Mackinaw Trip
by Greg Jackson

It was 0145 Tuesday morning, I awoke in utter darkness, in the pilot berth, and things had clearly changed. Yesterday had been a long day with no wind, no shoreline, nothing but hours of motoring into a gray haze.

Near sunset we had stopped to refuel at the Port of St. James on Beaver Island. The Tuesday forecast was to be another of the same and we did not have enough fuel to complete the passage from Mackinaw Island in Lake Huron, to Sister Bay on the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan. The plan was to continue south, around the bottom of Beaver Island, and then turn west, hoping for a beam reach off a southerly breeze. We had turned west around 2200 and shut off the motor. I helped raise the asymmetrical spinnaker under a light southerly breeze and then went to bed early, looking forward to a predawn watch. I was nearly asleep when I was startled by the spinnaker sail bag falling into the cabin. The last traces of wind had died and the crew was returning to our monotonous routine of the day. Consciousness slipped away again as the engine was started and droned on into the darkness.

At 0145 the world seemed much different. The noise and vibration of the engine has been replaced by an orchestra of sound and motion. I could feel the boat doing a gallop in the waves, dancing lightly with a 1-2 beat. In the darkness I listened to the sounds around me. In sync with the wandering beat was a fluidic noise coming from the hull as the water rushed past in a pulsating pattern. More muffled, from outside the hull, I heard the foam and splash off to the lee occurring on the high notes. Then there was a slight servo noise of the auto pilot. Like some half-witted music student who never quite gets the beat, the autopilot was responding sometimes on beat, sometimes off. Totally out of sync was a light tapping. I recognized that as a light flutter from the leach of the jib.

Accenting the rhythm was an occasional creaking, like some old wooden ship. It comes only on the hard waves, every third or fourth beat. It feels good to know the boat well. From a previous trip I know the creaking noise is coming from a block at the base of the mast, the result of a bit too much tension in the jib halyard. On a previous trip I had lived with that noise for several days before we could trace it down.

The boat had come alive once again and everything was right. We were on our way home under full sail and a steady breeze.

Our trip is simple passage making, where the destination is irrelevant and the journey is the experience. One boat, two lakes, three sailors, and five days. As inland sailors, the bulk of our sailing occurs on a small patch of water, 3 miles by 6 miles. Charter experiences have been fun, but the crews on charter trips often seem to associate a premium sailing experience with pleasant sunsets at anchor accompanied by wine and crackers. We were looking to get a small taste of the rest of the cruising experience, as much as we could pack into five days of vacation and near to home. We had taken my small boat, a Catalina 25, to sail a round trip from Sister Bay in Wisconsin, across Lake Michigan, to Mackinaw Island in Lake Huron. The full circle would be about 300 miles.

The crew is myself, Dave, and Jo. Dave is the least experienced sailor, but perhaps the most experienced traveler. His last major adventure was a bicycle trip around the world. He is learning rapidly, between short trips like this one, rebuilding a small classic yacht, and sailing on our home waters of Lake Mendota. Dave is an excellent crew member, both on the boat and on shore. An enthusiastic extrovert, Dave will rapidly make friends in any bar, in any port.

Jo is the crazy Brazilian. He is reportedly known around the sailing club as "Torpedo Jo" after an incident early in his sailing career which involved t-boning a keelboat with a dinghy. That may have been both his first and last mistake because Jo always seems to know the right knot, the right trim, and the right course. Both Dave and Jo are significantly younger than myself, both are excellent crew.

The first part of the trip was getting the boat trailed from Madison Wisconsin to Sister Bay. The 6 hour trip was uneventful and we managed to rig the boat under a full moon. Launching occurred at dawn on Saturday. We sailed north, up the Bay of Green Bay, and then out into Lake Michigan. The first leg of the trip crossed northern Lake Michigan, an area with few recreational boaters and significant areas without Coast Guard VHF coverage. In the afternoon of the first day we had cleared the Rock Island passage and entered Lake Michigan.

The Lake Michigan and Lake Superior are sometimes referred to as sweet water seas. On a southerly wind, waves in Lake Michigan can have a 280 mile fetch. Although strong sustained winds are uncommon in the summer months, moderate winds are common. A few days before we were here this area had a 20 knot wind for 14 hours, with 5 foot seas 1. That was the sort of thing we were looking for, interesting, but not necessarily threatening conditions. What we had found as we entered Lake Michigan was flat water and a 8 knot wind.

Large sustained storms are rare at this time of year and not much of a concern. The greater danger is from the violent but short lived thunderstorms which seem to come out of nowhere. The local saying is "If you don’t like the weather, just wait 15 minutes.", and it applies to most of the Midwest.

After entering Lake Michigan on Saturday afternoon we had a pleasant downwind sail to the northeast. On Saturday I went to sleep early in order to be ready for a predawn watch on Sunday. I took watch at around 0400 and found that the modest wind had continued through out the night. We were near to the center of the far northern portion of the lake, an unpopulated area protected by scattered shoals with a shipping lane going down the center. There was so much moisture in the air that everything was wet and visibility limited, although we didn’t have a true fog yet. We had sailed within a few miles of navigation buoys and never saw their lights. Going off watch, Dave told me he heard a freighter go by but never saw any lights. I was thankful for the GPS as well as the radar reflector.

