Grand Marias to Whitefish Point

Day 23, August 22



Miners Castle Pictures Rocks



Well, we got off to a little bit of a late start, leaving the Grand Marias at about 9:30 heading for a little protected inland lake called Little Lake.  The distance is only about 32 miles so we were not concerned about getting away early.  The marine forecast called for southwest winds blowing 5 to 15 knots with gusts up to 20 knots.  The 20 knots were wind strengths that we are not comfortable dealing with, however, since we would be traveling east along a south shore, we could hug the shore and stay out of the big waves that 20 knots can build. 

Abandoned Lighthous Grand Island

Natural Bridge Pictured Rocks

When we got out into the main lake, we were greeted with leftover rollers from the night before.  They were rolling in from the west so we were gently rolling/surfing down in a not too uncomfortable of a ride.  Since I mentioned the night before, it was not a completely nice night.  We had dropped anchor in a spot that was deep and the light breeze swung the boat out over even deeper water, however, were there to be a wind shift to a southerly breeze, we would be blown over quite shallow water.  When we crawled into bed, the water was completely flat and no breezes were blowing.  At about 12:30,  I was awakened by wind whistling through the rigging and the various halyards and lines were slapping against the mast.  The boat was rocking in an almost imperceptibly way, enough so, that I thought I should take a look.  I had left the GPS on so that I could track the movement through the night and was surprised to find that the boat had not moved much.  The tracing on the GPS usually shows the boat wandering around as it swings on the anchor.  I wondered if the GPS was actually working.  It then dawned on me that we had swung onto the shallow water and were sitting on the bottom.  I cranked up the centerboard and the boat immediately began to swing as I had expected.  The wind continued to blow quite strongly and now sleeping was hard to come by as we lay wondering if the wind was going to drag our anchor and allow us to end up on the shore behind us. It turned out that the anchor held as designed and we got through the night safely.





Pictured Rocks

I like this morning picture - Grand Island Lighthouse

Back out on the water, we put out the jib and motor sailed at about 6.5 mph basically all of the way to Little Lake Harbor.  The boating guides told of shallow shoaling just inside of the entrance to the breakwaters and advised us to stay very close to the starboard wall.  The rollers were pushing us around as we finally turned into the calm water behind breakwater.  Not far in, as we were slowly traveling along, we began to drag bottom.  We had pulled our centerboard up anticipating shallow waters, but this was less water than I expected so we cranked the board up as far as it would go.  The boat moved forward a bit and then the rudder began to drag.  I increased the motor power and shoved us toward what I assumed was deeper water only to find that we were jamming ourselves further on to a sand shoal.  With the rudder in the sand, steering became impossible.  We tried various techniques to free us, but to no avail.  Meantime, a couple of kids, who had been fishing off of the breakwater, came over and offered to help.  One boy started walking out into the water toward us and we asked him to walk into the deepest part, which was up to his knees, and we realized that there was nowhere in the entire passageway that was deep enough for us to continue.  I decided to pull Dink alongside and use her to take the anchor back to the deeper water near where we had entered, and we could then use the boat winch along with the pushing with the motor to pull us out.  I got into Dink but realized that it would be unwieldy working with the anchor so I stepped out into about 3 feet of water and carried the anchor out into the deepest water I could find.  I never got into water that went over my belt.  Back on the boat, we started the motor and slowly using the winch, we were able to move to the deeper water.  When we got up to the anchor, the front of the boat was in deep enough water to be free, but the rudder was still stuck and we could not steer.   We were about 15 feet from and heading for the huge boulders of the breakwater when I finally got the anchor free.  The boat was continuing to slowly move forward under the power of the motor but Janine could yet not steer the boat.  When it finally broke free of the sand, the boat shot forward into the boulders before Janine could cut the power on the motor and steer away from the rocks.  The boat hit one big rock hard, bounced off heading out of the  channel and Janine then steered the boat back out into the main lake.  Hanging over the bow, I could see no damage other some cosmetic stuff on the front of the boat so we decided to continue on our journey.



The next safe harbor that we could reach was White Fish Point Harbor approximately 18 miles on down the lake.  The time was about 3:00pm so traveling at around 6 mph, we could reach the harbor by around 6:00 with three hours to spare before dark.  So on we traveled.  The wind died down and indeed, we arrived at White Fish Harbor at about 6:15.  The tour books also advised that this one could shoal up so we entered very cautiously, however, we had no problem.  There were some open slips so we tied up alongside of Brian on “No Problem,” the gentleman that we had met yesterday. 

Once secure, we headed for a walk to relax our somewhat abraided nerves.  We walked about a mile up the road to the White Fish Point lighthouse and museum.  We will visit there tomorrow.  Back on the boat, we invited Brian to join us for a piece of apple caramel cake that Janine had baked after the grounding incident.  We spent an enjoyable visiting with Brian who lives in Sault Ste Marie.  As usual, when sailors get together, we spent an inordinate amount of time discussing characteristics and modifications that we had each made to our boats. 

And finally to bed!