Speaker 1: Welcome to Macinaw Island Moments, hosted by lifelong islander Jason
Speaker 1: saint Ande. Through conversations and interviews with Foe Island locals
Speaker 1: and residents, Jason won't bring you the real stories and
Speaker 1: characters that to find life on the island. Whether you're
Speaker 1: a seasoned visitor, new to Macana Island, or even an
Speaker 1: island or yourself, you'll be sure to learn firsthand about
Speaker 1: the island with Jason on Macan Island Moments.
Speaker 2: And Welcome to another edition of the mac and Island
Speaker 2: Moments podcast, the only podcast that originates from Macin Island
Speaker 2: by born and raised Mackinaw Islander folks. I apologize I've
Speaker 2: been Mia. I know it's been since early June since
Speaker 2: our last podcast, and it's not because I didn't want
Speaker 2: to be here talking about what's going on on Macin Island.
Speaker 2: It's just been a busy, busy summer and to actually
Speaker 2: sit down and put some thoughts together, I just haven't
Speaker 2: had a chance to do it, and I certainly haven't
Speaker 2: had a chance to harangue anybody into an interview. But
Speaker 2: believe you me, the those days are coming. We're going
Speaker 2: to start getting back on track. Here, but I did
Speaker 2: want to reach out and at least get something down
Speaker 2: and let you know we haven't forgotten. We've received a
Speaker 2: little bit of emails, a little bit of text messages
Speaker 2: asking you know, when are we getting back on track.
Speaker 2: So that's what we're attempting to do. You know, I
Speaker 2: do want to address that. The big thing everyone's talking
Speaker 2: about this summer is the boat lines. And if you
Speaker 2: follow maclaland, certainly you know that the Hoffman family of Naples,
Speaker 2: the Hoffman family of companies, they bought the Schepler Ferry
Speaker 2: last year and had the Scheffler family run it for them.
Speaker 2: And then, of course it came as little surprise, at
Speaker 2: least to the locals when this summer they bought maclaland
Speaker 2: Ferry Company, also known as the star Line Ferry, the
Speaker 2: other ferry line. Again it didn't come as a huge surprise,
Speaker 2: but what came next was a bit surprising. The star
Speaker 2: Line ferry boats apparently we're in need of some pair
Speaker 2: and the appointed president of the company from Schepler came
Speaker 2: to the city council and said they need so much repair,
Speaker 2: in fact, that we're going to have to dry dock
Speaker 2: the entire fleet and ask that only Schepler be allowed
Speaker 2: to run. And when I say asked folks, what you
Speaker 2: need to know is the Mcinland City Council, the City
Speaker 2: of Macland actually regulates to high authority the ferryboats. Due
Speaker 2: to the island's charter, which goes back to eighteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: the island has complete and utter control over rates, schedule
Speaker 2: and that sort of thing. Now, the city's done their
Speaker 2: best to let the boat lines be the boat lines,
Speaker 2: but they do have regulatory authority. So the city did
Speaker 2: grant that, and which it had a little bit of
Speaker 2: irony because this was the same company ten years ago
Speaker 2: that was battling, not battling for there not to be
Speaker 2: one boat line, and now they're asking the city to
Speaker 2: go ahead and grant that. So it was kind of
Speaker 2: weird water, so to speak. But anyway, the Scheffler Ferry
Speaker 2: kind of handled everything for the island. But I can
Speaker 2: tell you that it was a little crowded, and no,
Speaker 2: it was a lot crowded, and getting folks out and
Speaker 2: off the dock, particularly on weekends was kind of tough.
