The Detroit River, Lake St Clair and the St Clair River are the critical bodies of water which connect the “northern” Great Lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, with the “southern” Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario. Also, remember, ALL of the waters of the Great Lakes flow to the Atlantic Ocean via the St Lawrence Seaway. I am pointing this out because it proved to be impossible to show you, in pictures, the currents we traveled against between Detroit and Lake Huron.
We left Detroit and the imposing GM headquarters, bound for the St Clair Municipal Marina, anticipating another 7 hour day. The time was not dictated by distance but travel speed; with a 2 knot current against us, we were only making about 5 nautical miles per hour.
The US and Canada are separated by the width of the rivers and we watched both shorelines much of the way. There was a distinct difference between the two… the Canadian shoreline was more “inviting”. For example, US residences were built directly on the water, Canada’s were buffered by public green spaces. Even the infrastructure had this characteristic…
We left the Detroit River and entered busy Lake St Clair. The marina we had hoped to over-night at was full so we wound up further up the lake at Metro Park. It turned out to be an anchorage as calm as Presque Isle, PA… just more mega mansions on shore. 😜
The north channel from Lake St Clair to the St Clair River is part of the river’s delta and helped us avoid an hour or two on the St Clair River. We joined the fisherman for an early morning transit… Once we did enter the St Clair River, we realized we had been overly ambitious in our plan to make it onto Lake Huron the same day. The river is VERY narrow and the current extremely strong… against us, of course. Seven hours of bouncing around against current, a north wind and the gazillion boaters, we decided to bail out in Port Huron.
Port Huron was busy with boaters, too… The next day, Sunday the 15th, was the annual St Clair River Float, an unsanctioned event which closed the river from the bridge down to St Mary’s from noon to 8:00P. All manner of inflatables were going to take over the river. We read, later, that about six thousand people participated.
On Sunday, we “got out of Dodge” before we were locked in… The Blue Water Bridge, just off the Black River, connects Port Huron, MI with Sarnia, ON and is the gateway to lake Huron.
Port Sanilac was our introduction to Lake Huron’s harbors. An engaging little town and water as clear as a Caribbean island’s… We already like Lake Huron.
