Duluth to Port Wing

Tuesday, July 31

I asked Janine if she wanted me to fix one of my famous “Sailing Trip Breakfasts” for our first official Lake Superior trip meal and she politely suggested that it would be good to go and have one last commercial meal as a salute to our departure so we headed back for Perkins Pancake House.  Back at the boat, we settled up our overnight dockage fee, tidied up a bit and headed for open water.  We were underway at about 9:00.  The marina where we launched is on a small narrow island that is inside of the much larger breakwater island that runs from east of Superior all the way to Duluth.  The water behind the ship channel is dredged to a depth of at least 27 feet to accommodate the lake shipping that has been the life blood of these two cities.  We decided to cruise west toward Duluth to view the city from the water side.  The water and wind were calm and the air temperature was probably in the middle 60s.  The water front of Duluth and Superior are both lined with grain elevators and warehouses of various flavor but most appear to be vintage of times past. 

As we neared the Duluth end of the channel, we noticed a large lake freighter turning around in a widened “turn basin.”  As the "American Republic" straightened around we passed him taking a number of pictures.  The main breakwater is attached to the main land by an aerial bridge that rises up when opening.  We were just getting ready to call the bridge for passage when the freighter called the bridge and requested passage.  We also called and asked for permission to pass and were advised to follow the freighter out.  We followed their advice and were amazed at the amount of turbulence that the big boat put out.  Out in the main lake, we followed the shore line and found the restaurant at which we had dined last evening. 

The wind was blowing from the east when we raised the sails.  Our destination , Port Wing, was also due east so we began our sail following a northeast course of 68 degrees.  This took us out into the main lake and it was my intention to sail out into the lake for about 10 miles then tack back southeast heading in the direction of the port.  However, as the morning progressed, the wind slowly veered around to the south allowing us to follow the wind to a 90 degree heading which eventually lead us right into the entrance to Port Wing.  The winds were light but steady and we had a wonderfully relaxing sail through the entire day.  We averaged about 3mph for the entire day.  At times we were up to 4.5 mph and at others were becalmed moving at about 1mph.  That’s sailing!  We were happy.

We pulled into Port Wing and dropped anchor in about 6 feet of water just outside of the main entrance channel next to the wall.  Port Wing has a population of about 400 folks and their run down marina has about 15 boats, mainly of the fishing variety.  We crawled in “Damn  Dink” for a cruise around the harbor and ran across the only sailboat and sailing skipper in the place.  Dan Smith has a 30 foot boat that is quite attractive and could be more so with a little TLC.  Except for the time spent with Skipper Dan, the entire trip around the Port Wing bay took about 7 minutes.  We were pleasantly tired and again went to bed at about 9:00.