June 12-13, St Ignace, MI

Lighthouse at Grey's Reef. This marks a major passage for the Great Lake freighters. KOKOMO II uses the same passage on our trip from Beaver Island to St Ignace.

We moved 35 miles east, under the Mackinaw Bridge to St Ignace. Another pretty day on the water. We arrived about 2pm.

Approaching the Mackinac Bridge.

The 'Mighty Mac'.

Pretty sights for the tourists.

St Ignace is one of two places to take the ferry to Mackinac Island. Tourists cannot take cars to Mackinac so this is basically a parking lot with some stores and restaurants and a very nice museum about the American Indian and their interaction with the early settlers.

This museum is much nicer than it looks. Called the 'Fort de Baude Museum', it was created by Dr. Donald Benson (a dentist) from his lifetime collection of Indian and other early artifacts from this area. Contains over 6700 square feet of exhibits and over 3500 items and it is free. Very, very interesting and well worth a visit. Also contains a gift store selling indian crafts.

Downtown flea market.

There is a nice boardwalk here from our marina to the downtown along the waterfront and we walk the whole thing and then back along the stores in town. There is a small farmers market held in the parking lot of the marina on Saturdays in the summer and a big garage sale for the whole town held on the sidewalk in front of the downtown stores. Looks like the B&A flea market if it were held in downtown Stuart.

Amphicar.

Twin props under. She is ready to go for a 'swim'.

Spotted this 'Amphicar' parked in front of the marina. Looks to be in good shape. This car is from the 1960's (3878 cars were built 1961-1968 in Germany). Designed to drive on the roads and goes right into the water (on a boat ramp) and can motor around in the water with twin propellers. Neat!

New U.S. Customs and Border Protection boat with three 275 HP Mercury motors. Estimated speed over 60 mph. The boat looks unused and we have not seen any personnel.

Lighthouse at the entrance to ST Ignace Harbor.