Speaker 2: There really was no interruption in service. Boats were coming
Speaker 2: over every fifteen minutes and there were some lines of
Speaker 2: course to get here, but some folks in the media
Speaker 2: portrayed it as the island being closed down, and that
Speaker 2: just wasn't the case. Now, many of you have reached
Speaker 2: out to this city and to me and just on
Speaker 2: the street, and you know, wondering about the monopoly effect
Speaker 2: now that the Hoffman family owns both well basically all
Speaker 2: ferry lines to mac and Island, and yes, that would
Speaker 2: be a monopoly by the definition. But what folks need
Speaker 2: to know is you can in fact have a monopoly
Speaker 2: as long as there's some sort of governmental control, whether
Speaker 2: it's federal, state, or local. And in this case, the
Speaker 2: city of mcland does have regulatory control, and I expect
Speaker 2: the city will exercise that control. So some of these articles,
Speaker 2: you know, I read on various news outlets, were quite
Speaker 2: erroneous that you know, there's going to be fifty dollars
Speaker 2: tickets and one hundred dollars tickets and mcn Island's going
Speaker 2: to price itself out and it's just going to become
Speaker 2: a resort for the one percenters. That I just don't
Speaker 2: see happening. With the city having utter control over the
Speaker 2: prices in the schedule, I don't think that's a realistic concern. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm sure many of you sit back and say, oh,
Speaker 2: just you wait, and I'm going to sit back and
Speaker 2: say no, just you wait. And I'm pretty confident in
Speaker 2: the city's ability and ambition to that regard in holding
Speaker 2: the line on fairy prices in schedules. So interesting enough,
Speaker 2: what the Hoffman family did recently was they hired Veronica Dabravovsky,
Speaker 2: who the CEO of Arnold Freight, the freight provider to Mcaniland.
Speaker 2: They brought her in to kind of shore up star
Speaker 2: Line and get the ship right at no pun intended.
Speaker 2: And I think she's doing that, and I think she's
Speaker 2: doing a pretty good job with that. And time will tell.
Speaker 2: But they have a lot of projects are working on.
Speaker 2: Some of them are somewhat ambitious. But we're looking back,
Speaker 2: we're looking ahead and hoping that everything is going to
Speaker 2: work out. So that's the big news. So, you know,
Speaker 2: fret not, fear not. While I know you know some
Speaker 2: of the news articles that are somewhat driven by our
Speaker 2: tourism competitors. I mean, I don't think it's any secret
Speaker 2: that there's a few other towns in Michigan that compete
Speaker 2: for tourism dollars with Mcina Island, and some of them
Speaker 2: have promulgated some of this bad press. Rest fear not.
Speaker 2: I suspect by spring, when the new tourist season starts,
Speaker 2: everything will be fine. I hate to, you know, sprinkle
Speaker 2: pixie dusts and everything like that and say it like that,
Speaker 2: but I think things are gonna be fine, and I'm
Speaker 2: looking forward to looking forward to what Veronica we'll do
Speaker 2: with the former starlne One other big announcement when they
Speaker 2: hired Veronica to take over Starline, they also are basically
Speaker 2: abandoning or retiring the star Line moniker, the star Line name,
Speaker 2: or the mcin Island Ferry Company name, and they are
Speaker 2: resurrecting from I think eighteen seventy eight was when it started.
Speaker 2: They are resurrecting Arnold, transit the Arnold Line to Mackin Island,
Speaker 2: and they're bringing back the boats are gonna be painted
Speaker 2: green and white again. And in fact, they've already started
Speaker 2: painting the main pier downtown. So that's kind of exciting.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so we're back. We're gonna try to bring him,
Speaker 2: Like I said, more up to date news. I was
Speaker 2: looking at the website today. We've now been listened to
Speaker 2: in over thirty four different countries, which kind of blows
Speaker 2: my mind. And I didn't know I had that many relatives.
Speaker 2: But we're gonna try to be more upbeat. I did
Speaker 2: want to talk about, you know, summer is busy, but
Speaker 2: the one fun thing I got to do this summer,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, it's very applicable to the island,
Speaker 2: of course, is you all know about the yacht races
Speaker 2: that take place in July. There's the Chicago to Mackinaw,
Speaker 2: then the Bayview Yacht Club Port Huron to Mackinaw. And
Speaker 2: this year the Port Huron to Macinaw was turning one
Speaker 2: hundred years old. The races, it was a one hundredth running,
Speaker 2: and about a year ago I had the idea, I said,
Speaker 2: you know what, we got to put together an all
Speaker 2: island crew, a group of guys from the island or
Speaker 2: ties to the island to get in that race. And
Speaker 2: if it's the hundredth running, this is the year to
Speaker 2: do it. And so over a year ago this this
Speaker 2: idea was hatched. And and you know I used to
Speaker 2: have about he used to have a twenty two Catalina
Speaker 2: kept it right here on the straight Stock, or some
Speaker 2: people call it the Yoder Dock, the new monikers the
Speaker 2: East Dock, but I'm a big fan of call it's
Speaker 2: the straight Stock. And I know Tom kat is too.
