Author: NJ

Port Sanilac, MI

August 22-24, 2017  Monday-Thursday

We have spent the last three days in Port Sanilac waiting for a good sea state in order to cross Saginaw Bay to the western side of Lake Huron, we think that day will be tomorrow. The wind has been from the north creating waves of three to nine feet, not what we want to travel in. The forecast for tomorrow is for light winds with one to two feet waves which sounds good. Our plan is to leave for Harbor Beach in the morning and cross Saginaw Bay on Saturday. Saginaw Bay is the portion of Lake Huron between the thumb and mitt of the Lower Peninsula.

The Lower Peninsula of Michigan is the shape of a mitten and the region that Rick and I are currently cruising is called ‘The Thumb;’ Huron, Sanilac, and Tuscola counties. These are small, sparsely populated areas with tourism being the largest industry for the lakeside communities. With a population of just under six hundred, Port Sanilac has three marinas, several hotels, a grocery store, post office and bank.

We enjoyed our walks around town and on the sea wall, stories about what it is like here in the winter, and our visit to the Sanilac County Historic Village & Museum, which is located at the historic home of Dr. Joseph Miller Loop and his wife Jane. Among the first white settlers in this area, Dr. Loop practiced medicine in Port Sanilac from 1855 till his death in 1903. The Village is a collection of more than a dozen historic Sanilac buildings and the museum contains an interesting collection of Native American artifacts, military memorabilia, and Lake Huron shipwreck items. The village houses an 1880’s era barn were the local theatrical group performs during the summer weekends.

On Wednesday evening the Pride of Michigan, a retired navy minesweeper, pulled into the marina. This vessel is part of the Great Lakes Division of the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps, a non-profit youth organization for young Americans, male and female, ages 13 through 17. This week it has 18 crew members, 9 volunteers, and 9 male cadets, who were honing their advanced dive training skills. The cadets ran the ship and the volunteers provide the guidance, it was inspiring to observe the cadet’s skills at handling the boat and the volunteer’s commitment to the cadets.

Saint Clair to Port Sanilac, MI

August 21, 2017  Monday

As we cruised down the St. Clare River we saw traces of the Port Huron Float Down, signs welcoming the floaters and clean-up crews cleaning up after them. About noon we left the beautiful, blue, crystal clear water of St. Clair River and entered Lake Huron, it is just as clear but emerald green, we love being off of the muddy rivers.

When we entered the St. Clair River from the Pine River the current was about two knots against us, from the locals we knew to expect stronger currents as we moved north and the advice was to hug the Canadian side at the Blue Water Bridge, by then the current would be four knots. As we closed in on the bridge the freighter Michigan was in the shipping channel, it took a while to cross but once there all went well.

At 2:25 pm we watched the solar eclipse, it was not a total eclipse in our area but fascinating none-the-less.

Tonight we are in Port Sanilac, originally named Bark Shanty Point in reference to the lumberman who came here to peel bark from the Hemlock trees to use for tanning. The lighthouse here was opened in 1886 and was electrified in 1924, today it is privately owned.

Tonight we are keeping close track of the weather, we want to move in the morning but it is not looking good.

Saint Clair, MI

August 20, 2017 – Sunday

St. Clair is at the junction of the St. Clair and Pine rivers where the British built a fort in 1764 to protect their shipping route from Fort Michilimackinac to Detroit. In the early 1800’s it became known for its early shipbuilding and lumbering. St. Clair’s present day industries are led by the Diamond Crystal Salt Company, headquarters of the nation’ third largest salt producer.
Salt might be their largest industry but on a beautiful Sunday afternoon their biggest activities seem to be playing in the crystal clear water of St. Clair River, enjoying the day at Palmer Park, and/or listening to live music at St. Clair Riverview Plaza. We enjoyed both the park and the live music but the real activity of the day was happening a few miles upstream, the 40th Annual Port Huron Float Down.

Every year in August the St. Clair River is closed to boat traffic from Port Huron to Chrysler Beach in Marysville, about five miles, for the float down. According to the local news, this year sixty-five floats and thousands of floaters participated. The New Times Herald reported that “As of 5:30 p.m. Sunday, officials had arrested two people at the Port Huron Float Down, saved three lives and assisted 86 others on the water.”

Last year the wind swept about 300 United States citizens onto the Canadian shores without a passport. The Canadians collected and processed the floaters and bused them back to the US. We actually first heard about the float over the radio, the announcement was that the float is dangerous and that people should not participate, but if they did, they better bring their passports.

 

Detroit to St. Clair, MI

August 19, 2017 Friday

Today we finished the Detroit River, crossed St. Clair Lake, and went a little over half-way up the St. Clair River to the town of St. Clair. The weather was really quite good but we did lots of Rock-and-Rollin’ as the big pleasure boats enjoyed their time on the water. Since tomorrow promises to be the same we have elected to hang out in St. Clair for another day.

The St. Clair Jazz Festival was in full swing when we arrived and we enjoyed sitting on the boat listening to the different bands. The bands were playing in Palmer Park along the St. Clair River, locals call this park, with its mile-long boardwalk, the crown jewel of St. Clair City.

