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...