Speaker 2: But I had a twenty two Catalina and I loved
Speaker 2: that boat, and I love ceiling around the streets. I
Speaker 2: wasn't very good at it, but I sure enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: But I was fortunate enough that at an early age
Speaker 2: I learned you don't own boats. You have friends that
Speaker 2: own boats, because owning a boat is it's a pain
Speaker 2: in the butt. And as some people describe it, a
Speaker 2: boat as a big hole in the water that you
Speaker 2: throw thousands of dollars down. Some people said boat stands
Speaker 2: for bring on another thousand. So anyway, I was fairly young.
Speaker 2: I was in my twenties when I said, you know what,
Speaker 2: I don't need to own a bout anymore. And I
Speaker 2: was sorry to see it go, But anyway, I came
Speaker 2: up with the idea. And you know, and I do
Speaker 2: know a couple of great sailboat captains, Kevin Lwan from
Speaker 2: the East Bluff and Bart Hathwaite, who's my neighbor down
Speaker 2: the street. They've been in many Macinaw races. That's what
Speaker 2: they're called, the Chicago to Mac Babu Mac. They call
Speaker 2: them the Max. Those guys have done plenty of them.
Speaker 2: In fact, I know Bart was on a crew that
Speaker 2: won one. One year. We started talking to those guys
Speaker 2: about putting this together. They were both a little skeptical,
Speaker 2: little hesitant at first, and unfortunately Kevin ran into some
Speaker 2: health issues and had to drop out. So Bart kind
Speaker 2: of became the de facto nominated and voted in captain
Speaker 2: without much of us say, and then he embraced the
Speaker 2: idea and he tuned up his boaty as a thirty
Speaker 2: four Catalina. It's beautiful, it's a lot of fun, and
Speaker 2: you know those aren't racing boats. Those are more cruising boats.
Speaker 2: But we rounded out the crew with Mike Gidley who
Speaker 2: has a condo down on the mission. And Mike is
Speaker 2: a world class sailor. He's been in many many of
Speaker 2: the Max and he sailed all over the world in fact,
Speaker 2: and he has a tremendous amount of experience. Mike Haggerty
Speaker 2: from the East Bluff one of my buddies. He's been
Speaker 2: in many races as well, and he jumped at the idea,
Speaker 2: and Bart decided, you know what, we got to have
Speaker 2: my son. He's eighteen, just graduated high school, starting at
Speaker 2: the University Michigan. Of course, you know, I'm a Michigan man,
Speaker 2: so I'm like, hey, more Michigan men, the better, and
Speaker 2: so Chaz Bart's son. He rounded out the crew. And
Speaker 2: then lastly it was going to be Dan Musser, who
Speaker 2: was recently retired from the sale of the Grand Hotel,
Speaker 2: and he'd signed up for the mission, so to speak,
Speaker 2: but earlier in the summer he found out he had
Speaker 2: some family obligations he had to attend to, and so
Speaker 2: we tapped Andrew Dowd, the owner of Dowd's Market, who
Speaker 2: actually sold me my twenty two Catalina. And Dowd said
Speaker 2: it took him half of the second to say yes,
Speaker 2: and he said, yeah, let's do it. So we head
Speaker 2: down to a port here on. Now. I got to
Speaker 2: tell you, I've never been in one of the big races.
Speaker 2: I've never been able to take three or four days
Speaker 2: off of life in July. And I got to tell you, luckily,
Speaker 2: my wife is my wife, and she afforded me this
Speaker 2: opportunity by stepping up and taking care of the family
Speaker 2: and kind of rolling her eyes a little bit as
Speaker 2: and she may have muttered Peter Pan syndrome under her
Speaker 2: breath once or twice, but anyway, she made this happen
Speaker 2: for me, and having never been in the race before,
Speaker 2: I was. I was kind of shocked when you get
Speaker 2: down to Port Huron because it's it's a total different vibe.
Speaker 2: It's called boat night down there. In fact, it's kind
Speaker 2: of turned into boat week, but they call it boat
Speaker 2: night and it's very chill, and they really embrace the race.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think they do a pile of
Speaker 2: tourism and port hereon it's not there, you know, Tourism
Speaker 2: isn't there number one thing like it is around here.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't believe it. They were people going up
Speaker 2: and down the docks giving out bags of ice. More
Speaker 2: on that later. They had courtesy golf carts that would,
Speaker 2: you know, give you a ride to whatever, you know,
Speaker 2: restaurant or bar you wanted to go to. And they
Speaker 2: really embraced having everyone in town. And and in fact,
Speaker 2: when you head down the river towards Lake Huron, they
Speaker 2: actually had a bagpiper playing tunes as you went by
Speaker 2: the port hereon yacht club and that was kind of neat.
