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We're on top of the world!
At the top of Presque Isle's new lighthouse |
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a time with unpredictable weather, wind and waves, it was a time with biting flies, it was a time when storms could appear without warning - in short, I guess the summer was just like any other summer when sailing on a Great Lake. We decided to have a short sail since the two prior days Lake Huron kicked our butts and tested our sailing skills the whole day during both sails. We were thankful for the short trip (only 4 hours) since our nerves were starting to get shot and tempers short from the constant lake beating.
When coming into the harbor, we experienced yet another first, using range markers as navigation devices. They are different than bouys since they are markers on land, where one is placed higher and farther back than the other. As explained by the US Coast guard, "Range Markers are found in pairs with one higher than the other. Range markers indicate the center line of a channel by having them lined up as you pass through the channel. They will have vertical colored panels to assist you in lining them up." In this circumstance these particular range markers helped navigate us through shallow waters of the bay into Presque Isle harbor.
After docking once again with some crazy gusts we decided to take a break from the boat for a couple of hours and take a nice hike to the town's old and then new lighthouse. The old lighthouse was at the end of the bay the marina was in, so about a quick seven minute walk. What started as a beautiful shady, tree lined path turned into a blood bath, of our blood, because we walked into a swarm of mosquitos and biting flies! Ugh! It's bad enough dealing with them while sailing but on land, land was supposed to be our safe zone. Seriously we were swarmed by them. Not exaggerating, we each had at least 10 of them on us at a time with more swarming around. I'm sure we looked like Pigpen from Peanuts instead of dust following us around it was biting flies and mosquitos. How can something SO small hurt SO bad?!? I luckily found one last deep woods off wipe in my camera bag that we quickly lathered all over ourselves. Once we arrived to the museum we hurried off inside where we thought we would get a little relief. Not so much. We were creating some weird ritual dance, trying to keep the ones that followed us in from biting us, as the lighthouse museum employee was telling us all about the history of the lighthouse keeper, the lighthouse itself and trying to sell us a discounted tickets if we want to climb to the top of both lighthouses. It was very interesting but it was so hard to concentrate because of the flies!!! The only place we found relief was at the top of the lighthouse. It was really neat since you could go out on the catwalk and take in the beautiful sights of Presque Isle and enjoy the breeze.
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| The lens at the old lighthouse |
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| Contemplating life |
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| Beautiful! |
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| The old lighthouse |
When we came down we weren't attacked right away by biting bugs, thinking that they had hopefully attached themselves to one of the visitors who had the luxury of driving up in their air conditioned car. Soon after we started walking down the driveway to the main road, we were once again surrounded. When we got to the openness of the main road, we lost most of them so decided to head the one mile walk to the new lighthouse in the blistering sun, hopefully the sun was what was keeping them at bay. Nope! About half way the battle began once again and we realized at we were being used as a transport service for the local flies. I counted over 15 on Brady's shirt and shorts just hanging out and he would not tell me how many stowaways I had. Taking pictures was not a priority and I tried to snap a couple while power walking/lightly jogging to the entrance of the new lighthouse museum.
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| the new lighthouse |
Dripping with sweat from the sun and trying to keep flies off of our exposed skin, shorts and shirts were not proper attire in this environment, we slammed the doors behind us trying to keep our friends out and entering a room filed with glorious AC!!! In another room we kept hearing the familiar whacking sound of a fly swatter busy at work. After wandering around the new lighthouse museum, checking out our war wounds and stopping in front of the air conditioner to try to cool ourselves down we started the 130 step climb to the top of the new lighthouse that is still in use.
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| Lens of the new lighthouse |
Climbing up these lighthouses are a bit unnerving since they have a very narrow and spiral staircase going straight up to the top so you do have to stop every now and again so you don't become too dizzy. I too had to stop because my nerves started to get to me, not sure it was the height or what but, I was never before nervous let alone afraid of heights. I'm thinking the old age is starting to creep up on me or maybe it was just exhaustion from the heat and the bug fight. Once again we were able to go out on the catwalk of the lighthouse. The views at the top were breathtaking! Not to mention it had a great breeze and no flies! After taking tons of pictures and enjoying the view, we locked up the catwalk behind us and made the trek down to the lobby.
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| What a view! |
We had to mentally prepare ourselves for the mile and a half journey back to the marina and tried to start our passage back like cool and collected people. Unfortunately that didn't last too long. Our frantic waves of our arms and legs started seconds after stepping outside of the new lighthouse. I began hoping out loud that a kind stranger would drive past us and offer us a ride in their air conditioned car but no such luck. Fortunately the walk home was not as bad as the walk there. Maybe our enemies found new targets or maybe they felt some compassion towards us or maybe we just too the fun out of the game since they could tell we were too exhausted to fire back, whichever it was, we thankfully had an enjoyable walk back to the harbor. After chatting with some locals we learned that they get worse after rains and in certain wind. Since there were quite a few storms that blew through the day before along with the wind direction being from the forest it was making for peak biter level. For years sailing in Chicago and southwest Michigan, we thought we were safe from flies on land but it turns out, no, depending on where you are and weather conditions, you may not get any rest from our nemesis the biting fly.
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