What a day. We had near perfect weather today. We departed Port Sanilac before sunrise. Winds were light and variable and hardly a ripple on the water. We had the most enjoyable ride down to the St Clair River. We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise and sipped coffee on the flybridge on the final leg of Lake Huron.
We entered the St Clair River around 8:20. It was really beautiful. It was almost too nice. The cool morning temperature and lack of wind has a tendency to create fog. And that is exactly what we got about 9:10. We hit some fog. I mean some really heavy fog. Like couldn't see 10 yards ahead of you fog. We slowed down, had the navigation lights on, the radar going and the hailer set to the fog signal. All was well until we heard another boats fog signal. It wasn't just any boat. It was a freek'n 600 foot freighter. If you have ever heard a freighter's fog signal, you will never forget it. It will rattle the windows out of your boat. Well, we heard the signal, picked him up on radar and got as far out of the channel as we could. Then we heard the signal again. We still couldn't see him. But the horn was so loud he had to be right in front of us. Thank God he wasn't. I think I need to change my shorts. He passed us about 50 yards to our port. We never saw him until he was next to us. Trust me, it is the most unnerving feeling you will ever have. About 30 minutes later the fog lifted and we were on our way, but for those 30 minutes, I was questioning my career choice.
As tough as those 30 minutes were, the next 8 hours were about as good as it gets. After the fog lifted, we had the most beautiful run across Lake St Clair and down the Detroit River to Lake Erie. The run across Lake Erie was epic. Waves were less than a 1 foot and just a sunny, gorgeous day with temps around 75 and no humidity. The kind of fall boating day you dream about.
We finished tonight around 5:30pm after another 244 miles in Ashtabula, OH. We stumbled upon a great restaurant tonight to cap off a near perfect day. Tomorrow we will run about 100 miles to Port Colbourn and try to get through the Welland Canal. My best guess is if we are lucky enough to get into the canal, we won't finish onto Lake Ontario until well after dark. We will tied up on the wall at the end of the canal overnight and then make the run across Lake Ontario in the morning to meet the owner Randy and his wife Denise on Saturday night. We still have a lot of things that need to go in our favor, but we are hopeful that all the stars align.
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