Too Many Rudders

June 21

We anchored near Middle Island by Marquette, MI.  The islands through here are very rocky and some beautiful houses appear to be built right on the rock.

Today looked like an easy day but became challenging right from the start.  Left our anchorage near Middle Island with all its rugged beauty to get gas in Presque Isle Bay.

Had a little difficulty docking the boat as the wind was pushing us into the dock but successfully tied off the boat only to find the Marina was closed.  Sooo, pushed off and went next door to Marquette Bay (just a couple miles down the coast).  There we successfully gassed up and set sail for Grand Island near Munising, MI.  NOAA weather forecast was for building 1-3 foot waves and west winds clocking to the northwest.  We started out with a great sail with both mainsail and headsail up.  About halfway to our destination we noticed the waves were building to 2-4 footers and kept building to 4-6 footers with an occasional 8 footer.  When the seas became heavy we noticed the helm wasn’t responding well.  Thought maybe we had too much sail up so took down the headsail and wished we had reefed down the main.  It didn’t help as much as hoped for as matters got worse.  Bruce determined it was the rudder from our Hydrovane self steering unit (which wasn’t in use at the moment) that was fighting the boat’s rudder and hand steering it would give us some relief from the resistance at the helm.  Made it close to Grand Island with following seas and successfully navigated between two islands close together with shoals to starboard and rocks to our port. Successfully `threaded the needle' and continued uneventfully to an anchorage in Murray Bay of Grand Island.