excitement, danger, adventure and more!!!

We cast off on Wednesday, July 4th full of anticipation and a small measure of trepidation after a lovely evening spent in the company of our dear friend Steve Leuthold and the talented and lovely Melissa Matuscak, the new DeVos Museum Director. Not much of a breeze so Wayne turned on the new diesel engine and we rumbled off. The motor started to act strangely around Shot Point, and finally stalled and refused to re-start. In the meantime, we were gently drifting toward the point. Heroically, Wayne managed to change the gunked-up fuel and water separator and keep us from crashing upon the rocks. After that experience, we decided to motor to Murray Bay at Grand Island and call it a day. We had a delightful walk to Trout Bay, a quiet dinner, and another 6am start to look forward to. Thursday the 5th brought calm waters again, and another motor sail. We motored past the magnificent cliffs of the Pictured Rocks and out into the "Big Lake" again all the way to Grand Marais. As we arrived reasonably early in the afternoon, we had time to dinghy in and walk to the municipal park and play tennis. The day was so lovely that we thought we achieved our goal of having fun while voyaging far and wide. Yet another early start and we were on our way to Paradise - or so we thought. It looked to be at least a 12-hour motor/sail as the winds again were not in our favor. Rounding WhiteFish Point we noticed the boat which had been behind us for quite some time had caught up and was just off our Port side. Wayne made radio contact, and learned that the captain was single-handing his craft to Sault Ste. Marie to go through the locks. Discovering that our chart showed no real anchorage in Paradise, we decided to go the extra distance to the Sault as well. After 13+ hours of sailing, we entered the twilight zone of the approach to the locks. Regrettably, our charts took us just shy of where we were headed, and some guess work ensued. Wayne radioed the other captain, Tom, who gallantly offered to lead us through as he had been there before. What drama, pulling into the lock finally, and being thrown a rope with the instructions, "Don't cleat this off, we are going to drop you 21 feet!"...Unfortunately Wayne had not heard these instructions, and an heart-pounding moment occured when Cassiopeia's stern end started to swing toward the wall. He uncleated quickly realizing the process had started and we went down, down, down. It ended just as suddenly, and we followed Tom to the Kemp Marina very close to the locks. What a treat to have bathrooms, power, a shower - everything a girl could want! We toasted our success with champagne and looked forward to a much easier day from the "Soo" to Detour. We got up "late" - 8am - and got underway in a leisurely fashion. Our new friend Tom was leaving his boat at the Kemp to fly back to Minneapolis so that he could later return to sail in the Trans-Superior race - from Sault Ste. Marie to Duluth! What a guy. We paid our homage to him and said goodbye, anticipating another day of rumbling diesel as the wind just didn't show. So here we are on 7-07-07, our lucky day, looking to try to find Chad Norton's coffee shop when we arrive in Detour and already planning what fun we are going to have. Fate, luck, or pure chaos intervened as the motor started to act "funny" again about 2 miles down the Saint Mary river. It sputtered and stalled out. Captain Wayne, having been just as impressed as I was by the huge ore boats on this shipping channel, figured we'd best not flounder in the channel and started to steer toward the shore to put out an anchor to take a look-see at the engine. As we were drifting toward the shore the depth sounder could not have been working because it showed a sudden change from 30 or more feet of depth to under 10! No technical failure this time, we ran aground onto a sandbar made entirely of clay just a few feet out of the channel. Wow, now we have a broken engine and we are stuck. First things first - we needed to get afloat. Wayne rowed out an anchor with the dinghy to "kedge" us off of the clay, but could not pull us off. He jumped into the water - no higher than his waist now- to try to push the bow out while I pulled. No luck. He climbed back in the boat to set a second anchor. We both pulled. Stuck. A nice elderly gentleman and his lovely wife were cruising by on a large and very stately boat and offer to pull us off. Success!. Now to the next problem - engine malfunction. Remarkably, the fuel/water separator and filter that Wayne had installed not more than 2 days ago was once again completely fouled! After a bunch of work, we decided we had no other option but to get a tow back to the Kemp Marina where I am presently sitting typing in the comfort of the air-conditioned lobby. An extremely nice and capable man came to our rescue from Soo Boat Works. The name of our saviour is Rick and he is at this moment ordering 2 new, smaller gas tanks to replace Cassie's original tank which is completely fouled. In sum, we feel very lucky that we were close to such a large marine center when we ran into such a problem. I am confident that these new tanks will solve the "fouled fuel filter" problem. What other challenges lie ahead - who knows. It has been alternately serenly beautiful and relentlessly challenging but two restful days here in Sault Ste. Marie and we intend to set out again refreshed and wiser.