8/1/14 Detour to St. Ignace

Early to bed, early to rise
But we awoke to foggy skies!

And it was really foggy.  Outside temperature was 58 degrees.  We delayed our departure from 0700 to 0830 to allow the fog to lift.  That didn't happen. Visibility was about 1/8 of a mile.  At times we could see about 1/2 mile out and then it would become almost impossible to see beyond the front of the boat.  Our concern was the large number of vessels moving through Mackinaw Straights, including commercial vessels.  There was lots of chatter on the VHF about the fog.  The waters were dead calm.
Thank God for electronic charts, navigation software, AIS, and radar.  All were needed, along with the captain's expertise.  At 1139 the air temperature was 62 and the water temp was 60. 

We do not have an automatic fog horn, so we used our phone as a timer.  Every 2 minutes for 4 hours we blew the fog horn manually.  At 1236 the fog lifted and we had 2 mile visibility.  This occurred just as we approached the Round Island Passage just before Mackinac Island.  We were so grateful to have visibility in this busy harbor with pleasure craft, ferry boats and commercial vessels.   The day turned out to be beautiful:  sunny, warm and windless. 

Charis rounds the light
 



ferry
 

 

Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island

 

Houses on Mackinac Island

Light house
 

We pulled in to St. Ignace and stopped for fuel and the went on to our slip assignment.

We ate on the boat, but Ken and Ann went to the Mackinac Grille and said it was very good and very reasonably priced.

Tomorrow:  Mackinac Island