Day 9 Friday, May 29, 2015

Sturgeon Bay to Mackinac Island

It seems to be a rule that an easy day must be followed by one of 'agony' as Danny is aptly putting the sailing life. After an uneventful night I took off sailing and set myself the challenge not to use the engine until arrival unless absolutely necessary. As the winds were predicted to be a nice southern breeze it looked hopeful. It started well but the wind slowly diminished, but I was hopeful that once I'd passed the old abandoned lighthouse and turned east, things would improve. I had been complaining about the flies in the last days, but I hadn't seen anything yet. Today I was swamped by them. In the following pictures you can see them everywhere (they were on me too)

The old abandoned lighthouse at Grey's reef. All the dots in the air around the Caprice are those pesky flies.

After turning east the wind really started pushing me nicely, and even the flies diminished a little. But after just 20 minutes of wonderful speedy sailing the wind totally died. And the flies had me now. After suffering through them another ten minutes I threw in the towel and finally started the engine. Damn flies.

Finally approaching the bridge. I had used the hose to attempt to clear off the flies, but that was hopeless, they were back within minutes (or rather, the brothers and sisters of the drowning victims)

When it started raining I actually welcomed it since that washed many of them off, at least for a few minutes.

I love engineering, and man, look at that bridge. Imagine the engineers and the workers that built this. 

Even though it was raining, my admiral advised me that satellite maps gave hope for a nice afternoon, so I called Mackinac Island marina and asked if they had a slip for me. They took a little to check for me and then said 'yes'. Which was a joke when I later found that they had all of 6 boats or so in right now.

The wind had picked up after I passed under the bridge and I started sailing towards the island, but after I crossed the NW-SE shipping channel the wind diminished so I restarted the engine to get clear of all the shipping and ferries. At least there were no other sailboats in sight.
Suddenly, the engine alarm came on, with a 'Cooling water temperature' warning light. I quickly checked the exhaust and saw no water coming out there, so I shut down the engine in a hurry and left the autopilot in charge while I checked the engine. Just then a tanker passed me but I was well off his side, so no worry.

I quickly established that the intake all the way to the pump was free by unclamping the hose from the pump and observing free water flow. I also felt that the hose up to the pump was cool, but hot right behind it. The engine was pretty warm, but the alarm had prevented any serious overheating. Don't you love Yanmars? I unclamped and took off the water pump and took it into the cockpit to check the impeller. There it was:

No big deal! I have spare impellers (because I get them but forget to actually replace them on a regular basis). It took only a few minutes before I had it all together, and all was well again. The autopilot in the meantime had steered me close to the island and I finally docked.

Mackinac Island Marina is usually packed, it's hard to get a slip without a prior reservation. Not today! There are some advantages to being here early in the season. Also, they tell me the flies get worse later. Hard to imagine.

Mackinac Island is as gorgeous as the guidebooks say, even the main tourist drag downtown is attractive. I'll stay until tomorrow lunchtime and check it out some more (and post more photos).