Boat readied on trailer for the trip home

I bought a trailer on ebay and stored it at the USGS office in WI until we got to Green Bay. Then we rented a car, drove to Madison to pick up the trailer. Next day we fitted the boat to the trailer bunks and bow stop, adjusting the tongue weight. We had arranged for a commercial shipper to tow the boat home through uship.com-- like ebay where the truckers bid on your shipment. The trucker could not come until monday 8-13 after the 3 days we spent readying the boat for the 2100 mile trip home. I put new tires on the trailer and chain the boat down to the trailer front and back The boat made it home friday 8-17 and it now sits in our back yard waiting for full unloading and an oil change and gas tank pump out.

thanks for checking out our trip blog. feel free to email or call with questions sandeb2@gmail.com and home 253-532-1481 cell 253-376-8273 cell 888-387-1963

Sandy

pics of Mackinac Island and thereabouts Aug, 1-6

see this link for the pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sandeb2/MackinacIslandAndThereabouts

Maps of trip July 31- aug.5 ++ Interesting stories

On the way from 7-31 anchorage near Killarney towards Little Current, it was about 7 am and Deb was still sleeping. I was going slow, about 6 mph and the water was glassy and i could see rocks on the bottom in 12-15 ft of water. In the middle of the large channel where a fairly narrow marked channnel was, i was watching the bottom go by when i thought i saw a palm pilot or pocket pc. I turned around and found the spot again and decided to dive for it in 12-14 ft of 70 deg, water. I got it and it turned out to be a new digital camera and the memory card showed about 150 pics from a party 7-29. By looking at the pics it seemed obviously to be a 50th birthday party of a woman [complete with make stripper!]. There was a live band [leather & Jeans]. The bday lady's husband or boyfriend was wearing a shirt with a log that i traced on the Internet to a construction firm that turned out to be in Ottawa [they could not make any connection to the party]. We stopped in little Current to put up fliers, talked to the local newspaper [who did not think it was an interesting story!]. Still no one has called. Oh well, we tried.

The next day, after anchoring in the Benjamin Islands that reminded us so much of Sucia Island in the San Juans, except 74 degree fresh water!, we met a young couple in Blind River who were bicycling across Canada. They were early twenties, met in college at UBC, though they both grew up in desolation sound where we have sailed on Quadra Island. It has 2,000 inhabitants and they took the ferry to school in campbell river every day. Their high school was larger that i would have thought with a grad. class OF 200. They were hoping to catch a water taxi over to Manitoulin Island to continue their trek and since the water taxi was not operating, we decided to take them. They reminded me of Deb and I in our youth.

Boat trip to end wed. 8-8 and we fly home sat. 11th

We will be on land next wed. 8-8 in green bay WI, readying the boat for its trip home on the new trailer. We will drive to the USGS Madison office where the trailer has been stored either wednesday pm or thrusday am depending on what time we get in. the trailer gets picked up the the uship.com shipper's truck saturday and we will fly home sat. night the 11th.

it has been a fabulous trip. we just got back into the USA aug. 3 at the tip of the Michigan peninsula that is attached to Wisconsin--called the UP or Upper Peninsula. it is great to be back in the USA after 3 weeks in Canada, even tough they have some of the best boating waters i have ever been to.
At this point our ATT phone is back usable and sprint phone is still roaming, so please use the att number. we have tons of minutes as we could not use any of our regular minutes the 2.5 weeks in Canada.
our only problem is the trip has been so good it is hard to imagine going back to work...

Maps of trip july 11-30

this is a diagram of our near miss on the erie canal when after swimming at point#1 the motor would not start, the wind and current dragged the boat [and anchor] towards the rocks at #2, then 3 as sandy jumped in and tied to a rock while amy and debbie got out the dinghy and tilted up outdrive. then sandy took 300 ft of rope and 2nd anchor to point #4, then 5 on wall toward lock and pulled boat over, whew!!!

below is map of trip stops from 7-11 to 7-26. Niagara falls side trip was by rental car while boat sat at brewerton

this is map of next few days. we caught up with the loopers group after the rendezvous in penetanguishene was over, but caught the 22 boats on a week long flotilla at lunch at famous henrys [an official sea airport] on sunday the 29th

tobermory and the 5 fathom marine park of Canada was great. most pics will have to wait as we used a water proof disposable film camera. there are 22 wrecks of 50-200 foot boats from 1800's and 5-8 are within 10 feet of the surface. i dove on 5 in the harbor about 1/4 mile from the transient dock. maybe some more today...

Big Chute Marine Railway July 27 and new pic site

i am moving from blogging to just loading pics with captions, check this out:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sandeb2/LoopTripJuly2529RiceLakeTo30000IslandsInGeorgianBay

Thousand Islands, Heart Castle 7/17

need to upload more of carols' picktures.

We spent one night in Clayton on the St. Lawrence and headed over to Boldt Caslte on Heart Island for a tour. You can boat right up to the island or take a tour boat. It was a pretty amazing place to walk through.

All four of us on the steps of the Power House on Heart Island. The castle is in the middle. The power house is to the north and the Play House (for the kids) to the south. It all looked like Disneyland. Too bad it was never lived in.

the 1000 Islands is just that, a thousand islands many with a house or houses on them. This owner has 2 islands. His house is in Canada and when he crosses his bridge he is in the US. He has both flags on his bridge.