes that we have radar and sometimes it does not. The radar shows on the same screen.  So after carefully explaining all this to SIMRAD they are sending a new Chart Plotter to Harbor Springs at a cost of only $370.00 because the old one is out of its 6 month warranty. The problem came up within the 6 months but I thought it was my installation and calibration of the unit. SIMRAD said I should have called tech support at the first sign of trouble and started a record then it would be under warranty. Lesson learned!