Back in the US & a brief trip to Lake Superior

         It was an easy run to Sault Ste. Marie from Anderson Bay.  Dan called ahead to reserve a slip at the George Kemp municipal marina and I started the process of checking into the US through the CBP Roam app.  You may recall the app didn’t work so well for us when we returned from the Bahamas, so we were biting our nails wondering if we’d have to go through the same nonsense of being officially denied by the computer program and unofficially allowed to enter by someone on the phone.  This time, everything went as it should - about twenty minutes after submitting our entry I received an email welcoming us back home.  

Sault Ste. Marie is one of the oldest towns in the US, and a very busy shipping route between Lakes Michigan and Huron, and Lake Superior.  We spent the afternoon walking around: visiting the visitor center at the shipping locks, browsing a few shops, and reading all the many plaques around town.  The Army Corps of Engineers’ work is prevalent everywhere.  They are building a new lock, which should be completed in a couple of years.

 

Our journey so far is drawn in black.

Dave, Meg, Kathy, & Dan

Our friends Dave and Meg from Circle Lily were here and we all went to dinner at Antlers that night (Sunday July 30).  Antlers is not as known for their food as it is for the ambience - the walls are covered with taxidermy projects as well as hundreds of antlers.  It’s worth a visit just to take in all the animals.  We had a great time.  

    The next morning we all headed back to the Canadian side to go through the pleasure craft lock into Lake Superior.  For Circle Lily it was the home stretch of their journey - they are from Wisconsin and bringing their boat to Bayfield.  For us it was a matter of dipping our keel in Lake Superior just to say we were there. The weather was perfect and the Lake was like glass.  After about an hour, we bid “goodbye for now” to Dave and Meg and turned around to lock back through into Lake Huron.  Now we can say we’ve had the Willie Dawes in all five Great Lakes.  

Following Circle Lily to Lake Superior
The wind began picking up about three in the afternoon and it was time to get off the lake.  We spent the night in Detour Village, a harbor of refuge in the Detour Passage, between the mainland of the U.P. and Drummond Island.