Good morning from our house in Sister Bay, WI! We “Crossed Our Wake” Wednesday 8/21/24 at 10:50am CDT after an easy lake crossing from Beaver Island to Ephraim. I will post the stats of the trip on the bottom of this post.

Since the last post, we explored De Tour Village fully, moved on to St. Ignace, bounced over to Beaver Island, and then completed the loop with the final run to Ephraim.

We spent our last day in De Tour exploring, and then our buddy boat Resonance arrived for a great meal out!

Who Dat all secure in our slip for 4 nights in De Tour waiting on a weather window.

The De Tour Museum in the background. Not much to see but we were surprised the town even had a museum!

It doesn’t look like much, but the MainSail is the fancy restaurant in town. They do have great food even though Amy did not get what she ordered! Amy ordered a chicken dinner, and they brought her ribs! Not even close.

Ok, you know you are in a small town when the store owners trust a complete stranger. When we arrived, we went to the market to pick up a few items. When we went to check out, they told us the internet was down in the entire town. I did not have enough US cash, so they let us take the groceries and just took my name and phone number. We told them we would come back the next day and pay them. No problem but the internet was down for two days! Even the cash machines in the town did not work so I could not get them cash either. Second day, we got more groceries, and they just added it to my Tab! Town was finally functioning again two days later, so I was able to go back and pay for everything. Great to see trust and compassion in society every once and a while.

While docked in De Tour a Viking cruise ship when by coming from Sault St. Marie and heading to Mackinac Island.

The next day we were up and gone early as the forecast was for the winds and waves to pick up all through the day. We started running slowly, but within an hour the winds and waves did their thing! We picked up the speed and arrived at St. Ignace by 11am. The run was not bad, but we did end up in 3-4 foot waves and 20+MPH winds before we arrived. Resonance only runs at 9MPH, so they did not arrive until after 1PM and had the full furry of the lake with waves up to 5 feet before they arrived.

The red on the map is when we were going slowly, and the white is when we picked up speed due to the wind and waves.

St Ignace is a large marina and very well protected from the wind and waves. Amy and I have been in this town several times since 2016, and the town seems to being doing very well with a lot more shops and restaurants open compared to previous visits. Great to see.

Who Dat all tucked in for the night.

We did run across the street from the harbor for lunch at the Gang Plank for the famous fishbowl drink. Lots of sugar, as those are Nerds in the bottom of the glass.

A Pano back into this large marina.

We enjoyed our last day and evening with our buddy boat, but unfortunately Christine was not feeling well after the long trip in the large waves. We went out for dinner with George, but Christine was not able to join us. I understand being seasick is not fun.

The next morning, we parted ways as Amy and I headed out into Lake Michigan for our last Great Lake of the Loop. It would be about a two hour run from St Ignace to Beaver Island.

Leaving St. Ignace and our buddy boat behind. They are spending a couple of days here to experience Mackinac Island.

Entering the Straits Of Mackinac and the waters of Lake Michigan. Yes, that is the famous Mackinac Bridge we would be going under.

A little closer view of the bridge. This connects lower Michigan to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

As we arrived at St. James harbor on Beaver Island, we would have to slow down and wait for the ferry to dock.

We sat and waited as he took his time to spin the boat and dock it.

Who Dat tucked in a slip at Beaver Island. This would be our last stop before we cross our wake in Ephraim.

We walked both blocks of town and got ready for a great meal out at the Lodge. The last couple of times we visited Beaver Island the Lodge was not open. We were glad to see it was, and they even picked us up for dinner with the courtesy van.

We had a great Whitefish dinner and a bottle of wine.

We were able to share our last loop dinner with fellow loopers from Lazy Manette and a perfect sunset.

The next morning, we were up early and ready for the final leg of our loop. We would cross the balance of Lake Michigan and then back into the Bay of Green Bay and home. 104 miles for our last leg of the journey.

The winds and seas were nice to us, a final gesture from the weather Gods for our journey.

Arriving at Death’s Door Passage that puts us back into the Bay of Green Bay.

EYH, our home port and the spot where we crossed our wake just outside the marina!

Who Dat tucked into her home slip! (And Memphis ready to get off the boat for a bit!)

It is very hard to put into words how amazing the Loop has been for Amy and me. We have shared some really great times and some really tough times along the way. It has been an amazing adventure, and all the challenges have made us a stronger couple than ever before. I can’t thank Amy enough for embarking on this journey with me. The loop was a dream for both of us to accomplish.

We have made some lifelong friends, learned a lot more about boating, learned so much more about our country’s history, explored areas of our country, as well as the Bahamas and Canada, and learned how to have SOFT PLANS! The soft plans were a real learning curve for me, but with Amy’s help I got through it.

We have mixed feelings about the journey ending but are also happy to be back in our house.

I missed the shower while Amy missed her king size sleep number bed and the dishwasher! It is the little things in life!

Some stats for the trip:

-11 months and 1 day

-6628 miles traveled

-17 States

-3 Countries

-107 locks

-8771 gallons of diesel burned

-641 engine hours

-189 different stops along the way

-14 nights on free walls

-23 nights at anchor

-90 different marinas

We celebrated our safe return home with a great bottle of wine and look forward to seeing our land-based friends soon!

I hope you have enjoyed reading and following our Loop journey.

WE ARE NOT DONE TRAVELING ON WHO DAT, SO STAY TUNED FOR OUR NEXT ADVENTURE!