What can we say? We LOVE Washington Island!!
We put The Boat on a boat - a ferry to be exact - and headed to the island. Neither of us had been to the island so we didn't know what was in store for us, but we had great expectations, and were not disappointed!
There were gale warnings on Friday night with 6-7 footers reported in Death's Doorway. Dan decided that if the ferry was going to capsize and we were going over, he would rather do it in daylight. So we parked the boat in
Bailey's Grove Campground and headed to the Blue Ox. (We highly recommend both of these very special locations!)
Camping at Bailey's Grove
Dan with two Susan's and two Julies at the Blue Ox!
SIDE NOTE: We love being in the water on the boat, but given its versatility, you will often find us parked in campgrounds, where we happily spend the night snuggled up. Very often we are asked if we were cold or got wet during the night and the answer is always no. Of the many times we have slept in the boat, we only needed the heater once, and the only time the sleeping bags get wet is if the boat is not parked on an incline. It is one of our favorite places to sleep.
Putting the boat on a boat seemed rather silly to us until we saw the condition of the lake. There's no doubt the LudaChris could have handled those waves. And Dan and I certainly could have, the question we asked is "Why would we?" So we put the boat on the ferry!
Dan adding a little more brakes to the brakes!
The ride over was a little rough with 6-7 footers crashing over the bow. We made it safe and sound - minus one St. Lawrence River hat, my favorite, now at the bottom of Deaths Door! Once we got to Washington Island, we drove to the
Cedar Lodge Resort to meet up with the Scuba group and Russ, the owner of the Inn. (Russ is a great guy. Highly recommend his place too!)
Here's the welcoming committee ordering Bloody Mary's
and Brad introducing Russ to the boat.
The wind was howling and the waves too big for any dive trips so there was only one thing left to do...
Dan & Brad strategically positioned near the ladies restroom
and it pays off!
Our official Bitters prescription from the bitters bar!
(Everyone should close Wolski's!)
The next day we finally got the boat in the water. It was still rough enough that we had to offload some passengers to be able to make it to Washington Harbor. So Dan and I happily rode the waves to the harbor and picked everyone up on Schoolhouse Beach and headed to dive the Pride and the Louisana. The Louisana was so nice and shallow that Dan convinced me to join him and breathing off of the same tank we checked out the wreck. There were a lot of gobi and HUGE Bass down there, and the wreck was pretty impressive too. I am hooked and can't wait to get my certification!!
Here we are enjoying a shore lunch on Schoolhouse Beach.
We always try to suck every ounce of fun out of our time together, so we were not too happy about having to leave the island. We drove around to explore the parts of the island we didn't see on our tour with Brad. We went back to the museum and had lunch at Karly's Bar where we met Bob from Cleveland, an 80-something year old character who up an married the lady that owns the only grocery store on the island. (As with all of our trips, we always meet new people and make new friends. In addition to Bob and Russ, we met Doug and Pat who we are certain will be long-time friends!)
After lunch at Karly's, we decided to get in the ferry line which earlier in the day was at least a mile long. We were happy when we got to the ferry line and discovered that it was only 5 cars deep, and were even happier later on after our cool adventure on the returning ferry!!
The Boat generates a lot of curiosity and we have found that the people who are most attracted to it and curious enough to talk to us are people just like us, who love the water, are adventurous in nature and extremely low key. We love every one of them! This trip we met Captain Joel, the ferry boat captain, who is now another one of our Washington Island friends.
Captain Joel coming to talk to Dan about the boat!
And here's where we ended up - in the helm station
with Captain Joel for the ride back to the mainland.
And the next thing we know we're here:
Engine room tour. Loud & Hot and full of testosterone!
I didn't quite get the whole engine room. It was man heaven. Sure there are two big BIG engines in there. Lots of noise. Lots of power. All I know is the result was this:
Dan coming out of the engine room. A happy happy man!
And that's all we need!
Thanks to everyone who made this trip special, Deep Sixers, Pat & Doug, Russ, Bob & Daughter & Mike at Karly's, The Susan's and the Julies, The hot bathroom chick at Karly's, Bitters bar, Russian Chick at the Community Center, Captain Joel, The museum guy, Mom for the storm cases that kept our stuff dry, and Amber for doing such a great job watching Gretchen!!
Til next time...
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