After a very welcome sleep-in at Houghton Marina in the twin cities of Houghton – Hancock on Saturday night, we had a leisurely Sunday morning with Theyre working away on the blog entry followed by a walk into town for breakfast in a Finnish restaurant – thank God they served American breakfasts as well!

Carl and Theyre headed off in search of a WiFi connection to keep you, our loyal followers, in touch with our progress while Peter and Greg set off for a mini re-provisioning.

A couple of hours and showers later we departed Houghton Marina at 3:35 PM with Theyre at the helm for the trip down the rest of the Keweenaw Waterway to Lake Portage and the big lake beyond. We were a bit late for the Keweenaw Regatta which we were told was a must attend. We sailed past the yacht tailgate party and review of the contestants – a Beneteau or Hunter, two other sailboats and a WW ll army tank painted white with gun turret removed sat atop a sailing hull. We think she won as she had the biggest crowd around her.

Heading into the big lake, boat traffic was still quite light. There was one boat in the general vicinity heading back from a near shore fishing trip it appeared. Aside from that brief near encounter with water borne humans, we were destined once again to have la grand lac to ourselves for another 20 or so hours. 

Carl and Theyre took the helm while Peter and Greg prepared dinner – a recipe for this wonderful pasta meal together with others from the voyage can be found on the website www.superiormeals.ca . Prozac, supremely confident in its own abilities, sent the entire crew off for a dinner break.

Carl and Theyre headed off for some sleep before they took the 11 – 2 AM shift. Sailing until 11 was pretty much a non-reportable event.

Peter and Greg took the 2 – 5 AM shift which welcomed them with a growing fog. Working in a fog being completely natural to them they manned the controls with comfort and ease. Heading dead into the east winds made sailing impossible so the shift excitement consisted of Ό hourly position reports to the Coast Guard – we assume they were listening. That was it until about 4 AM when the wind shifted enough in our favour to set the jib flying. So the crew was racing the boat into widespread darkness and even more widespread fog at almost 7 knots.

Dawn began at 4:45 AM. The telltale clue was the foggy sky shifting from an inky black to a nice inky grey.

Carl and Theyre retook the helm for the 5 – 8 AM shift and managed to find a few good waves to bounce Greg off the bow in the forward cabin. With the jib out and the fog still in, they broke the earlier shift’s speed record and pinned the needle at 7.1 knots .…And who said we were crazy??!!

After a nice 20 hour tack, Prozac brought us safely into harbour at Grand Marais. Leading into the dock Theyre wondered who was going take care of head sucking. It was an interesting conversation until we understood him to be referring to a pump out.

Several hours, a few pitchers of beer, some good local colour and shopping for more groceries found us settling in for an afternoon snooze, early dinner and sleep as we prepare for the next leg – a 4 AM departure for Whitefish Bay and Sault Ste. Marie.