Sandusky to Mount Clemens
Our purpose was to explore the Detriot River and Lake St, Clair for future trips to the North Channel, and to visit New Haven, MI, my Dad's childhood home. We started with the Admiral and my brother Matt. The first day, we loaded Matt's kayak, and sailed about 12 miles to Kelleys Island where we anchored on the north side for the night. This is a great anchorage, and the sunset was beautiful. Failure to carefully plan our course led to a scary encounter with Gull Island Shoal on the 15 mile leg to Pelee Island the next day. Our first warning of danger was looking down at big rocks just below the keel! We were lucky that Lake Erie is high this year (and we only draw 3.25 feet.) By the way, on this wonderful light air reach, our asymetric spinnaker definitely converted a motoring leg to a great broad reach spinnaker run in light southwesterlies, with speeds varying from 2,5 to 4 knots. The next day, we pedaled around Pelee Island, and bought a few cases of wine. During the two days at Scudders on the north side of Pelee, we planned the rest of the route in detail, and entered new waypoints in the GPS. I use the Richardson chart book, Ports of Call, and the Great Lakes Cruising Club's (GLCC) pubs (the last on my PC) for planning. Luckily, we ran into a Canadian couple from Lasalle Mariners Yacht Club on the east side of the Detroit River. They race on the river, and gave me a wonderful briefing on the currents, describing a route along the east shore that would minimize the opposing current, and maximize our pleasure from nature. That led to some new waypoints! Then it was off 16 miles to Colchester, Canada, just east of the mouth of the Detroit River. When we arrived at Colchester, we pumped out right away (Scudders does not have a pump-out). An unfortunate spill caused by a previous boater's pumping of a textile rig that blocked a key valve met with wonderful response from the people of Colchester. Wayne, the manager of parks and facilities took charge of the clean-up, and Dianne, the prettiest bilge pumper on Lake Erie helped to put us back in spic and span condition. Janet calmed all involved, while supervising lunch from the pleasant staff at the grill. A quiet evening in Colchester, watching passing thunderstorms from under the hill was much needed. The next morning, we rose bright and early and did a quick start at dawn to run up the Detroit River about 20 miles to the Wyandotte Yacht Club in Ecorse, MI. Although the GLCC's publications have the best general descriptions of the river, their table showing 0.5 to 1.0 knot currents in the river is misleading. 0.5 to 2.5 knots is a better range. Our Canadian informants said that you can see big differences in the current around the buoys depending on weather over the Huron/St.Clair/Detroit/Erie system. We were bucking 1 to 2.5 knots all the way up the river, despite staying as close to the shore as we dared. There is a huge flock of Eurpoean swans in the swamp south of Turkey Island - what a beautiful sight! We passed west of Turkey, then east of Fighting and Grassy Islands for a good view of old and new development on the Canadian shore. At the Wyandotte Yacht Club, we met my Dad, and other brother, Craig, who boarded Lady Lillie, while the Admiral left, taking the kayak, the folding bikes, and departing with my Mom who was along for the ride. After a pleasant night settling in the new crew, we left around 8:30 the next morning to buck the current in the single channel of the Detroit past the industrial, downtown, and recreational sections of Detroit. It was a pleasant run, with the current setting us 1.3 to 2 knots depending on how close we dared to stay to the west bank. The wind (such as it was) was on our nose the whole day, but the forecast for the next day was more of the same, so we had to rely on the iron genny. Shipping was no problem, but we did see a lot of it! Motorboat wakes were a much bigger problem, especially when we were out on Lake St. Clair. A big wake on the bow would slow us by a couple of knots, while a wake from behind seemed to be no help at all. We were surprised to find a current of 0.3 to 0.5 knots was opposing us in Lake St. Clair, but made our dock at Markley Marine by 4:30 in the afternoon. It was a long, hot leg, but we recovered at a local restaurant, and hit the rack early. The next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast, and then went by rental car to our Dad's farm home (still there, but now surrounded by suburban developments), high school, and other sites. We enjoyed his stories, and seeing their locations. A new story about the day he and his buddies played hooky, and visited the country jail and courthouse was the hit of the tour! The trip meant a 12:30 departure - late, but we now had the current behind us. Lake St. Clair was a windless slog again, but the wind picked up with the current as we rounded Grosse Pointe for the run down the Detroit River. Two freighters, one passing the other, and both passing us made for some excitement. The crew of the passing freighter ran to the rail as