Labor Day weekend kicked off a ten day sailing trip for Honey Bunny and me this past fall. We had very loose plans with the idea of visiting all the cities along the shores of Lake Pepin. We made five ports in all, starting with Red Wing, Mn. Having sailed all around the lake all summer we thought it would be nice to have some destinations for a change. See if we can’t get the hang of this cruising thing if you will. We had a great time.
In the video you can see us sailing a bit and then motoring up the river channel on our way to Red Wing. The water level was as low as it had been all summer, so the current was not too bad at all and our little Volvo MB10a had no problem pushing us upstream. Once you get to the head of the lake the rest is all motoring up the river channel. We were very careful to remain in the channel as the depths change quickly if you cut in between the markers too much. The draft of our Islander 28, Aurion, is 5 feet. The main channel is, at times, only 10 feet. We took our time averaging only 3.5kts. One nice thing is we were able to determine that our engine uses less than 1/2 gallon of gasoline per hour. The Volvo MB10a is a two cylinder gas engine rated at 15hp. The trip took us about four hours or so.
I had thought we were planning on heading back to the lake in the afternoon, I must have missed the memo from Honey Bunny as I soon found out. So while we talked about where we would spend the night aboard our Islander 28, the owner of the boat below returned to his craft. After a brief conversation, we knew where to go. Just upstream from the city public wall where we had been tied off and around the bend was a very small area where we could drop anchor for the night. Thanks to his advice we had a sweet little nook to spend some time on the river in Red Wing. The anchorage was a little closer to the shipping channel than I prefer, but all turned out well. Truthfully, if we were in any danger of being run over, the barge would have been on its way up on to the shoreline.
The skipper told us he has been living on this boat since 1984, how cool is that?
This photo shows how close the barge traffic was to us at our anchorage.
So with some time on our hands we spent a little time walking around town for the afternoon. If you’ve never been to Red Wing, it is an old and historical town with a growing population of artists we were told. Here are some of the sights we saw. We dined at the St James Hotel on The Veranda which served one of the best cuban sandwiches I’ve had, yum! The weather couldn’t have been better and we had a great time!
Check out this video about Red Wing, Mn.
Old train station, now a visitor center and art gallery.
Not a self portrait.
Here is where we anchored for the night with Beluga anchored just upstream of us.
This is the best time of the day, sharing a cup of coffee with my wife, “The Admiral”, as she informally allows me to address her while we are on board. Thanks for the memories Honey Bunny.
This nice person from Red Wing Marina saw us motoring by and came out to ask if we needed anything, so nice of her to ask. Their tag line on their website is “The friendliest marina on the river”, how true.
Red Wing Marina, give them a call if you are in the area.
This trip was definitely the highlight of our sailing summer. The November/December 2011 issue of Good Old Boat has an article entitled A Cruise Feeds the Soul by Kevin Walters which does a nice job of capturing how we felt during and after our short cruise. I’m not sure but I think Kevin is busy living our dream, guess that means that there is hope for us too! Check out Kevin’s blog at http://www.sailislandbound.blogspot.com/.
I’ll be busy working on more posts about this trip to various ports of call on the shores of Lake Pepin aboard our Islander 28, Aurion. Till then happy sailing.
By the way Honey Bunny was in charge of the camera on this portion of the trip, so all photo credits go to her. Great job, don’t you think?
Trackbacks/Pingbacks