De Tour Village via Les Cheneaux Islands

Thursday, June 25

Last evening a charter ferry run came into the marina, a group from Mackinaw City had come to St. Ignace for a couple of hours. I got to chatting with the captain; he is a school principal and captains a Mackinac Island ferry in the summer. When he heard we were headed east he asked if we were going through the Les Cheneaux Islands. I said we would probably just go straight to De Tour Village. He indicated we would be missing some beautiful scenery and offered to come to the boat and go over the charts with me. As the sun set Diana got several photos.

This morning dawned as another beautiful day, yesterdays haze was gone, the temperature was in the mid 60s, and the winds were light. Since it was a short day we did not rush getting underway but were still out of the harbor by 8:00. From over five miles away Diana got a clear photo of the bridge behind us.

We head for Mackinac Island, went between the Island Light Tower and the Round Island Lighthouse across the channel. Diana shot lots of pictures of Mackinac Island; including the cottages, Grand Hotel the Old Fort, and the harbor. It would have been fun to spend a day on the island but there is too much to do this trip and we have been to Mackinac by ferry.

We continued on to the west entrance to the Les Cheneaux Island and head for Cedarville. The island are an extension of land on the south side of the Upper Peninsula, they are mostly summer homes for people from Lower Michigan and elsewhere. Many of them are accessible only by boat. I want to publicly thank the nice ferry captain for the recommendation, without him we would have missed a great couple of hours. If you use Google or MapQuest, (or an old fashion atlas) look for Cedarville, Mi. the islands are just to the south.

Finally after two hours of fabulous scenery we headed back out into Lake Huron and headed for De Tour Passage. The De Tour Light is a famous light. This is where the St Mary’s River enters Lake Huron, all shipping to and from Lake Superior passes thru this passage. There are large freighters going by constantly.

By 3:00 we were into our slip at another of Michigan’s public marinas. Diana did a load of laundry while the captain tried to get a couple of layers of dead bugs of the boat. Soon it was evening and we were both ready to turn in early. It had been a long but wonderful day.