I'm On a Boat! The Mackinaw Island Ferry

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This past summer when we made the trip up to the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan between the upper and lower peninsula, @mrsbozz and I kicked around the idea of visiting Mackinaw Island. Since we were so close at Straits State Park, it almost seemed like a given that we had to go. I'll cover more about the island itself tomorrow, but first, we needed to get over to the island.

Thankfully, there are plenty of options between the cities of St. Ignace and Mackinaw city to get you over to Mackinaw Island. Since we were just across the bridge in St. Ignace, it made the most sense for us to leave from there.

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We made the short drive through the downtown St. Ignace area that snakes along the shore of Lake Huron. It's actually a pretty cool area that is very walkable and it has a ton of great restaurant and gift shops that you can visit. They even have a small sled dog outfitting shop sitting among the other more touristy places.

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As I said, there were plenty of options for us to get over to the island, but I made the executive decision to take the Shepler's Ferry Company over to Mackinaw Island. If I'm being honest, I think I heard a while ago that many of the smaller companies got bought up and really there are just one or two main organizations that own all of the ferries now. I could be wrong though.

Apparently, I didn't get single photo of the ferry that we rode over to the island on. I must have been too busy making sure I wasn't holding up the line.

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The ferry ride over to the island takes about 16 to 26 minutes depending on what company you use and which ferry they put you on. There are also some ferry tours that take you underneath the Mackinac Bridge as you saw in the opening photo. Those take a little longer because they have to go out of their way before going to the island.

The cost for three adults to ride the ferry was $30 a piece and then our nephew and his friend were something like $15 to $24 a piece. That means for about $140 the three of us got round trip transportation over to the island.

The ferries run pretty much every half hour, so you don't have a set departure time. You just wait in line and it's first come first serve to get on the ferry. Shepler's runs their ferry service from 7:30 AM to 10 PM depending on the day of the week and the time of year.

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While some of the ferries use traditional diesel powered engines, there are some companies that offer hydro-jet service. If you look really closely in the photos above, you can see one of them. It's from the Star Line Ferry company and I think they can get you to the island on the shorter side of that 16 to 26 minute window no matter what city they leave from.

I noticed online that Shepler's has taken over all operations from Starline through the remainder of this season as they work to upgrade their fleet.

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I actually didn't realize we were on one of the ferries that takes you under the Mackinac Bridge until the boat started going right instead of left out of the harbor. It turned out to be a really great experience for the kids.

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Although I have been to the island several times in my life, this is the first time I can ever remember traveling under the bridge on the ferry. The captain of the boat had some really interesting facts to share with us. The one that stuck in my head the most was this:

The winds in the straits of Mackinaw can sometimes reach speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. When they built the Mackinac Bridge, they constructed it so it could withstand speeds of up to 600 miles per hour! Talk about going above and beyond!

Usually when the winds get too bad they either shut down the bridge or you have to be escorted across by a slower moving emergency vehicle. I've seen videos of people flipping trailers on the bridge because the winds were so strong. It's not something I ever want to experience!


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It didn't take long and the boat was turned around, we were back under the bridge and making a beeline for the the island. As you can see from the photos, the weather was really pleasant on the day that we decided to go over, so we got super lucky.

It wasn't too hot and the water was relatively calm.

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Before long we were skirting the island and getting ready to pull into the harbor. That big white building you see in the photos above along the shore is the famous Grand Hotel. I will talk a bit more about that in my post tomorrow.

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Despite the touristy nature of the island, there is still something kind of quaint and magical about it. Again, i'll touch more on that tomorrow in my post. In the last photo above, you see another large white building on the hill. That's actually a fort that has been on that location since the war of 1812 or longer.

Just to the left of the fort you might see a small (it's only looks small from this distance) house on the hill with three dormers. You have to squint pretty hard to see the dormers. Just trust me. That's the summer home for the governor of the State of Michigan. Call it a fringe benefit of being elected to the highest office in the state...