Speaker 2: You know, we have plenty of bagpipers here to play
Speaker 2: on the island, but it was kind of neat, and
Speaker 2: so we headed out. We headed out to the starting
Speaker 2: line and all the boats were there, and since this
Speaker 2: was the one hundredth running, they had just a pile
Speaker 2: of boats north of four hundred. I think it was
Speaker 2: close to five hundred. I think, I'm not sure. And
Speaker 2: there was no wind, and I mean no wind. We're
Speaker 2: all just sitting there. Guys were jumping off various boats
Speaker 2: to take a dip cool off, and the race was
Speaker 2: delayed almost two hours because there was no wind. And
Speaker 2: finally they let us go and we got started, and
Speaker 2: we were making a whopping one point six knots, I believe.
Speaker 2: And I remember just looking back and seeing the bridge,
Speaker 2: the Blue Water Bridge, and I thought, geez, when when
Speaker 2: we finally can't see that we're getting somewhere. And we
Speaker 2: saw that bridge the rest of the day and well
Speaker 2: into the evening, and we just we weren't. We weren't
Speaker 2: making any way, but nobody else was, so it wasn't
Speaker 2: that that big of a deal. We decided to do
Speaker 2: four hour watches. You're on for four, you're off for four.
Speaker 2: And now I'm not gonna lie. We were a wet boat.
Speaker 2: There's dry boats and there's wet boats. We were a
Speaker 2: wet boat. I don't think I need to explain the difference.
Speaker 2: But it's not like we We were out there partying.
Speaker 2: You know, Andrew owns the grocery store, of course, so
Speaker 2: he provided three cases of beer, which sounds like a
Speaker 2: lot until you divide it six ways, and then that's
Speaker 2: only a twelve pack of beer, which still sounds like
Speaker 2: a lot until you soon realize you're going to be
Speaker 2: on the lake for sixty six hours. So we had
Speaker 2: it out when we're having a grand old time, and
Speaker 2: finally near evening, a little bit of wind came up
Speaker 2: and we started kind of racing this non such that's
Speaker 2: a sailboat that has the masses and the bow, and
Speaker 2: they don't really have a head sail. It's just one
Speaker 2: just a mass with one big mainsill, and we're going
Speaker 2: back and forth. We'd be ahead of him, then they'd
Speaker 2: be ahead of us, and it was a little bit
Speaker 2: of fun. Nighttime came I was on the I came
Speaker 2: on at midnight. I was on the midnight watch, which
Speaker 2: was kind of ironic because we were listening to Crosby
Speaker 2: Steels and Nash and the sound system. We weren't one
Speaker 2: of those boats, folks. People weren't yelling and the captain wasn't,
Speaker 2: you know, giving these orders do this and do that. Granted,
Speaker 2: we probably weren't the most capable. I know, I'm not
Speaker 2: one of the most capable sailors on a boat that
Speaker 2: big and a race like that, but uh, you know,
Speaker 2: Bart is as fine as captain as you'll find, and
Speaker 2: he knew he didn't need to yell at us and
Speaker 2: didn't need to be that way, and so we decided
Speaker 2: we're going to enjoy ourselves a little bit. And uh,
Speaker 2: you know, going up lake here on with the moon
Speaker 2: it was almost a full moon, or maybe it was
Speaker 2: a full moon. We had Gordon Lightfoot playing on the
Speaker 2: on the sound system and it was it was it
Speaker 2: was almost surreal coming up the lake and listening to
Speaker 2: Gordon Lightfoot sing about sailing songs. It was. It was
Speaker 2: a fine moment, no question. And uh, in the morning
Speaker 2: we picked up some wind and what I didn't know,
Speaker 2: Bart warned us, thankfully because he'd been on this race
Speaker 2: he said, listen, around four am, it's going to be
Speaker 2: cold out in the middle of Lake Huron. And I
Speaker 2: kind of blew it off because I live in the
Speaker 2: middle of Lake Huron and in the middle of July.
