To Outer Island and Ontonagon

Jessica, Patrick, and I sailed from Corny at 11 AM on 7-12-2010. Our destination was Outer Island in the Apostles. Our overall plan is to stage at Outer Island for an early morning crossing to Houghton-Hancock, MI. The auto pilot is a little sketchy so Patrick is working on it. We “shot the moon” at Sand Island and saw 7’ below our waterline 4 times. We anchored on the south west side of Outer and had supper. After supper we took the dingy in to shore to explore. We found the old railroad path that they used in the old days to bring logs to the beach. We also found fresh bear scat and so decided we had explored enough and went back to Summer Snow.
The next day (7-13-2010) we got up early and set sail at 4:53 AM. We headed for Houghton-Hancock but found this line very uncomfortable as the wind picked up and waves built. The predictions were 5 to 10 nt winds and 1 to 2 ft waves with it picking up to 10 to 20 in the late afternoon. Late afternoon came at noon and the waves were building. We decided to change course and head for Ontonagon, MI instead. We reefed the main first and later reefed the jib. Then we rolled in the jib and were making 6 nts with reefed main. Ontonagon was in site, things looked good. We finally took the main down and went under power but and we approached the harbor the engine quit. OUT OF FUEL! Darn! So we added 5 gal of fuel from our j-can stash, bled the fuel lines and restarted the engine. Patrick had unrolled a bit of jib and tacked out a ways so we had control so we turned and tried it again. Big waves meant that we needed power so we gave her the fuel. THE ENGINE QUIT AGAIN! I assumed that the fuel filters had clogged with crud from the bottom of the tank as the wave action and low fuel mixed it all up together. We restarted the engine and ran under low power to get into the breakwater and harbor. I found that the engine would keep running if I left it at low power. We slowly proceeded to the Ontonagon Marina and were very happy to tie to the dock. We celebrated with a movie and popcorn that evening.