Left St Clair Sat Sept 14, Day 105 catching the 8 o'clock bridge opening. One of our coldest days; air temp 42 degrees. Warmer water temp of 65. Blue skies & sun. Had a nice cruise down the St Clair River & dodged only a few fishing boats in Lake St Clair. Where Lake St Clair empties into the Detroit River were a ton of boats perching but they were not in the marked channel.
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| DYC Clubhouse |
We arrived @ Detroit Yacht Club a little after noon. We have never stayed here. One of Jacque & Garry's daughter's held their wedding reception here. It's a beautiful old club. Lots of history & tradition. There was an aerial picture in the bar of the club, docks & boats from 1836. Were planes even invented? As we pulled into the marina, we saw the main stairway filled w/ people singing. They were in the midst of filming a promotional music video for Detroit City. Grammy award & Detroit Native Allie Willis wrote & was directing the video. They worked on it for hours. We'll have to watch for the completed version.  |
| View of Downtown Detroit from DYC |
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| Full moon over the bay |
Waterford & Day Dreams could not finish an adventure like this without including the Lake Erie Islands. So we bypassed our Marina; the Beach & headed for PIB. We usually stay on the mooring balls in the harbor but we weren't sure if the water taxi's were still running & we wanted to use our bikes so we docked @ Miller's for 3 nites. Miller's has great facilities. The bay water has some nasty thick white/tan foam & of course the green tinge of Lake Erie. But you have to love the islands. We crashed Crew's Nest's outside bar to watch one of the America's cup race, USA is losing to New Zealand. We biked most of the island. The Cargo Net guys, Bill & Bob, were nice enough to open up for us so we could purchase 2 teak chairs for our back deck & Garry & Jacque bought the matching table. They had bought teak chairs the year before from the 2 guys. It was definitely worth their time to open for us. We snacked @ Old Forge ordering delicious dessert crepes; mine was decadent with peanut butter & chocolate, like a buckeye but even better. We liked their menu so well, we returned the next day for lunch. Old Forge is a new restaurant this summer, next to the brewery (used to be a gift shop). We dined @ Blu Luna for Italian even though the staff were all Croatian. After Labor Day, during the week, the bay is very quiet; Roundhouse, Frosty's & a few other places weren't even open. 
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| MBI State Park Main facility |
On Wednesday, Day 109, Waterford had to head home. Garry needed to attend a meeting in Michigan (you know he was the only one of us still working while on our trip). So we headed to MBI for 2 nites @ the State Park Docks. We missed catching Craig & Cheryl by hours :( Since PIB was so quiet, we figured MBI would be a ghost town but we were wrong. Not long after we docked we began to hear horns & sirens. There was a parade!! Antique cars from all the islands had converged on Middle Bass to have a parade & party. Carrie & girlfriends hosted a private party @ Hazards. We rode our bikes to Hazards & visited for a few minutes. We biked around the island, checked on CC & P's cottage; all looked well. It actually has been warm since we arrived @ Middle Bass island. We also ran into our friend Ken, who was unofficially supervising some stone work being completed on one of his neighbor's houses. Our condolences to Ann who just lost her Mom. 110 nights total: 33 anchored, 77 @ Docks
Average speed 7.5 miles/hour/6.5 knots
Thanks for sharing this Grand Adventure with us; stay tuned for the next one; 2014 here we come!!!
