Run back east to Grand Island

 Thursday, June 8 -- Marquette to anchorage in Murray Bay, Grand Island (42 miles)

John got up early to take video of the freighter loading ore. They started up again around 6am and we didn't want to miss getting some video. Kevin and Denise stopped by to say good-bye, as they are still heading west (ultimate destination being Duluth) while we will be heading back east today with the goal of being back in the Soo on Saturday. We took a picture of them departing, and then not long after, the freighter backed out of the dock, loaded with ore to the 28' draft line. 

After Janet got up and at 'em we called a cab and went to the Marquette Food Co-op to grocery shop. This was a very hip store, and we ended up buying take-out salads for lunch. We also used their WiFi for a while to get the blog caught up, as there was no WiFi at the Presque Isle Marina and we won't have any the next two nights. 

 

We got this nice picture of the ore dock with the marina and park behind it on the cab ride back from the Food Co-op. 

After we stowed the groceries, we took the boat down to the marina at Marquette Harbor to get fuel. We passed the old Marquette Harbor Light, which was built in 1852 and is still active, though unmanned. These shots are from the north and south sides of the little point on which the light is situated. 

We had a nice view of downtown Marquette as we left the fuel dock. There is also an ore loading dock there, but it is no longer in service. The locals say that it was built by Henry Ford as part of the supply chain for his Rouge River steel plant in Detroit. 

It was just a two-and-a-half hour run to our anchorage spot in Murray Bay. It is on the south side of Grand Island, which forms Munising Harbor, but we couldn't see Munising from where we anchored. There was no one else in the bay and no cottages in sight from our location. But there were tons of mosquitos, and we battled them all night, having made the mistake of leaving the door open too long when we first anchored.

The first picture shows Grand Island approaching from the west, the second is looking south from our anchorage spot, and the final one shows an 1870 shipwrecked schooner that was nearby. It is in about 30' of water, and we could see it vaguely when we drove over it. There are a number of wrecks that people dive in the Munising area, and this one was marked by a white buoy at each end (which you can see in the second photo if you look carefully).

We turned on the TV for the first time this trip while Janet was making dinner and I was trying to kill mosquitos.  We could only get four channels, so we ended up watching old Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone movies. Bit of a dichotomy given our location, but fun.