Speaker 2: I don't remember it being cold. I mean, we've had
Speaker 2: cold days and cold nights here and there. But Bart said,
Speaker 2: trust me, it's going to be cold cold, You're going
Speaker 2: to need a winter hat. Pardon me, folks for getting
Speaker 2: a run. Sorry about that. Everybody had just had a
Speaker 2: fire run, had to take off for That's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons this podcast has been delinquent is we've just
Speaker 2: just been so busy. Fire runs are off the charts
Speaker 2: this year. EMS is off the charts as well. Everybody's
Speaker 2: just been busy, So I apologize for that. So anyway,
Speaker 2: you know, Bart was so right that it gets incredibly
Speaker 2: cold around four am out in the middle of Lake Huron,
Speaker 2: despite it being the middle of July. And had Andrew
Speaker 2: Dowd not brought those winter hats, I'd have been shivering.
Speaker 2: We had all of our gear on, and I do
Speaker 2: want to mention and we were sponsored. The boat had sponsorships,
Speaker 2: which was great. We all matching gear and Arnold Freight Mission,
Speaker 2: Point Resort, Cannonball Oasis and Dowd's Market were our sponsors,
Speaker 2: and it was great to have a sponsorship and actually
Speaker 2: all look alike, and at least we gave the appearance
Speaker 2: of sailors at some point. But so Sunday morning, you know,
Speaker 2: there was some good win and we were making our
Speaker 2: way up the lake. We kept going back and forth
Speaker 2: with that non such and as the day went on,
Speaker 2: the wind really died, and then it died died, and
Speaker 2: then it died died, and pretty soon we were doing nothing.
Speaker 2: Sailing is a game of chance. And the guys said,
Speaker 2: some of the guys said, who are on watch, Let's
Speaker 2: go to the east and look for some wind, because
Speaker 2: the forecast looks like the doldrums all the way up
Speaker 2: the lake. And so they did. I went off watch
Speaker 2: it at I think midnight that night. I went off
Speaker 2: at four am. When I came back up topside, we'd
Speaker 2: gone looking for wind. It was a gamble, a gamble
Speaker 2: didn't pay. And there we sat and now we're in
Speaker 2: the doldrums. And I've been in doldrums before, you know,
Speaker 2: out here fishing, but I've never seen anything like this
Speaker 2: in my life. We sat and we sat. At one
Speaker 2: point the boat was facing the wrong direction. We couldn't.
Speaker 2: You can't steer if there's no propulsion whatsoever. One of
Speaker 2: the crewmen, Chaz, he got off to he jumped into
Speaker 2: cool off. Not a lot of shade on a sailboat, folks,
Speaker 2: And he jumped off and he started pushing the boat
Speaker 2: and he actually pushed us enough to make it register.
Speaker 2: It showed us a point zero zero one knot. We
Speaker 2: all kind of laughed. So there we sat, and around
Speaker 2: this time we each finished off our twelfth beer, which
Speaker 2: left us out of beer, and we checked on our stores.
Speaker 2: We're looking okay, but it might be a lengthy race,
Speaker 2: but we're looking like we have enough food and water.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Our water system ended up breaking down, but it was
Speaker 2: really not a big deal. The little lake here on
Speaker 2: If you can't take a drink out of the one
Speaker 2: of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, I don't
Speaker 2: know what to tell you. But so the doldrums were hitting.
Speaker 2: They're hitting pretty heavy, and it went, you know, through
Speaker 2: the morning, and finally a lot of boats were dropping out.
Speaker 2: A few boats that we were ahead of actually dropped out.
Speaker 2: So all of a sudden we're in last place, and
Speaker 2: our goal along was not to be the pickle boat.
Speaker 2: The pickle boat's a boat that finishes last. Well, here
Speaker 2: we are. We're in last place and we're not moving.
Speaker 2: And so around you know, eight or nine am, we
Speaker 2: said maybe we should we should drop out as well
Speaker 2: and head north. And well, let's take a vote at
Speaker 2: ten and then ten o'clock rolled around, ten am rolled around,
Speaker 2: let's take a vote. Well, we still weren't moving, and
Speaker 2: nobody wanted to take a vote at ten either. Well,
Speaker 2: let's take a vote at eleven am. So eleven am
Speaker 2: rolls around and okay, we'll take the vote at eleven
Speaker 2: And it sounded like it was just a ormality. We
Speaker 2: were in content to drop out and head north. We
Speaker 2: did the math. If we start the engines, we should
Speaker 2: be able to have dinner on the island that night
Speaker 2: around eight thirty nine o'clock that night. That'd be okay.
