Day 1: Portage, IN trailer to DeTour, MI - approx. 430 miles (9 hours)
DeTour, MI boat to Harbor Island, MI - approx 5 miles
Weather: Sunny & Hot, light southwest winds
After all the planning & preparation, and on about 2 hours of sleep, we woke up the first day of our North Channel trip at 3am to get ready to trailer Seapickle 430 miles to DeTour, Michigan to begin our adventure! We left the house at about 4am, and had the trailer hooked up and were on the road by 5:30am. The tow went very smoothly and besides being very tired, we arrived safely in DeTour Village at about 2:30pm EST.
The best part of the tow was crossing the Mackinac Bridge. We went under the bridge on Seapickle back in 2010, so it was very exciting to see it from another vantage point towing Seapickle behind us! Ben was a little nervous about this portion of the tow, but it ended up being no big deal.
Soon after we pulled into the DeTour boat launch, Todd from Passage Boat Works (where we would be storing our truck & trailer) arrived and helped us to launch, and then drove the truck over to store indoors at his shop! This might have been one of the easiest launches we've had yet!
After a quick stop for ice & water at the DeTour Village Marina, we took off for our first anchorage- Harbor Island, MI. Just about 5 miles North of DeTour.
Using the GLCC directions & harbor report, we were able to locate the anchorage very easily.
Captain Ben chose a cozy little anchorage protected from the south winds in about 4 ft of water with a seaweed & mud bottom. We spent a little while relaxing and organizing the boat, and then Ben made a delicious dinner of filet mignon, grilled mushrooms & teriyaki noodles. We enjoyed our first dinner of vacation with our North Channel drink "Captain's Cream Soda."
After dinner we explored the island in the kayak, hiking a bit onshore and checking out the rocks on fossil beach. We followed an arrow made of rocks up into the island for a ways, but had to turn back because it was close to sunset and we had heard stories of the awful mosquitos in the North Channel!
Back at the boat we tried to stay up late to watch the stars come out, but when it still wasn't fully dark at 10:30pm, we gave in and went to bed! We still couldn't believe we had made it to the North Channel after so long of dreaming of it!
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