we raised our rainbow colored spinnaker and shut down the engine. What followed was a wonderful run on our asymetric spinnaker down the Detroit River on a strong east wind and current. As the wind pulled behind us, we shifted to wing and wing, and were running from 6.5 to 8 knots with the help of the current! This time, we aimed for Crystal Bay, a popular anchorage on the Canadian side of the river 36 miles from our start, passing down the east side of Fighting Island (but west of Grassy), and shifting to the 110 when the turn south brought us to a close reach. We saw two bald eagles on Fighting Island, and Craig and Dad saw the flock of swans. As the sun set, we pulled into Crystal Bay, and dropped the anchor into a rocky bottom varying from 5 to 7 feet. Our departure the next morning for the 30 miles to Put-in-Bay would be run in variable winds under the remnants of hurricane Dennis. Our start was delayed by wrapping a huge bed of reeds around our prop and shaft. We had to dive twice to clear it. We finally altered our plans to go down the "up" channel, and were able to sail free! If we had had a day to spare, we would have stopped in Colchester with the funny covering of cumulus over the lake. But we motor sailed out on to the Lake, where the wind steadied to moderate from the southwest. Then the thunder and lightning started. There didn't seem to be any well organized storms, but we were edgy, since the strikes were hard to predict, and coming all around us. We deployed an additional grounding wire that attaches to our mast, and provides an additional square foot of copper grounding area to the keel grounding that is standard on our boat. The closest strike was about three seconds straight ahead of us - didn't look like much of a cloud over it. We ran through some rain, and kept on slogging. As we neared Put-in-Bay. we couldn't understand the fisherman, and recreational boaters who were choosing to sit under the storm system. At least we didn't see any para-sailors! We cleared out from under the heavier clouds an hour out of Put-in-Bay, and shut down the engine, to end the run with a great sail into port. After we picked up our mooring ball, the rains returned, and getting and staying dry was our goal. A quick pot of hot soup was a great late afternoon snack, and we spent a good night in this fine (if somewhat noisy on Saturday night) port. The leg home from Put-in-Bay is about 16 miles over familiar ground. The winds were around 15 knots from the west-southwest. So we ran northeast to Ballast Island, then came up to a wonderful reach as we rounded the G5 buoy, and head south-southeast for Marblehead, and Sandusky Bay. A Hunter 41 rounded the buoy a quarter mile behind us. With good rail meat, we were holding steady at 5.8 to 6.5 knots flying our 110 and main. That's around our hull speed, but the h41 was slowly closing on us, although they were showing us lots of bottom paint in the gusts. As they were about to pass us, their big genny and main were just too much, so they rolled in their furling main to a reefed position to give them a better ride. We were just two boats on the lake, but we couldn't help noticing that we re-established our oroginal lead before they veered off for Huron or Vermillion to the southeast after we passed Kellys Island. When we reached Sandusky Bay, we hardened up to sail on the wind, but although this is Lady Lillie's worst point of sail, the rail meat paid off again, and we were home after just two tacks in the bay. That turned out to be more of a travelogue than I planned, but here are the answers to R.W.'s questions: - Our purpose was part nostalgia, and part exploration. - I did pre-plot the route, and schedule the trip. But familiarity with the Islands meant that I risked a nasty keel strike on Gull Island Shoal. There is nothing like putting a ruler on the chart, and reading everything you see on the planned route! The first half of the trip was well scheduled with appropriate reserves of time. We were pushing on the second half, and I was not happy with the risks we ran on the leg to Put-in-Bay. - We use NOAA radio, and the wonderful weather radar to keep us on top of the weather. A problem with anchoring out is that we couldn't get a detailed look at the remnants of Dennis on radar before setting out across western Lake Erie. We did talk to my wife on the cell phone, and I'm not sure that the picture she saw would have stopped us even if we had had a spare day. - We did follow our plan, but changed our Lake St. Clair destination from New Baltimore to Mount Clemens when we realized we were adding substantial distance without getting any closer to our target location. We also followed local advice in the final plan for the run up the river. - We will continue to plan for the trips. This is one of the principal joys of anticipation and preparation as the cruise approaches. I will return to the discipline of carefully reviewing each leg before setting out. - Despite wishing for one more reserve day, we did not end the trip rushed, and all claimed to enjoy the cruise. David Lady Lillie
