The last time we were in the Islands we had a bit of an adventure. For whatever reason we decided to take a 12' Zodiac with a 15 HP Mercury over to Mackinaw City from Cedarville. Yup, right across the Straits of Mackinac. Insane or not, this is a memory that has sort of shaped our future. I guess the islands and the general area have always been sort of a special place for us.
To celebrate our 10th anniversary we made sort of spur of the moment plans to go up to the islands. I found a nice little cabin that had reasonable nightly rates. There are many small resorts that offer cabins, camping and boat docks in the Cedarville and Hessel areas.
We headed up on a Thursday afternoon and planned to be on the water all day Friday and Saturday.
Day 1:
We had been watching the weather very closely leading up to Thursday when we left from home. As is so typical of Michigan in June the forecast was very inconsistent and not really looking too great. Knowing it was iffy I had sort of made plans to take a drive and check out a few of the other locations in the area. We used the wonderful radar that is available from wunderground.com for the iPhone to watch the various batches of rain that were passing through the area. We drove over to Detour Village in the morning just to do some sight seeing. I checking out a couple of the boat ramps in the area for future reference. There is a very nice state harbor in Detour Village and also a very nice boat ramp.
After lunch back at the cabin we saw what looked to be a few hour window that looked like it was going to be dry. We hitched up the boat and headed over to the Hessel marina. There is a very nice boat ramp right in Hessel that is operated by Clark Township. There is a $5 ramp fee and only limited parking right on site. The ramp has 2 lanes separated by a dock. The ramp is relatively steep, however, it has good grippy concrete.
To navigate in the waters surrounding the Les Cheneaux Islands takes some care. There are many places where the water is very shallow. Some of the areas are out in the middle of relatively open water. Most of the problem areas are marked and the main channels are marked appropriately with navigational buoys. There are huge boulders that peak through the surface of the water in many locations. I would highly recommend that you have a chart plotter with the appropriate charts loaded before you head out on these waters. Water levels have been lower over the last several years than has been normal in the past. Up to date charts can be a prop/lower unit/life saver.
We were on the water by 3:20 pm. We headed out of Hessel bay towards the south to see how the conditions out on the open water looked. With the breeze and slight mist in the air the lake was not too inviting. We snapped a few pictures and then headed towards Cedarville through the islands. We made it half way through the Les Cheneaux Channel and it started to rain.
Many of the islands have large homes on them. Only one of the islands (Government Island) is publicly owned. In general there are not many areas where you can go ashore without potentially trespassing on private property. There are hundreds of boathouses and elaborate docks in the area.
We quickly snapped some pictures of Dollar Island and then started heading back towards Hessel. On account of the rain we had to take is slow all the way back. The boat got drenched and it made me wish I had pulled the carpet out like I had thought of doing before we left.
Here is the track of what we were able to do on day 1. This track was created using the Navionics app for the iPhone. This little app is pretty amazing. I used it as my sole chartplotter/navigation device. After a few checks for consistency to reality and testing I have found it is much more useful than some of the lower end chartplotters on the market. I can't say that this is the best and only device you should have though. One big concern is that the iPhone is anything but waterproof. I have an Otterbox Defender case which will keep a few stray drops of water from getting on the phone, however, it won't do much to protect it in a heavy downpour. You'll note the track was stopped well before we were back to Hessel. I decided to put the phone away to keep it protected.
We pulled the boat out in the rain and I did what I could to keep it dry the rest of the night...I couldn't do much as the boat was already pretty well soaked. The bimini top kept us and our stuff mostly dry which was good. I am seriously considering a full enclosure now though.
We had considered leaving the boat in the water. The cabins where we were staying had pretty nice docks right along one of the main channels. If not for the weather it would have been handy to have the boat already in the water for day 2.
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