The predawn watch has always been my favorite time. Whether the winds are strong or light, they always seem more consistent at that time of day. With steady winds, there is little effort spent on trimming sails or adjusting course. Recently awakened, with my brain still numb from slumber, the contrast between the warm berth and the cockpit is invigorating. With a cool breeze against my face, a hot cup of coffee in hand, I can study the chart and the horizon, looking for any hint of a navigational aid and some confirmation between the theoretical lines that were added to the chart during the night, and the environment that surrounds us.

The watch on Sunday morning fit the pattern. On a broad reach, under the spinnaker and a light wind, we were moving silently at about four and a half knots. Just before dawn, while the veil of darkness still amplifies a distant beacon, the 15 second flash of the Lansing Shoal light came into view. The gray air began to brighten in the dawn light and the structure of the Lansing Shoal light appeared out of the mist. This was an awesome structure. A tremendous, fortress like structure, it appeared to come out of the lake itself. There is no island as it is simply a shoal marker. The chart indicated it as 69 feet tall, but it looked much larger as it appeared out of the mist. I thought the others would enjoy the vision of Lansing Shoal, but they had been on watch most of the night so I was reluctant to wake them. I sailed on in silence, as the monolith slipped back into the gray haze behind us.

As the morning faded into noon we continued our progress eastward. Shortly after noon on Sunday the wind died just as the Mackinaw bridge appeared on the horizon. We got out the Jimmy Buffet and had a beer, hoping to ignite the wind once again. After several hours and no reaction on the part of the wind, we decided to motor the last 10 miles, arriving at Mackinaw Island around 1800 on Sunday. Our trip there had been 34 hours.

Mackinaw Island is a strange mixture of history and tourism. A vacation retreat since the 1900’s, the island preserves it’s historic flavor with Victorian architecture and Victorian transportation. Bicycles and horses are the only transportation around the island. Horse drawn carriages take tourists from the ferry to their beautiful historic hotels.

The architecture seems a bit out of context as nearly every building on the main street is either a tee shirt shop, fudge shop, or souvenir store. The transportation to and from the island is a large fleet of fast ferries who compete with one another on the basis of speed. It seems that the tourists are in a hurry to relax. The ferries are an issue for small boats like ours. At their speeds, a 65 foot ferry puts out a significantly larger wake than a 160 foot ore freighter.

The state run dock was full so we tied up on an industrial coal dock. After reviewing 30 tee shirt shops in 20 minutes, we stopped into Horn’s bar for dinner. Horn’s specializes in Mexican food and provided a fine dinner. Jo and Dave discussed boats and cruising. Jo is planning on quitting his job and going full time cruising around South America. Dave is planning on going with him for at least part of the journey.

With dinner completed, a band set up and the evening started getting loud. Odd mixtures continued to prevail on this island as we found ourselves on a historic Midwestern resort island, in a Mexican bar, listening to Reggae music. The families finished dinner and moved out, the late night bar crowd began to fill in. Dave, the eternal extrovert, started things out by getting a half dozen people on their feet and moving with the rhythm. Jo followed suit and the whole bar is dancing until bar time. By 0230 we are back on board and the crew is tired.

The return trip began at dawn on Monday, the day of no wind. The lack of wind was not as bothering as the general weather prediction. There was a hurricane parked on the east coast which had stalled the entire Midwestern weather pattern. The eastern seaboard was getting far more wind than they wanted, and we had none. It seemed that Tuesday and Wednesday could end up being a continuation of the windless condition that started on Sunday afternoon. This made the Tuesday morning conditions all the more welcome.

The wind that I awoke to at 0145 continued all throughout the day. We arrived at the Wisconsin coastline by mid afternoon Tuesday. We tacked into the wind, along the coastline of Washington Island. Near dusk we took our final tack into Death’s Door passage, making Detroit Harbor by sunset The early morning breeze had continued at 13 knots throughout the day, providing an excellent day of sailing and quite a few miles under our keel. We docked for cocktails at the Sailor’s Pub and socialized with some of the other boaters. Washington Island is on the far end of the Door County recreational area. More than a day’s journey from the urban areas, it is out of reach for the weekend warriors and is commonly populated by boaters who are out for cruising rather than weekending. Boats and sailing are a big topic at the Sailor’s Pub. After a few beers we anchored for the evening in Detroit harbor, setting out on the last day slightly before dawn. The final day was a mixture of light wind sailing and motoring. We arrived at Sister Bay at 1200, de-rigged and began the drive home.

While never met the 20 knot winds we were looking for, all in all, it was an excellent journey. On a small boat and an inland lake we gained a bit of the flavor of a coastal passage. With a crew of three, watch keeping is hardly an issue. There is always 8 hours of sleep, and always time for a good meal.

The early morning moment was, for me, what the trip was all about. We had many hours where the wind, the waves, the boat, and the crew were moving and living in harmony. I often take non-sailors out for an afternoon sail on our home lake. While it looks like a romantic activity from shore, once on board it looks more like a complex array of ropes and hardware, with little romance. A regular question comes up, "What is it about this sailing thing, why do you like it so much?". I can never find an answer to the question. One might ask around the Louvre, "What is beauty?", or ask around the church "What is faith?". The answers can be known but they cannot be spoken. At 0145 on Tuesday morning, I knew the answer to sailing and I knew why I was there. I hope to return often.

Greg Jackson
C25 "Compass Rose"
Submitted:  December 23, 1999