Mackinac Island

August 03

Mackinac Island - Pronounced Mackinaw, or if you are from Florida ; Merinack

Originally called Michilimackinac by the Native Indians and it means place of the giant turtle.

I will be very honest in this blog.

I have been looking forward to visiting Mackinac Island since Gary and I started planning The Loop.

Think about it: A quaint little island with horse drawn buggies;( the only transport allowed on the island as motor vehicles are forbidden and has been since 1898), fudge shops galore, an imposing fort high on a hill; the glamorous Grand Hotel romantically overlooking the Mackinac straights….the famous bridge spanning 8,614 feet (3^rd largest suspension bridge in the world)………..

Open to traffic in 1957, the "Mighty Mac"
 is 5 miles long and spans 8,614 feet 

Well it is that and more:

When we left our anchorage behind Long Island to cross over to Mackinac, the waters were calm and for the first 2/3 of the trip it was smooth sailing. The last 1/3, however, was horrible. The wind had picked up and we were riding waves like we were on a surfboard, not on a 26 000kg boat.  

When we got to Mackinac it was at its worst. The marina wasn’t open yet so we had to anchor in the harbour to wait for our slip. We were bouncing around while we waited for someone to answer our calls on the radio.

(Apparently they were short staffed and that is why no one answered)

Eventually I called the marina on my cell phone. They made us wait a little longer (!) and when I called back they had our slip for us. We were so happy, at last, we thought, an end to this constant rocking and rolling.  Ahhhhh were we wrong…… They assigned us a slip on the end of the dock right on the spot where the ferries’ wake hits, every ½ hour, all day long till 11pm.

And for the next HOUR we struggled to secure the boat to a fixed wooden pole dock. We tried to tie to it like one would to a floating dock but I saw we were not getting anywhere. I suggested to Gary that we take a walk around and see how the other boats were tied. Come to find out, you have to loosely tie your lines around these high poles (a near impossible feat) so that your boat is floating in-between, like in a hammock. 

More easily said than done, especially when the waves off the inlet are hitting your boat and constantly rocking it up and down and back to front.

 Gary and I worked for a solid hour or perhaps even more, bending down, tying lines and securing the boat and when I couldn’t take it anymore I told Gary I needed land under my feet or I was going to puke.

The poor cats. We left them inside and got off the boat as fast as we could. By this time we it was well after 1pm and we didn’t realise it but we were hungry. We had lunch at the Yankee Rebel with Jim and Ann (MV WILD GOOSE ) and afterwards went on a guided horse drawn buggy tour of the island.

Instead of parking meters....

Mackinac Island Downtown

There is a lot of history here. We had some amazing tour guides and I learnt a lot of interesting American history.

Arch Rock 146 feet above the water
The rock was melted by a Nedawniss, a beautiful Indian maiden's tears
when she was tied to the rock by her father who wouldn't allow her to marry a Sky Spirit

We also did a tour of The Grand Hotel. A hotel famous for being a destination for the rich and famous.  They also shot the movie “Somewhere in Time “with Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour here. It is an impressive building, much history and very glamorous. Also very expensive at $500 per night.

Jim, me and Ann at the front entrance of the
Grand Hotel
built in 1887 

Art by MARLEE , just one of the many exhibits in the
Grand Hotel, I loved the colours and the
painted couch

The Grand Hotel where you are still required to
wear ties and jackets (men) at dinner.
We had to pay $10 to tour the grounds, so I stole some napkins :)

We walked miles and miles, tasted some fudge and then tasted some more. Gary bought a little piece for himself as I don’t really care for it. We did the tourist trap shops looking, more than buying , and after a while we decided we had had enough for the day.

Marble slabs are used to cool the fudge.
This fudge maker told us he was male model in a previous life

Chocolate. Shoes.

A typical fudge store - and there are more than a dozen of
them.

We started back to the boat which was still rolling and rocking but after only an half an hour or so we decided to go back to land, and we walked some more and went to the local laundromat to do our laundry.

As soon as we got back to the boat I took some gravol and went to bed. It was after midnight, a long day.

I woke up at 3am to loud splashing……not the splashing noises the boat made as it was rocking about, (those have a rhythm to them)…these splashes sounded like someone threw a very large flat rock into the water right next to our bed….in other words an abnormal sounding splash.(makes sense?)

 I got up and went out to investigate (I sleep naked but didn’t even think about that) I couldn’t see anything but by this time Gary was awake too, he had the foresight to put on a pair of pants before he went out to see what was going on….the splashing had stopped by now so I said to hell with it and got back into bed. Gary found out it was 4 boys diving off the end of our dock, (it is a high dock, about  6feet from the water) he saw the boys walk back into the direction for the village…..anyhow, nothing was stolen, broken or damaged so it was really no big deal. The weird thing is that all night I had been listening to sounds of water against the hull of the boat yet a “different” splash woke me right up …..just weird hey?

The ferries that travel between St Ignas , Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island and they
make a huge wake when they enter the harbour.

Aug 4

Woke up and couldn’t even stomach breakfast. As soon as we could we were off the rocking boat again and on terra firma.

The Fort from the bottom of the hill

Gary ,me and Ann

The view from the Fort

Musket shooting

Cannon firing demonstrations are held a few times a day

Our goal was to tour the Fort and I knew Gary would enjoy the firing of the cannon and muskets and the re-enactment of a court- marshal by the staff at the Fort. The young people who are all in period costume and play their parts very well.

We met a young lady who was using an 1800 recipe to bake bread and make pie. They not only dress in the period costumes but they eat food from that time too.

After lunch we bought more fudge! (PS they sell 6000 pounds of fudge a DAY on this island)….they even refer to us tourist as “fudgies”. They use big fans to blow the smell of the cooking fudge into the streets where it mixes with the other strong scent of this Island, horse manure.

This is a 3 horse buggy that took us around
the State park , but the other buggies around town are
only drawn by two horses

I think I remember a tour guide saying they have something like 250 horses on the island, each horse eats about 75lbs of hay a day and 5lbs of oats…..that is a lot of horse sh1t!!!!!  You cannot train horses where to pee or poop so you can figure out the rest for yourself. They have a neat little street sweeper to clean the streets after all the tourists have left on the last ferry at night and they do try and keep the streets poop and pee free during the day , but man oh man that stuff stinks :0

The only other form of transportation is bicycles, which have the right of way here as I found out when I almost got hit by one. (Does it sound like I am having fun yet?)

So here we are, at the end of day two of our tourist experience here on Mackinack Island. The boat is still rocking, but not as much as last night when I wasn’t even able to check my email on the computer without feeling sick to my stomach. The winds have calmed down a lot and the ferries have slowed down too….all around us are boaters and the sounds of a marina on a Saturday night…..but guess what lies ahead for us tonight……?

At midnight we are supposed to get hit by a storm that is bringing “damaging winds and hail” (I am quoting the forecaster) also “a possible tornado”!  Tomorrow we hope to hit a travel window that will allow us to get out of this rocking marina to a safe harbour in St Ignas, only 7miles from here……but 7 miles can be damn long if your boat is getting pounded to bits.

…………………………………………………………….to be continued (I hope)