Tag: Sailing

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Flushed Out, We Say Good Bye To Lake Erie Ep. 83

I’ll just get it out at the beginning. Leaving Detroit behind and entering Lake Erie, we were both a bit apprehensive. Apart from the tasty mojitos at Put-in-Bay on our way through last time, Lake Erie had not been very kind to us. Bugs, hurricane-force winds, shallows – I would have been perfectly happy finding a portkey of the kind Harry Potter would discover to take us directly to Lake Ontario. But being mere Muggles, we were going to have to do this ourselves.

The action adventure got off to an immediate start as we were pushed down the Detroit River, running with the strong current directly into an opposing wind, what we affectionately call the Buzzards Bay effect, as it is reminiscent of being flushed out the Cape Cod Canal into Buzzards Bay with it’s prevailing SW winds and step square waves.

The waves settled down after we got out of the current effect of the Detroit River and we turned to port to make our easterly progress. The destination for the night was Pelee Island. But before we could enjoy this uniquely Canada island, Mother Nature had some more tricks up her sleeve. We watched as the skies darkened to the west of us and a distant crack of thunder could be heard. Canada Coast Guard came on the radio to warn boaters about strong wind conditions in Western Lake Erie. At the end of the broadcast, they let the word ‘chance of waterspouts’ linger in the air waves as they signed off. Immediately, we started pulling up the NOAA radar page for the region and checked other weather sources. Sure enough, there was a heavy rain system marching across the Michigan/Ohio border, from Toledo and on out into Lake Erie, intersecting directly with our course. NOAA does a great job with these radar images, providing estimates of rain fall starting with light green coloring (light rain), to yellow, and finally to red which indicates very heavy rain. They will also box off areas on the image to show where there’s a risk of severe thunderstorms or waterspouts. Here’s an example of what they look like.

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Thumbin’ It Ep. 80

I’m not sure if being born in 1963 qualifies me as a child of the 60’s, as I was still in diapers during Woodstock, but the concept of thumbing your way across the country is certainly appealing. In the present context, that means hitching a ride on the winds of the Great Lakes around the coast of Michigan. And what better coast to hitch along than one that Michiganders whimsically portray as the outline of a thumbing hand!

Map courtesy of: thefiresidecollective.com

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Explorations of Lake Michigan Ep. 79

Our last post was from Mackinaw City just before we were to leave Lake Huron to pass under the Big Mac (the suspension bridge that connects upper and lower Michigan and also represents the line between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan). The waters here are called the ‘Mackinaw Straits’ and since this is a relatively small passage between two huge bodies of water the conditions must be considered before navigating through in anything other than a large ship! We passed under with sunny skies and light breezes which was just fine with me. This image shows our ports of call for this episode – our anchorage/dockage locations are marked by the stars and the arrows show our path of transit. Facts on Lake Michigan can be found at the end of the blog.

Our Time in Lake Michigan
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This Benjamin is worth more than 100 USD! Ep. 77

We have been in Lake Huron since our previous posting of 12 July 2017 and it has been almost 100% wonderful! We couldn’t ask for more than that – we always expect weather or water conditions that are less than fun or perfect; however, if most our time is comfortable then we are over the moon! To follow our progress, visit this site and follow our boat, ‘Thalia’:  https://farkwar.com/boats/thalia

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Go West, Young Man! Ep. 73

The Erie Canal is divided up into three sections – Eastern, Central and Western.   Quite a few boaters do the Eastern canal, and then head north at Three Rivers Junction to the Oswego Canal, which takes you into Lake Ontario. There were a number of tricky shallow areas in the Eastern portion and we had considered this Oswego route to get us out of the canal and into the expanse of Lake Ontario, and thus avoid even shallower areas further west in the canal. But we had heard from multiple sources that the Western section was the most beautiful and we didn’t want to miss it. I was able to get ahold of the head of navigation and dredging at the NY State Canal Authority, which by the way is an amazing organization that deserves a whole blog post of it’s own. He quickly talked me into continuing west on the canal, all the way to its terminus at Buffalo. He put me at ease, letting me know that the shallow areas I saw on the charts had just been dredged, and that if we took it slow in sections, we’d have no problem. He re-affirmed that the Western Erie Canal is not to be missed. He added that if we headed to Lake Ontario, we’d have to uplock the Welland Canal (which circumvents Niagara Falls), and in the process have to hire crew to handle the lines, all while jockeying for position in the locks with lots of commercial traffic. Simply put, in his words, we’d be ‘second class citizens’ if we did the Welland. The Welland is actually in Canada, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him we weren’t citizens there, but his point was well taken. I couldn’t help but hear a bit of pride in his voice, implying that the Erie treats their pleasure boater citizens with first class, white glove service. Which they really do! But again that’s a story for another day. Continue reading “Go West, Young Man! Ep. 73”