Ship's Blog from Minnesota & Wisconsin portion of Lake superior

Split Rock Light

Inusuk's along Grand Marais Shoreline

Grand Marais Light Fogged in

Fishin' for Whitefish

Lake Superior Beach Stones

Looking thru the top of the Michigan Island Lighthouse

A Top of the Michigan Island Lighthouse

Michigan Island Light's notice the TWO lighthouses

Inside the Michigan Island light looking out

Staircase of Michigan Island Lighthouse

Commercial fishing 

The Bar at Tom's 

Tom's Burned Down Bar

Tom's Burned Down Bar

Feeding the machines

Got Curds?

Madeline Island shoreline

Corny's shoreline shops

History of commercial fishing

Raspberry Island Light (Apostle)

Heading into the Apostle Islands

Heading out with the laundry

Grand Marais, Minnesota

When we last posted we were heading out of Isle Royale, and had been living off whatever we had packed on board. We  spent 3 days in the port of Grand Marais. Due to the fact we had been out cruising for the past 20 days we were in desperate need of : Groceries, Water, laundry (wow did we have laundry), Fuel (last fill up was the Soo), and the boat needed a bath inside and out! So our first two days were work days. This is our first slip in three weeks, so we will have power, we can leave the clock plugged in, run the electrical stuff as much as we wanted without running the genset. Just the ability to just walk off the boat and go for a walk into town. Oh and there are people around too, ahhh the simple things we take for granted….

The things that are simple back home take a great deal of effort and time on the boat. Laundry we had 5 loads, the Laundromat well that’s 2 miles from the marina. So we load it into the trailer and hook it up to the tandem or hoof it. Groceries we really watch what we buy when the store is 2 or 3 miles away. We bring our own bags and each trip to the store buy just what we can carry. We had one trip to the laundry, two for groceries, two runs to the beer/wine store…..so exercise is never a problem.

After we finished up all of the stuff we “had” to do we walked thru town and enjoyed the area. There was a dragon boat race on the waterfront, with many booths set up in the park.

From Grand Marais, MN we decided to head south to the port of Silver Bay. We chose Silver Bay because that put us close to the Split Rock lighthouse. Once we were all set up in port we off loaded the tandem and headed out on the Gitchee Gumee bike trail to Split Rock. It was an awesome ride to the lighthouse. The trail followed the lakeshore all the way there and it felt good to ride through hills again. We took a tour of the lighthouse (it is it’s 100^th birthday) and took lots of pictures. The shoreline along this stretch is very rocky and cliff like. We only spent one day in Silver Bay the only thing we really wanted to do here was to tour Split Rock Light.

The next morning we cruised past Split Rock hoping to get a few photo’s from the water. The fog had moved in and was so thick, we were less than a quarter mile off shore directly in front of Split Rock and you couldn’t see a thing!! So we just continued on to Cornucopia, Wisconsin where we took a slip at the Siskiwit Bay Marina. We had never been here before and were looking for different ports to visit.

The locals lovingly call this port “Corny”. It is a very small old commercial fishing village. Town has an old salt feel to it as you will see in the photos. Town consists of a coffee shop, a local art gallery, the local commercial fishing dude, an all in one mercantile store and a watering hole called Fish Lipps.

We walked around town took a few pictures and ended up at Fish Lipps at the end of the day. We had a blast with the folks at the local watering hole. There were two bar owners that rode their Harley’s in to enjoy their day off, the local commercial fishing dude, the retired former owner of the all in one mercantile, one local guy and us. We heard all about the area, local government, the new yuppie’s that have just moved into town and they even touched on big government. They told us just how red neck they all were. They said we just had to have the Whitefish livers cause they are a delicacy in this area and our visit would not be complete without having at least one order, so we did. Wow us not being liver fans at all and we loved em’. Whitefish livers, cheese curds and a cold Lenny it doesn’t get much better than that. Of course the night would not have been complete without “The Big Question” would Brett Favre really retire and should he????? Funny that is as big and as difficult as talking politics here! We said good night to our new friends and left Corny the following morning with fond memories.

Our next port was Bayfield, Wisconsin. The wind was a blowin and the forecast was for it to build for the next couple of days. We had been hoping to anchor at one of the islands in the Apostle’s however we felt a slip in Bayfield would be a better choice with the incoming weather.

We needed to do a little work on our bow thruster: we also needed a few supplies and haircuts. Bayfield is a waterfront tourist town a few shops, good restaurants, bars, local art and a museum. They also have tour boats that will take you on a tour around the Apostle Islands. There is a ferry that runs back and forth to Madeline Island on the half hour. There are many National Parks in the area one in Bayfield and many of them on the Apostle Islands as well.

From Bayfield we made the short putz over to Madeline Island. Madeline Island is kind of a crazy place, fun for a few days but wouldn’t want to live there. We rode our tandem around the island to work up an appetite. The island has a marina, a state park a couple of restaurants and lots of bars. The big attraction on the island is Tom’s Burnt Down Bar. We were told it did in fact burn down not once but twice and possibly three times. Instead of rebuilding he just puts up a tarp an locks up the back of an old truck (which is the bar) when they are closed. Everything is just outside, we couldn’t figure how the regulations work on a place like this, it is one interesting place however. Yep we stopped in and enjoyed a PBR or two. We spent the weekend on the island and ran into some boater that we first had met at Isle Royale this summer. They are from Texas and are up boating Lake Superior as well. We enjoyed a visiting with them each time our paths crossed and this time was the same we enjoyed dinner together. Shared stories, photos and email addresses. I’m sure our paths will cross again soon. The following morning we ventured off of Madeline Island and headed for an anchorage in Presque Isle Bay off Stockton Island. We hiked the trails on Stockton with camera in tow, there are black bears on the island, we however did not see any. After our hike we took the dingy over to Michigan Island to check out the lighthouse there. As we pulled up you could see that lighthouse towering above the treetops. We climbed the hill and to our surprise there were two lighthouses! The park service ranger told us the first light was built on the wrong island. Now that’s a bad day if you were the contractor on that project Eh! It took the contractor 4 years to complete the project and the government wouldn’t pay him because it was built on the wrong island. Well some years later the need did come up for a lighthouse on Michigan Island however the existing light was to short. So the taller light was moved here from the east coast where it was no longer needed. We were able to tour the entire lighthouse during our visit. We felt out of all of the lighthouse’s we have visited this was in the top 5.

Wow it is Monday morning again! Over morning coffee we are pondering over do we want to take the river system South or do we want to head up and enjoy the fall colors in the North Channel????????????

That is our big decision right now. Feel free to share your thoughts/opinion with us.

We hope all is well with everyone and we look forward to seeing you all again soon.