OT: There and Back Again - My Nautical Journey Update

Submitted by mGrowOld on

Last week I posted a question about making a trip from Put-in-Bay, Ohio to Sarnia, Ontario and got a ton of extremely helpful responses from the board.  The good news is that I made the trip last week and other than running into some pretty thick fog in the middle of Lake St Clair coming home, the journey was without drama and we had a blast.  

I must say, however, that the time estimates I received were wildly off as we made the upbound portion of the trip in 5 hours going against the current and it only took us 3.5 hours to get home running with the current traveling at a pretty steady 26-28 MPH.  That was a pleasant surprise.  

I will definitely make this trip again someday.  Here are a few pics from the voyage.

Heading out.....

Into the Livingstone Channel (where the Detroit River meets Lake Erie) - Very cool!

My Boat's namesake on the beach at Lake Huron

Sunset on Lake Huron over Lexington, Michigan

Downbound into Detroit from Lake St. Clair.  Ambassdor Bridge in the distance.  

Me and the Motor City!

Voltron is Handsome

July 21st, 2014 at 2:02 PM ^

Sweet. God I wish I could have a nice boat to do something like that. Owning a boat in NE Ohio just isn't practical though. I would absolutely love to take a few weeks off work (or when I retire), hop on a boat, and go wherever the hell I want. Any time I have a chance to get on a boat, I take it because I love it. It's just so peaceful being on the water with no one else around and being able to go anywhere you want.

DowntownLJB

July 21st, 2014 at 2:09 PM ^

Lovely!

If you make the trip again and want to voyage a little further north, there's a nice marina in my hometown (Harbor Beach), about 60 miles (by car anyway) north of Port Huron.

mGrowOld

July 21st, 2014 at 2:14 PM ^

Great idea!  So many people were so helpful last week (one poster used to serve on the Coast Guard cutter assaigned to the water I was travelling and responded to me from Japan) I just wanted my mGoBrethern that the trip went well and their advice made a WORLD of difference to this novice (and nervous) captain.

Calm waters and clear skies didn't hurt either!

jdon

July 21st, 2014 at 5:02 PM ^

stop it.

 

you know we shared a magical moment after the under the lights game;  you are the freakiest man I've ever know and no lover has stood the test since then...

love,

jdon

 

ps.  anyone want to see my pictures from last week?  Didn't think so.

 

mGrowOld

July 21st, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^

I didnt log distance but according to my charts it looked like about 150 nautical miles which sounds about right cause my boat (allegedly) gets 1 nautical mile to the gallon and I put 150 gallons of fuel in the boat in Sarnia.  Havent refueled yet at this end but it looks like the trip home took less.  

Boat gas prices run about .50 more than what you pay for your car so all-in-all I prolly spent about $1200 or so in gas.

BlueMan80

July 21st, 2014 at 6:54 PM ^

For reminding me why I should continue to be happy with my 18' bow rider that we put in Lake Huron to go tubing and water skiing for a day. Only takes about $60 to fill it up and I get a couple of days per tank of gas.

On a more serious note, thanks for sharing your adventure with us. I've always wanted to make a trip like that. The pictures are great.

mvp

July 22nd, 2014 at 12:58 PM ^

I was just thinking something similar...

How many times would I have had to try to find a place to fill up the 30-gallon tank on my 22' pontoon boat?  Very different world.  My cousin used to work at the marina in Tawas.  Hearing how much gas some boats take is eye-opening.

True Blue Grit

July 21st, 2014 at 3:03 PM ^

Great weather like you had this time of year makes living up north worth it despite having horrendous winters like last one.  The Great Lakes region has a lot of spectacular places to boat which makes it fun. 

LSAClassOf2000

July 21st, 2014 at 3:12 PM ^

Very cool photos - thanks for sharing these! Glad you had a good trip as well.

Minor, possibly interesting fact I found out on a guided tour once - the Livingstone Channel is at least partially manmade. It was widened and deepened via a couple rounds of dredging about 100 years ago - that part of the river was extremely shallow and almost unusable for a boat of any respectable tonnage back then. Those ships had to take the lengthier voyage around the east side of Bois Blanc before then. 

The smaller channel on the west side of Grosse Ile - Trenton Channel - looks the way it does mainly because of the turning basin for the power plant there. We dug much of the north end of it during plant construction in the 1930s.

GoWings2008

July 21st, 2014 at 3:13 PM ^

but wanted to weigh in on the Great Lakes comments...I went for a 1.2 mile swim in Lake Michigan yesterday and almost froze my nose off. 

That is all.

XM - Mt 1822

July 21st, 2014 at 5:04 PM ^

most every work day of the summer up here in GT bay.   the water finally got over 60 last week.  it is very pleasant right now, albeit about 4-6 weeks later than normal.  swimming as late into october as i can tolerate it, but with all the global warming we had this winter, i'm not thinking i'll make october swimming this year.

GoWings2008

July 21st, 2014 at 5:15 PM ^

Impressive!  The water we had was 61 degrees and I had a tough time with it.  Once I got rolling though, it wasn't too bad because all the exposed areas went numb and you didn't notice it anymore.  But I followed it up with a 56 mile bike ride, so I warmed up pretty quickly.  :-)

XM - Mt 1822

July 21st, 2014 at 7:26 PM ^

water temp i'll swim in.  otherwise the headache lasts too long.  i am, shall we say, ahead on my eating so my body adapts pretty quick even at those lower temps.  i have avoided getting a wet suit all these years as somehow that would ruin the reason for being out there.

found a rather large anchor and chain today at about the 1/2 mile mark - drug it up to shore and kept swimming.  it was big enough for mgrowold's boat, surprised the drunken owner didn't try to retrieve it.  

bigbrother

July 21st, 2014 at 4:13 PM ^

Impressive boat.

Impressive wife.

Very impressive scowl.

What I am most impressed with, though, is how you managed to take a picture of the sunset over Lake Huron in Lexington.

An Angelo's Addict

July 21st, 2014 at 4:16 PM ^

Wow I really expected mgrowold to look a lot older lol. And I will now forever imagine your scowling face for every post you write. Thanks for sharing the pics, looks like an awesome time!

wigeon

July 21st, 2014 at 4:27 PM ^

with my Honda 4 stroke equipped Lund center console, I could've made the same trip  in the same time (and asssuming calmish seas) at a cost of  $125.00.

That's the cost of boating in luxury. 

Of course, we'd all be soaking wet and pissed at one another...

XM - Mt 1822

July 21st, 2014 at 5:09 PM ^

thanks for sharing and it's very cool that you apparently had super calm water.   as for time, you realize that if you ran 150 miles over 3.5 hrs your speed was over 40 mph.   maybe your boat is a little faster than you thought, (or our navigator needs a tune up on chart reading.) 

fun to get some insight into folks you see posting.   and it's true, you are way young to be 'mgrowold'.   maybe you should switch to: 'mgettingtomiddleagewithveryprettywife'.  

mGrowOld

July 21st, 2014 at 5:16 PM ^

Thanks on all counts.  I think the speed issue was due to the current.  It can run as fast as 7MPH so if it's pushing me downbound at that rate I'm actually travelling closer to 33-35 and like you said the gauge itself might be a bit off.  And the distance might be a bit shorter too. To be fair it was closer to 3.75 hours but still a LOT faster than expected.