7 Best Spots for Boat Watching around the Soo
Sault Ste. Marie has to be the best spot in Michigan for boat watching because it offers such a variety of places to watch from and most of them are never crowded or busy. Here is a list of my top 5 favorites.
1.
My cabin-we're located between Six and Seven Mile Road. Although the St. Marys River is wide at this spot, we still get a good view. If we want a picture of a boat, we must take our wave runners out to get close. This is a little dicey because you are doing two things at once-hanging on the wave runner and also operating the camera. My worst experience at this was when one of the tall ships passed by. Tom drove me out there for pictures and I took many. Even got close enough for the crew to wave. Once we got back to shore, I found I had the lens cap on for the whole time. Not fun. I never told Tom what I had done!
2.
Sugar Island Ferry Dock-The ships slow down for the turn in the river plus the river is narrow at this point. There are great parking spots plus Clyde's Drive-in which is located here has the best hamburgers in town.
3.
4 Mile Park-at the end of 4 Mile, there is a small public park where the ships come very close. In fact, if you are swimming there, you must get out of the water when the ships pass because of the current and wave created that will pull you out to deep water.
4.
West Pier-the west end of the Locks used to offer a great boat watching spot before the condos were built there. It is still a good spot plus there is West Pier Drive-In with great burgers. Some people think the best in town but I have another favorite. See #2 above.
5.
Soo Locks Boat Tour-I took the above picture while on the Soo Locks Boat Tour. You get up close and personal on the tour. I like to take the tour once a summer. We usually wait for friends to come visit from out of town.
6.
The Locks-This is where you will get the closest to the boats and you can even chat with the crew while they lock through. We always take guests there plus we often go just to walk through the park. The Visitor's Center is a must see for guests too.
7.
The Rock Cut/Neebish Island area-This location just south of the Soo has a good eating spot as well as a close up look at boats.
Now I want to hear from you. What do you think is the best boat watching spot in the Sault? I'd like to learn a few new ones for this summer.
We recently visited the Soo on a rare winter time trip. It is sad to see our favorite spots closed up for the winter. You can see that no one will be enjoying a blizzard at the Dairy Queen. I saw a sign at Dairy Queen once that said, "Blizzard courtesy of Mother Nature until spring." That is what is happening in the Soo now too.
The Chippewa County Fair at Kinross, Michigan is open through Labor Day. It was a wonderful time. The fair has lots of attractions but is small enough that you can see the entire place in one day. We saw lots of old friends and even made some new ones. While standing in line for the Kinross Lions Club hamburger trailer, we met a nice couple from Cheboygan, Michigan. We saw them again while in the commercial exhibition building looking for ice cream -which we found by the way. The ice cream was sold by the Rudyard Christian School so gave me an excuse to eat ice cream-I was helping a fund raiser for a worthy local school.
On our way home, we stopped by the Carbide Dock to get a close up look at a tall ship which had tied up there for the night on her way to the Tall Ships Festival in Duluth. The crew seemed very young and very anxious to head to town for the evening.
The long days of sunshine and the cool evenings have made for beautiful, colorful flower gardens around town. Flowers are more brilliant here than you will find downstate. My theory is that the increased sunshine contributes to that. The sun comes up about 20 minutes earlier and sets about 20 minutes later that at our home near Grand Rapids. This really affects the flowers. Also, the temperatures never get blistering hot either. Flowers and people both do better in these conditions!
