Run west to Grand Marais

 Sunday, June 4 -- Soo to Grand Marais, Michigan (89 miles)

We started the day with the 10am service at St. James Episcopal Church, which was about a half-mile walk from the Ojibway Hotel. The service was nice, but a bit sad, as there were only 14 worshippers (including ourselves) -- plus the priest and an old lady playing the piano -- in a beautiful big old church (dating to the turn of the previous century) made to seat hundreds. It made us wonder how they keep the place going. 

After church we schlepped our luggage back to the boat and were underway at 12:30. We had to wait a bit for the MacArthur Lock to open for upbound vessels, and we locked up with two tour boats. It took about twenty minutes to raise us 22 feet, and we were underway on the upper reach of the St. Mary's River at 1:30.

By the way, the Ojibway Hotel had this really nice aerial photo of the American Locks complex in one of their windows. There are two locks operating (MacArthur Lock to the far left at 800' by 80' and the Poe Lock next to it at 1200' by 110'. A third lock is under construction which will replace one of the next two locks over from the Poe and will be the same size as the Poe. Next over is a hydroelectric channel and electric plant to generate the power for the locks, and in the far distance is the Canadian Lock, which is the smallest (253' by 51') and is used by recreational and tour boats -- when it operates. It wasn't running today, and from what we've heard along the way its operation is a bit of a crapshoot. 

Immediately after exiting the MacArthur Lock we passed Algoma Steel on the Canadian side, and about eight miles after that the Gros Cap Reef Light, which is a rather odd-looking light. We figure the platform on top is a helipad. 

We definitely made the right decision to press on for Grand Marais today. We traveled almost ninety miles and it was dead calm the entire way. We passed one other cruising boat (a sailor) during the entire day. And the Lake Superior shoreline is very desolate, so it was a long, lonely ride. We rode inside again because the cold lake (51 degrees) made it too cold to sit up top.

Our first major landmark was the Whitefish Point Light, which was built in 1849 and is the oldest operating lighthouse on the Upper Peninsula. 

Next was the Crisp Point Light, which was completed in 1904 and decommissioned in 1993. Ownership was transferred to a local not-for-profit, which has had to spend a lot of effort keeping it from being washed away. Notice the haze in the first photo. We had it all day, and visibility was just a few miles. We learned later that this (and the haze yesterday) was from an enormous forest fire in Nova Scotia, which is over 1,500 miles away. 

For the fifty-mile stretch from Whitefish Point to Grand Marais we saw hardly any cottages or people on the beach and not a single boat. It was just one long stretch of pines and beach and dead calm water. 

It was close to 7pm when we pulled into the channel at Grand Marais. We were greeted first by the old Coast Guard Station, and then by a couple abandoned old fishing boats.

But best of all, we found that our Ranger Tug friends (Kevin and Denise) -- who we met at the Soo yesterday -- were at the dock and waiting to help us tie up! Given the excellent weather they went farther today than they originally planned. Once we were settled in they shared a bottle of champagne with us to celebrate both of our boats being in Lake Superior for the first time. Then we walked up to town for a late, but good, dinner at the local brew pub (The Dunes, with beer by Lake Superior Brewing).