Mackinac Island Kayaking

First extended weekend of the year = first kayaking trip of the year. At least that’s the goal.

With this in mind, on Tuesday, I put out a suggestion that I wanted to do some version of the Mackinaw City to Mackinac Island / Round Island trip. It’s short notice, I know, but that’s how I roll. Also, some combination of “we” have paddled this area four or five times, so the logistics don’t take much thought.

Participants were determined to be Callum, Doug, Samantha and me. After a slight miscommunication which involved Callum being up in the Straits area a day early, we all converged on Mackinaw City shorly after noon on Saturday. Conditions were a bit choppy and 10 miles a bit long for Samantha’s first sea kayak adventure, so the decision was made to depart from the St. Ignace side of the bridge. About 2:00 we got on the water and headed toward the island.

That didn’t last long (we got to the first Ferry route) and ended with me towing several people against a 15+ mph wind and foot and a half waves. There are two morals to this story: 1. Don’t be too encouraging to a new paddler. 2. Don’t be the only one with a tow belt. I guess there’s a third lesson which is “have a tow belt.” We were apparently concerning enough that the Cost Guard boat came over to check on us, but didn’t really hang around after seeing that we had things under control.

This was the first picture taken, after we returned to the St. Ignace launch and decided to take a little jaunt West past the bridge where the waves were less.

Beyond the bridge are a set of islands inhabited by birds. In one of their coves there was a school of carp, which Callum found. He was much happier about it than I would have been.

Proof that islands too are being overrun by cormorants.

Callum decided to pay the gulls a visit. A bold move, which surprisingly yielded no direct bomber hits.

Having expected to be on an island for Saturday night, we did not have a camp site at St. Ignace reserved. Fortunately, the State Park guys anticipated extra and we used the overflow camping / picnic area. As a consolation prize for not having made it to the island, we got pasties for dinner.

Sunday was much calmer. Winds sub 5mph.

If you can ignore the phone camera quality, this makes a nice comparison between the days as viewed from shore.

We cruised over to Mackinac Island with ease on Sunday. Slight tail wind and no waves to speak of except the ferry wakes. We stayed South of the ferry routes most of the crossing as the ferries tend to hug the island a bit to indulge the touristy nature of their clients.

I think I’ll call this one “Two kayakers and a photographer.”

We hit Mackinac right around the Devil’s Kitchen area. That big hole in the rock… yeah, that’s it.

Obligatory shot of the Grand Hotel.

We stopped for a bit in the Mackinac Island harbor. The others went ashore for coffee and fudge. I caught a few surfs off the ferry wakes. About when they got back on the water and we crossed the shipping channel we must have hit our highest winds of the day. Easily 15mph and odd since the rest of the day had been calm.

The light on Round Island. The near camp site area is a few hundred yards down the point to the East (left).

The camp “sites”. You can see the fire ring and dry areas where the tents were.

We pitched camp around 5:00 and commenced with dinner and hiking around the island. Everyone but me decided to cook on the leeward beach. I have this obsession with having fires when camping, and if I was going to have a fire, I was going to cook my food on it.

Fire and fire ring, all mine.

The highlight of the weekend was that the Mackinac Island fireworks. I got to sit on the deck of a lighthouse, on an island and watch fireworks being launched against the backdrop of the Grand Hotel on Makcinac Island. It was one of the best fireworks viewing setups possible and certainly the best I’ve experienced.

The forecast for Monday had been a concern fromt he onset of the trip. It was slated to be thunderstorms over night then scattered thunderstorms all day. We knew that we might end up waiting most of the day for enough break to get to Mackinac and take a ferry home.

Fortunately, the forecast was wrong. There was a bit of rain over night and a lot of fog the next day.

Doug, fog and the Grand Hotel.

The return trip was a bit cooler and rather colorless as indicated by the pictures, but otherwise very nice. Minimal wind and wave action except for the dumb-ass power boater who saw us, but just decided he didn’t want to be inconvenienced with giving us a reasonable berth.

Final shot of the Mackinac Bridge with some fog under and clouds over.