Back to the Soo

Monday morning Tom announced that he thought we should leave Michipicoten Island and run straight back to the Soo.  He knew I had not been feeling well and not sleeping well (actually he said I was a bitchy sicko—now I know you all know that could not possibly be true!).  So we set out for a long day—a 120 mile run, much of which we did run—fuel be damned!  I slept most of the trip, but Tom awakened me as we approached the site of the Edmond Fitzgerald.  He had put the lat/long coordinates in the GPS and it only veered from our plotted course by a few miles.  We couldn’t believe our luck when we saw the outline of the towers on the sonar.  Tom honked the horn 29 times as we passed over her.  We needed Gordon Lightfoot singing and it would have been perfect.  For those who don’t know the story, the Edmond Fitzgerald , a 729 foot freighter loaded with iron ore, broke in half and sank in an extremely violent storm with the loss of all 29 aboard on Nov. 10,1975.   She has been visited by submersibles several times, but she was only dove once.  The two men spent eight minutes on the wreck and had to decompress for over three hours in 40 degree water.  They stated they would never do it again

Chartplotter screen passing over Edmund Fitzgerald
(click on picture to enlarge)

After we arrived back at the American Soo and cleared customs, I had a complete check over and was given some prescriptions that seem to have taken care of the problem.  The next day I caught up on laundry and Tom made an oil run to Walmart.  Later that day we met two looper couples from New Brunswick, Emery and Patti McGraw aboard Wanderer and Karen and John aboard ???.  They were aboard two 32  foot trawlers which they had trailered to Lake Ontario and launched near the thousand islands area.  They were very nervous about the Mississippi River section of the trip—so much so that they were considering trailering around it.  We went to dinner with them that night and hopefully calmed some of their fears.

Band performing at pavillion Thursday evening

Sculpture of three bears catching a fish

Pavillion on Ontario side.
A wedding was taking place here Friday.

Wednesday morning we went across the border to Bondar Marina in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Yes, we had to clear Canadian customs again, but that is just a matter of a phone call—much less complicated than US customs.  As we pulled into the marina, who should be our next slip neighbor but Sluggo.  We had followed Sluggo around Lake Superior, never quite getting an opportunity to meet her crew.  We finally introduced ourselves to Maedell and John Stafford and enjoyed their stories over cocktails that night.  They are from San Francisco, but bought and keep their boat (a 36’ Monk trawler) either in Michigan or the east coast.  They also have a home in Florida and are considering moving Sluggo there in the future.  Wonderful people.  Wish we had caught up with them at the beginning of the Superior trip.

Engine

Our car was appropriately named
the Lake Superior

Occasional view of Lake Superior

Ripe raspberries

Rounding a tight curve

Beautiful scenery as we passed many inland lakes

Beaver Falls

Tom by train logo

High trestle crossing Montreal River

Thursday, we hopped aboard the Agawa Canyon Train for an all day excursion.  The trip takes four hours to reach the canyon—going over high tressles, coming close to granite bluffs, and showing brief glimpses of Lake Superior along the way.  At the canyon we had an hour and a half to stretch our legs.  There were hiking paths to two waterfalls, Beaver Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.  Wild raspberries were ripe along the path, so we munched as we walked.  After reboarding we went to the dining car for lunch.  Returning to our seats we had a good visit with the people across the aisle, a couple from the Detroit area. 

We decided to spend Friday in Soo also and just rest up.  Tom went to the Bush Plane Museum and I shopped and found my mother of the bride dress.  Sluggo had guests, Chris and Hillary, arrive from San Francisco and invited us over for cocktails.  Chris and Hillary have built two sailboats.  They purchased the hull and deck and did all the rest themselves.  WOW!  Talk about knowing your boat!

Chris, Hillary, John and Maedell aboard Sluggo