We had discussed leaving Pelee Island early in the morning; this has become our routine now, sort of… We have found early traveling is better due to lighter winds/ waves and less traffic on the water. There is something special to being up with a sunrise, especially when it’s not from being up all night! The temperature is more bearable as well, than high afternoon heat. It gets hot when your traveling, sitting under a canvas, baking in an ‘oven’ with open windows, and a fan which we take turns unplugging to charge phones until its too hot then I plug the fan back in.
We woke early, and I was pretty gung-ho about going! this was only our 3rd day traveling and I felt we needed to put some distance under our keel. I rushed around and got prepared as Lauren and animals were just getting up. Dinghy prepared for pulling? check! Lines readied? check! bikes secured? check! FIRE IT UP!
I turned the key to the Detroit Diesel and Klondike roared to life. All is well! Lauren had asked what she could do, and I was trying to be proactive, so I said “don’t worry- I got it.”
And away we went! I had to maneuver around to turn us toward our destination (Detroit River) and as soon as we passed the ferry terminal, I pushed the throttle to the 1600 RPM which usually puts us around 6.8-7 knots. We were only doing 5.8 or so, and then I begin to notice the wind has been steady blowing from the northwest, which was making the waves roll at us. not just little waves, but larger, uncomfortable types of waves. Now don’t get me wrong; this was not a life or death situation, and the waves were probably under 4 feet and wind around 12-15mph, but the direction from which they came, and the direction which we were going, was not a good mix. White caps were coming off the tops and as they say every third or so wave was larger than the rest.
I was trying to figure out what was going on, as it was early, I am not fully awake even though I thought I was, and I am now in medium-ish uncomfortable waves. Whatever- keep going! So I turned NW and headed for Detroit River. I soon realized that direction was not great- the boat was pitching and rolling, I could see everything in the flybridge (where I like to pilot from) moving and falling, being basically tossed around. Hmmm….”Lauren must be downstairs trying to hold on” was my thought… Until she came up and was quite upset with me. I had turned more North, trying to avoid the rolling of the boat, which took us off course (which can add hours in our boat) and that only made Klondike slam up and down, getting a literal free fall off of some waves.
“Why were you in a rush? We (Lauren and animals) weren’t ready! Everything is tossed about! What the F!- why are you heading this way!? Me-“Ummm…I don’t know? Trying to stop the rolling? Tacking?”
Well, we did make it to Crystal Bay, after hours of wavy traveling, which made for a long trip. Then I had to backtrack to get into Detroit River due to the shallowness shown on charts- so much for tacking. This did add another hour to the trip in the waves but we made it.
Crystal Bay is a bay where the Detroit River is split into two sides. It is also is home to “Hidden Lake”- it is a small lake, obviously ‘hidden’ off to the side of the bay and a very shallow channel to it- Google Earth it to see what I mean.
Once we found Crystal Bay, we slowly moved in as again the charts are showing 1 to 3 foot depth; However due to the high waters this year, there was nothing under 6 feet that I saw. I’ve been told almost everything is almost 5 feet higher than charted. Ahead of us were about 30 or so boats, all at anchor or rafted off each other. There was a cool trawler we anchored near, toward the outside of the groups. We stayed there for a while, enjoying having made it without killing each other or breaking anything. Then we realized (or thought) our anchor may be dragging! We seemed to be closer to the trawler, and the owner(?) kept coming back and looking at us and then going back to his chair. This made us decide to pull anchor and re-anchor further away. We found a nice spot out of the way and continued to watch more boats arrive and raft (we saw 9 across at one time) and catch a swim in the blue water. I counted well over 50 boats at one point, then I took Frank in to land for a needed potty break, and we explored Hidden Lake in our dinghy. Eventually another boat came and anchored somewhat close to us, but far enough away to not be too bothered by them. We had a few people dinghy over to look at Klondike and some small talk. The wind stayed steady all evening, but the water stayed flat.
We ended the evening with dinner and wine, feeling another sense of accomplishment that we were now anchored in a cool bay, had completed a journey across Lake Erie, and were heading toward new horizons.
Cheers! and stay tuned for the next update!
Lauren and Jason