Speaker 2: We're out of beer, barts, out of cigarettes, we're out
Speaker 2: of ice, and the water is broke down. We have
Speaker 2: a little bit more food, so we'll be all right.
Speaker 2: So let's shut her down and let's head north. We'll
Speaker 2: do the actual vote at noon, though let's vote at noon,
Speaker 2: and that'll be it. We'll do the vote at noon.
Speaker 2: Everybody agreed, okay. Between eleven and noon, we didn't move
Speaker 2: an inch. In fact, I took a can, an empty
Speaker 2: beer can, and I said, you guys, I'm not a litter.
Speaker 2: I just want to see something. I set the can
Speaker 2: in the water and I said, let's see if we
Speaker 2: get any separation due to current at least. And forty
Speaker 2: minutes later that beer can was right next to us.
Speaker 2: And if you've ever done any boating and seen a
Speaker 2: can in the water, you know exactly just how dead
Speaker 2: in the water we were. So noon rolls around and
Speaker 2: we're going to take the vote, and it's a foregone conclusion.
Speaker 2: We're heading home, and I said, okay, I'll take the
Speaker 2: roll call. And I called on Mike Haggerty to vote first,
Speaker 2: and I figured he was going to say, you know, yes,
Speaker 2: let's quit, and then everybody else was going to say yes.
Speaker 2: And we head north and I said okay, Haggerty and
Speaker 2: he said no, and there was a pause and everybody
Speaker 2: looked at each other and I said, well that's that,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to finish taking the role. Let's finish this.
Speaker 2: So without even really voting. Haggarty he put an end
Speaker 2: to this talk of dropping out, and in a retrospect,
Speaker 2: I'm so glad he did. And I do have to mention,
Speaker 2: are our whole trip at this point we've been communicating
Speaker 2: by quoting movies, our favorite movies. Now you have six
Speaker 2: guys in the vote, so it's a lot of Caddyshack,
Speaker 2: a lot of Animal House, you know that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: So of course Haggarty followed up his no vote with
Speaker 2: was it over when the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor, which
Speaker 2: of course is a line right an animal House? So
Speaker 2: here we sit, we're going to finish it out. We
Speaker 2: finally saw a little ripple on the water and we
Speaker 2: started catching some wind. And you know, this is late Monday.
Speaker 2: This is probably by the time we actually start sailing again.
Speaker 2: We were able to run the shoot, you know, the spinnaker.
Speaker 2: It's probably two o'clock in the afternoon. We are in
Speaker 2: dead Last and we're finally heading up the lake and
Speaker 2: we're passing LPN at this point and heading towards Roger City.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't believe the amount of people that were
Speaker 2: following us on the race. Apps at home, I was
Speaker 2: getting text messages from a ton of people on the island.
Speaker 2: We were in and out of cell phone range, so
Speaker 2: when we were in you could hear everybody's phone chirping,
Speaker 2: you know, you could tell that we'd caught a tower.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't believe the amount of people that were
Speaker 2: following us. And you know, I knew my dad was,
Speaker 2: but I didn't think many others were, you know, paying
Speaker 2: much attention to us. So we're starting to make a
Speaker 2: foot a little bit, and we get up to the
Speaker 2: lake and gosh, we're making about six knots, which at
Speaker 2: the time felt like about seventy miles an hour after
Speaker 2: what we just did, and we're into the South Channel.
Speaker 2: The South Channels is between Boise Blank, Bablo and the
Speaker 2: Lower Peninsula, and I remember it was by the time
Speaker 2: we passed them mouth of the Sheboygan River, it was
Speaker 2: almost midnight, and we're back down to the doldrums again,
Speaker 2: and I look in the charts and we have at
Speaker 2: one point four point eight miles to finish, and that
Speaker 2: was at one am. We would cross the finish line
Speaker 2: at seven point thirty in the morning. It took us
Speaker 2: six and a half hours to go another four point
Speaker 2: eight miles or four point five miles. It was on
Speaker 2: Godly and the only respite we had really was right
Speaker 2: near the finish line. A little east wind came up
Speaker 2: and we're able to sail across with their sales full.
