The Beckoning Delivery Day 06 - Huron to Erie

After two hours of sleep, were up and leaving the dock just after first light at 5:30am.

Sarnia Yacht Club looks much different in the daylight.
Sorry no photos.

We passed under the Sarnia Bluewater Bridge.

Time on this first photo is 06:01am.

With the Covid-19 pandemic, we were very careful to stay in Canadian waters.

First laker approaching us:

...and passing us on the US side:

The St Clair River was pretty uneventful.
The channel is well marked.
You had to stay in the channel as the depths shallowed quickly.
Only saw a couple more ships, absolute no pleasure boats.

With the current, we were motoring along at over 8 knots @2500 RPM.

We entered Lake St Clair at ~10:30am.

We put the main up to maybe get a little push.

We had to stay in Canadian waters:

You might ask why we ducked around to the right of "Grosse Pointe Farms" above:

Well the channel there is fully in US waters AND there is a dumping ground on the charts that has depths all over the place, so we avoided BOTH:

We went past WYC at ~13:00 (that's Windsor Yacht Club)

Appeared that they are still closed, only a couple of sailboat masts.

The river narrowed past here and the current was pushing to a boat speed over 9 knots.

We passed under the Ambassador Bridge at 13:45:

Then on into the Detroit River.

Winds had picked up a bit and were were able to motor sailed with jib on a close reach at over 9 knots.

The instruments show the point of sail (close reach), wind speed (10.0 knots), depth (33.1ft) and Speed Over Ground (9.5 knots).  Mark is THRILLED!

We BLEW by a Hunter 29 sailing along:

We had to follow the shipping lanes out into Lake Erie.

We had to go into US waters to follow the channel because there wasn't enough depth on the Canadian side.  We didn't want to test the depths here, as the bottom of Lake Erie here is hard limestone.

We made the turn (at 16:30) as soon as the water depths were consistently deep(er) and were motor sailing towards the Colchester Reef above and then Point Pelee and Pelee Island.

Sunset behind us with a laker carrying windmill turbine blades just past Pelee Island.

You CANNOT sail any closer the Point Pelee as there is a shoal that extends quite a bit south.

The end of the track above is midnight on Thursday (Friday morning).

Trip Odometer: 120 miles (estimated)

Moving Avg: 6.6 knots

Moving Time: 18:20:00

We were heading WEST with the light winds almost on the nose from the WNW at 6-8 knots.
Motor sailing close hauled keeping our speed up to get to the Welland.

Winds were supposed to swing further left (north) during the night and morning.

We had another 120 miles to long point, then 40 miles to get to the Welland.