Wednesday June 19, 2013 Day 18 79 mi / 506 total miles

We were up very early today to check on freighter traffic in the St Mary's River that may impact our ability to lock through. 

I did say VERY early..........

Now I don't normally do sunrises, but this one was spectacular!  And it was just the beginning of a perfect day.


With no freighters up bound to cause us delay, we called the lock master and he directed us to "come on in".  He would lock us through while waiting for the freighter Alpena to arrive down bound.

Entering the "MacArthur" lock.  This one is too small for the giant 1000 footers, but fit our two trawlers nicely.

And here we go ---- we would rise 21 feet to enter the upper St. Mary's River for the final leg into Lake Superior.






Remember that down bound freighter I mentioned earlier?  There's the Alpena waiting to enter the lock as we were leaving.
                                                                                                                                                                

You can see how calm the water was ------ again.  We exited the lock at 7:12 a.m. and continued up the river and into Whitefish Bay, passing another of those 1000 footers along the way.

This guy is 200 ft LONGER than the Alpena pictured above!







We had originally planned on stopping at the Whitefish Point  State Harbor, but after a check of the weather forecast for later in the week, we decided to proceed to Grand Marais Marina about 40 miles farther on.  Conditions were perfect for a long day (79 miles - about 11 hours at our speed).  Even "Father Superior" was calm as we rounded Whitefish Point.



Whitefish Point Light


First lit in 1849, the Whitefish Point Light is the oldest active light on Lake Superior.  It  marks the end of an 80 mile stretch of shoreline known as Lake Superior's Shipwreck Coast. This light has shined onto the big lake unfailingly for almost 150 years except for the night when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in November of 1975.






Local fisherman tending their nets just in front of the light.

                                                                                      
Looking out on this, it's hard to imagine the 30 foot waves the Edmund Fitzgerald faced.  It was so beautiful, we had our first "bridge" day --- steering from the outside upper helm station.  We were comfortable in sweatshirts in the sunshine!  We left the bridge as we got within sight of the entrance to Grand Marais harbor, arriving about 5:30 p.m.  What a beautiful little harbor.  We were met at the dock by harbormaster George with a hearty "Welcome to Grand Marais".  As we got settled in, we were welcomed  a second time with the distinctive call of a pair of Loons.  They were right here in the harbor!  We have seen them and listened to their calls in our previous trips "up north", but never as close as these 2.





Loons mate for life and are always seen in pairs.  You can't mistake their call (remember On Golden Pond?).



After cocktails and dinner, we walked over to the beach to enjoy the sunset.  Clouds gathering in the west partially obscured the view.  Still, a beautiful way to end the evening.