Yearly Archives: 2026

August 14

We left the marina at Blind River on Wednesday the 12th after visiting the Timber Valley Museum and Art Gallery. The gallery had both local artists and local Indigenous artists. It seems to me, and this is a broad generalization, the local artists tend to photograph or paint landscapes. The First Nation artists tend to paint birds and animals. It is common enough that you can tell from a distance from whose hands, mind and heart the artwork was conceived. We headed to Turnbull Island, but there were several other boats already anchored.  We backtracked to Sanford Island and saw that the ‘best’ spot was occupied, but if we dropped near a point of land in about 20 feet of water we would be okay. Protected from the west, and pretty wide open north and south, we had amazing views to the northern…

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Fickle Weather – Sunday August 16, 2026

We woke up this morning to rain and wind. The blue calm water anchorage of yesterday replaced by angry grey clouds, and howling wind causing the waves to kick up. I've just spend the last 30 minutes watching the wave/weather/shoreline/pounding rain and listening to the wind howl as we swing around. I'm amazed that Reflection is not bobbing around just gently riding over or through the waves because we are headed into the wind. We knew that this anchorage is not protected from the south west - and yes that's exactly the direction this morning. I'm eternally grateful for Big Mama and her amazing holding power. We are firmly anchored and I'm glad because resetting in this kind of weather would be miserable! In short, the weather and wind predictions for today were incorrect. Yesterday, it looked like a good day to try…

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Wonders of the North Channel

August 10, 2026 For the last two weeks we've enjoyed exploring the North Channel. We picked up Mary in Thessalon two weeks ago. It was so nice to share this part of the trip with Mary. Starting with a crossing over to Cockburn Island, Tomlinson Harbor, then to Meldrum Bay, back across to Turnbull Island then Bear's Butt Bay on to Spanish, through Little Detroit channel, to Oak Point (beautiful but way too many deer flies!!!) then back to Meldrum and Cockburn. We are crossed back over to Thessalon yesterday to return Mary. The North Channel is lovely. We've enjoyed the sunrises, the sun sets, being at anchor and looking for eagles, otters, fish, cormorants, loons, rocks, trees, and of course gazing at the water surrounding us. The weather continues to be wonderful - sunny and warm days with calm cool nights. We've…

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Paradise

August 2 St. Ignace is nice town. We spent a couple of nights in the marina. Most everything is an easy walk away. It even has two hardware stores so I had to stop in there, although I didn’t really need anything except a small amount of epoxy. The galley sink has a pull-out faucet and I found a crack at the end of the threads that attaches to the hose. I sealed it up with epoxy and wound some sewing thread around it to provide some reinforcement. It just has to last through the season. It’s the kind that looks like chrome plated metal, but it’s mostly plastic. There are better ones that are made from metal and it’s such a pain to replace faucets, I want this next one to outlast me. We walked a mile to the grocery stores for…

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Under the Bridge

Under The BridgeJuly 26, 2026We left Beaver Island after three days of bobbing around - in the slip during the Concerning Wind to Too Much Wind (see Marcia's wind chart for details). The marina had bicycles free for marina guests and we took advantage of this to explore the island by bike - rode to the hardware store, out to the lighthouse and around the point, and out to dinner at the Shamrock. I also did laundry and read a page turner of a book, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings. If you want a captivating book from start to finish that illustrates the plight of immigrants/immigration/deportation and the heart wrenching reasons why people leave their home to seek life somewhere else, this is for you. It's a story of resilience and perseverance.This morning we set off at 8:00am for St. Ignace. We had…

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Marcia’s Wind Chart for Cruisers and Others

- or what I've learned after 450 miles sailed this summer and 7 weeks on board Reflection. Calm - Air is still, water like glass. 0-3kts Beautiful way to start a day. Out on deck, cup of coffee in hand marveling at the mirror like reflections. Slight Breeze - Start to feel air on your face. 4-8kts Enjoy the cool breeze from the cockpit watch the water come to life. Nice Breeze - Brim of hats start to move, ripples start on the water. 8-10kts Start to think this is going to be a great day to sail. Cruising Breeze - Sweet spot for sailing. Decide to take off on a passage. Secure hat on head, unfurl and adjust the sails all the way and sit back knowing the free, fun, fuel for your boat is doing all the work. 10-15kts Reefing Breeze…

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Timing is everything

Harold goes up, so Marcia doesn't have to - though she's great at keeping me from hitting the mast. The bag contains tools and parts. We’ve holed up in Northport before. The marina has a good rate, the grocery and library are close by, and so are pastries. With wifi, we’ve been able to stream our favorite YouTube channels, watch the World Cup final, and watch some episodes of British crime dramas. When the weather is decent, we take care of the boat - cleaning, maintenance and repairs. We also like to get out to walk for three or four miles. We check the weather everyday. Both for the forecast locally, and looking at sailing weather towards the weekend. We will leave Northport on Thursday. We have options, but it looks like we will have wind to take us to Beaver Island. We…

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Smokey Blues

July 17, 2026 The smoke rolled in to Northport on Tuesday morning. At that time, we thought it would be short lived, but now realize that it's going to hang around and continues to worsen. Now storms are moving in making our anchorage in Northport very lumpy. So, we surrendered and moved this morning to a slip at the Marina where we'll hunker down (enjoying the Leelanau Township Library) and run the AC at night to keep some of the smoke out of the cabin. We booked 6 nights as the situation is not improving anytime soon according to reports. This is the first time we are not sure about making it to the North Channel. We certainly do not want to be there with this thick smoke and with so many fires burning across Canada and Minnesota. It's not hard to imagine…

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Smoke bound

We left Washington Island Friday, July 10. It was a calm lake, which meant we motored almost the entire way.  Not ideal, but we’re trying to set up for a trip to Beaver Island and a jump to St. Ignace. We went to anchor. After a bouncy night Sunday into Monday, we took a slip at Northport Marina, one of our favorites. We had a nice visit from our son, Tim, beginning on Monday.  We watched the semifinal match between France and Spain in the boaters lounge at the marina here. We met the owner of a cherry orchard who was using the lounge as his office as he was without internet at the farm.  He gifted us a bottle of cherry vinegar. It’s very nice. RedTruckOrchards.com We marinated pork chops in the vinegar with salt and black pepper. Delicious. The smoke rolled…

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Dragonflies

This morning the blue dragonflies came. They came by the dozens and landed on our dinghy, came through the back door and checked us out. There are the first we have encountered - are they after the midges covering our boat? They look like they are searching for something.Many of them seem to have found what they were looking for - a mate, others seem obsessed with an unwritten agenda Closer to shore I watched these two flitting around. Dragon flies

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