As the morning faded into noon we continued our progress eastward. Shortly after noon on Sunday the wind died just as the Mackinaw bridge appeared on the horizon. We got out the Jimmy Buffet and had a beer, hoping to ignite the wind once again. After several hours and no reaction on the part of the wind, we decided to motor the last 10 miles, arriving at Mackinaw Island around 1800 on Sunday. Our trip there had been 34 hours.
Mackinaw Island is a strange mixture of history and tourism.
A vacation retreat since the 1900s, the island preserves its historic flavor with Victorian architecture and Victorian transportation. Bicycles and horses are the only transportation around the island. Horse drawn carriages take tourists from the ferry to their beautiful historic hotels. The architecture seems a bit out of context as nearly every building on the main street is either a tee shirt shop, fudge shop, or souvenir store. The transportation to and from the island is a large fleet of fast ferries that compete with one another on the basis of speed.