We pulled into port around 10:30 AM and still had a day of adventure ahead of us. Check back tomorrow and next week for more about that...


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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced



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37 comments
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Looks like a great ride!
!BEER

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It was really the perfect day for it. It was one of the more mild days we had this summer.

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The ferry drama this year has been all over the news. It’s been a few years since we have been to the island but we have always had a good time when we do go.

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It's honestly not my favorite place and I will explain why tomorrow. I hadn't seen anything about the Ferry stuff until we were up there, but I think I live too far south for it to be "big" news.

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(Edited)

Mackinac island is beautiful….. I also like Manitoulin and Nantucket

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It has a charm. Probably not my favorite island in Michigan though. I like Beaver Island better.

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(Edited)

My Chippewa ancestors are from Mackinac … married a French Trapper from Manitoulin / Killarney … their old stone house is still there.

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No kidding! That is pretty cool! We have a large Chippewa tribe near where I live in the lower part of Michigan.

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The place looks very beautiful and the trip looks very exciting for sure it is very impressive.

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The ride is quite beautiful. The island itself is rather charming too if you happen to come back and read my future posts.

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of course I will read and look at those beautiful pictures. I was entertained by seeing the pictures you shared.

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Thank you for sharing your experience on the ferry. It's always thrilling to see underneath a bridge. It looks like you had great weather! That is quite a ride too for your nephew!
The last ferry ride I took was when I was 24 years old... but that will soon be changed (if doctors say okay to a short vacation 11 days from now)!
!BBH
!LUV
!PIZZA

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Best of luck to you on that, I hope you get the sign off. I've been on quite a few ferries over the years. The longest was a two hour ride out to another island. A bit more boring than this one, but you can drink, so there's that...

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That's a nice little trip there. It looks beautiful but that bridge would make me nervous. High winds and over you go! Going under the bridge makes it look impressive, that really does look like a fun day trip!

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The Mackinac Bridge is really amazing. Back before they built it you would have to wait hours to get your car ferried across on the weekends. I've been over it dozens of times and it still inspires awe.

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It is wonderful to see that you take your kids out on the water, especially as a sailor myself, it really is special!

Seems like you had a lot of people on board, but still hopefully you guys had an amazing experience on the ferry.

Best wishes to and your family.

From Alaska🤗

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Thanks! Yeah, it was a good time. The ferry probably holds about 80 to 120 people if I had to guess. Maybe a bit less. They run them often enough that it isn't too bad.

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Looks like a great ride. One of these days I need to visit Mackinaw Island. It's on my bucket list!

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I think you would enjoy it. If you decide to do it, plan for a couple days. Then you can really experience it and get everything done so you never have to go back again! Unless you want to of course!

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I really like the waters up there. Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are so pure. I drove clear to Marquette in 2021 but last summer I drove clear to Tobermory on the Canadian side.

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Marquette is one of my favorite towns in the UP. It's not too big, but still big enough that it has some great breweries and nightlife that you would hope for in a college town. There is a little private campground outside of town that we usually stay at when we go there. Did you climb up Sugarloaf when you were there?

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I think I could survive WW3 up in the UP. I didn't climb up Sugarloaf. I did a long hike at Picture Rocks and ended up at a nice secluded beach and swam in Lake Superior. I swam in Lake Superior in a couple different spots.

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My buddy has some property up near the falls just south west of Paradise. If things ever went to crap I would be hooking up my travel trailer and hauling it up there.

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Sugarloaf is well worth the hike!

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Oh wow! That is an amazing view!

Yeah I figure that if things fell apart getting to the lakes could open the door to go WAY up North even into Canada if both governments completely collapsed.

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Yeah, the only problem is a lot of other people would probably be thinking the same thing. I have a feeling a lot of my friends "friends" would be thinking they could retreat to there. He's a bit of a homesteader, so I know he would help us survive!

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