Speaker 2: And just before we did, you know, Bart took a
Speaker 2: moment and he'd brought the remnants of his father's ashes
Speaker 2: with him. And his dad, Bart Senior was a sailing
Speaker 2: enthusiast like no other, and he really really promoted the sport,
Speaker 2: particularly here in the Straits of Macinon. Everybody knew Barty
Speaker 2: was a larger than life character. And just as we
Speaker 2: approached the finish line, Bart scattered the remains of his
Speaker 2: ashes in the straits and it was a nice moment.
Speaker 2: I was proud to be there and proud to be
Speaker 2: part of it. So we came into the dock. We
Speaker 2: figured we'd come into the dock be nobody around, hopefully
Speaker 2: we could catch breakfast. And to our surprise, we couldn't
Speaker 2: believe there was twenty people on the dock that got
Speaker 2: out of bed early to come down and watch these
Speaker 2: hobos finish this race. And it was a great feeling.
Speaker 2: And then, as it turns out, we were the pickle boat.
Speaker 2: And then we went to the party. There's, you know,
Speaker 2: a big party at mission point that day to celebrate
Speaker 2: the end of the race. And we got on stage
Speaker 2: to take our trophy, our banner, I should say, and
Speaker 2: you and O party is like, ah, geez, I don't
Speaker 2: want to go show up for this. But it was
Speaker 2: almost serendipitous that we ended up the pickle boat. And
Speaker 2: I'm glad we finished, and I'm glad we got a
Speaker 2: lot of people cheered us on, and you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of folks said, and I think they're right. Nobody
Speaker 2: will remember who finished two hundred and sixty seventh. Everybody
Speaker 2: will remember who finished dead last. So there we have it.
Speaker 2: We finished dead last with a pickle boat. And I
Speaker 2: can't see enough about the guys and bart our captain
Speaker 2: who kept us on track, and Mike for voting no,
Speaker 2: and Mike Gidley for really being probably the most serious
Speaker 2: sailor out there for sixty six hours. Sixty six hours
Speaker 2: is a long time to spend with six people on
Speaker 2: a boat that size, folks, And you know, people said,
Speaker 2: what did you talk about? And I said, well, we
Speaker 2: just tried to remain friends. There was not much left
Speaker 2: to say. I'll say this, though we did eat good.
Speaker 2: You know, Andrew sent a prime rib down and he
Speaker 2: had the chef from the Island house cook it. We
Speaker 2: bagged it up into portions and we had prime rib
Speaker 2: sandwiches at dinner. You mostly just snacked on Eminem's and
Speaker 2: nuts for breakfast and lunch, and maybe a granola bar.
Speaker 2: But dinner we'd have a sit down dinners, I called
Speaker 2: it where Andrew would pass out prime rib sandwiches. And
Speaker 2: he did bring a bottle of Camis cabernets. It's a
Speaker 2: wine local favorite. And after we drank that, I took
Speaker 2: the bottle and I skinned all the labels off and
Speaker 2: I went down in the cockpit and I got a
Speaker 2: piece of paper and a pen, and I wrote down
Speaker 2: what we were doing, who was all on board, what
Speaker 2: year it was, the date, how fast we're going. And
Speaker 2: I put that note in that bottle of Camas and
Speaker 2: I corked it and I threw it overboard. And hopefully
Speaker 2: someday someone will find that. Bart did make a funny
Speaker 2: when we were doing point zero one knots. At one
Speaker 2: point he said, I think that bottle is going to
Speaker 2: pass us. But fortunately we didn't see it again. So
Speaker 2: that's been my summer. It's been a great, great summer.
Speaker 2: You know, I turned fifty this year, and nobody likes
Speaker 2: to get older. I've never had a problem with it.
Speaker 2: I have too many friends that never got the privilege
Speaker 2: to get older. And what a great year at fifty
Speaker 2: thus far. We got to sail in the race of races,
Speaker 2: and we got to be locally famous for i'ming in
Speaker 2: dead lass and wouldn't have any any other way. So, folks,
Speaker 2: we're back. We're going to try to keep this thing
Speaker 2: going a little bit more regularly than three months, So
Speaker 2: hopefully we'll be back with another one in about a
Speaker 2: week or ten days, and we'll do some interviews as well.
Speaker 2: Just want to get you folks caught up. This is
Speaker 2: the Mackinaw Island Moments podcast