Dearborn, MI

August 18, 2017  Friday

Today we drove to Dearborn, MI for a factory tour of the Ford Rouge Plant and to visit the Edison Institute, better known as the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Henry Ford’s love of history and innovation created a desire in Ford to create a place that would preserve the legacy of America’s great innovations and he named that place The Edison Institute in honor of his friend Thomas Edison who had encouraged Ford in the development of his automobile. Opened to the public in 1933, the Institute is comprised of The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, displaying American inventions and artifacts, and Greenfield Village, the first outdoor living history museum. The village consists of historical buildings that were moved to the property from their original locations to create a setting that would allow visitors to go back in time to learn more about how these inventions have shaped their lives.

The village, 255 acres of grounds included Edison’s Menlo Park, working farms, craftworks, a steam train, a Henry Ford Model T District, a Herschell-Spillman Carousel and so much more and the Ford Museum contains 26 million artifacts, needless to say, we were not going to be able to tour the factory and see all that we wanted at the village and museum. However, we saw what time permitted and would recommend this visit to all. To get the complete information be sure to visit their web site at: https://www.thehenryford.org

To tour the Ford Rouge Factory we took a 20-minute bus ride from the museum, at the visitor center we viewed two films, one about the history of Ford and the Ford Rouge Factory that was excellent and one that was a multimedia experience focused on the manufacturing of the F150, the only vehicle currently being produced at this plant. Rick loved it but it was much too loud for me to appreciate, I was crawling out of my skin by the time it was over.

The actual tour of the factory was self-paced and we were only allowed to take pictures from a sixth-floor viewing room that viewed the outside, not pictures of the workings of the factory. However, by talking to docents that were located throughout the factory we learned tidbits of information such as:

  • The Dearborn Stamping Plant is so big that you could fit fifty football fields inside it.
  • The Verson press can manufacture up to 720 parts per hour.
  • Dearborn Assembly Plant was the birthplace of many famous Ford products, from WWI Eagle Boats to the hugely popular Ford Mustang.
  • A new 2018 Ford F-150 rolls off of the assembly line every 60 seconds, every 47 seconds a new Ford F-150 is sold (the factory is always behind).
  • Bill Ford Jr. the great-grandson of Henry Ford, is the executive chairman of Ford Motor Company
  • The plant is named for the Rouge River the runs through the property.
  • Since 2002, more than 1500 new trees have been planted at the Ford Rouge Center These trees, along with thousands of native plants, are transforming the area into a natural wildlife habitat.
  • If you work there and are not driving a Ford family vehicle you are required to park in the back 12 rows of the parking lots.
  • 6,000 people work there and 80 substitutes stand by for people who don’t show up or have to leave the factory floor.  The substitutes have to be skilled in many different jobs.

We walked all around the assembly line, one floor above, watching as each truck progressed from just body parts to a complete truck…fascinating!  The assembly line workers were a snapshot of America, male, female, black, brown, white, younger and older.  They all combined to form a well-oiled machine to build beautiful trucks.

So much to see, so little time! We had a wonderful day, it was well worth the time and effort to get there.

Gibraltar to Detroit, MI

August 17, 2017  Thursday

As we were going up the Detroit River we were hailed by the Coast Guard to be boarded. We were boarded in the Chesapeake Bay and they told us we would not need to be boarded again for a year. When we gave the paperwork to the young gentlemen they let it go without boarding, yeah we were just having lunch. Bad timing.

Leaving Gibraltar we had plans to traverse the Detroit River and go to a marina in St. Clair Lake. As we were passing Detroit the Coast Guard announced a storm on St. Clair Lake and advise all small craft to seek safe harbor. We had just enough time to pull into William G. Milliken State Park and Harbor before the downpour started, it is always good to be in a safe port.

 

Kelleys Island, OH to Gibraltar, MI

August 16, 2017  Wednesday

Today we passed by Put-in-Bay and Perry’s Victory & International Peace Memorial National Monument. This monument was built from 1912 to 1915 “to inculcate the lessons of international peace by arbitration and disarmament.” Six officers of the War of 1812 are buried beneath the monument, three American officers, and three British officers. It was here that Perry defeated the British in the War of 1812 and sent the following message to his commanding officer, “We have met the enemy and they are ours…” The monument is the world’s most massive Doric column at 352 feet, only the Gateway Arch, the San Jacinto Monument, and the Washington Monument are taller.

We have been to the Rock of Gibraltar several times and tonight we are at the Gibraltar Marina in Gibraltar, Michigan. This Gibraltar is definitely not a tourist destination, but the people here at the marina are friendly and have been very helpful.

We have completed the Lake Erie portion of our trip and are headed for Lake Huron. To get there we will go twenty-eight miles up the Detroit River, twenty-one miles across Lake St. Clair, and then forty-one miles up the St. Clair River. For the entire ninety miles, the United States will be on our port-side and Canada will be to our starboard.

Cleveland to Kelleys Island, OH

August 15, 2017  Tuesday

Lake Erie was a bit choppy when we left Edgewater Marina at sunrise but smoothed out after a few hours and we had a laid-back day on the water, albeit with poor visibility. We decided to do a little island hopping and made our way to Kelleys Island to visit the Glacial Grooves State Memorial. This section of grooves from the Wisconsin Glacier is 400-feet long, 35-feet wide, and up to 15-feet deep and was excavated in 1972. The plaque at the Glacier Grooves gives the following explanation for the grooves:

The Wisconsin Glacier: “The glacier responsible for the sculpting of these grooves began forming in the highlands of Labrador, Canada when the climate was cooler and wetter than it is now. During those wet and cold winters such a large quantity of snow fell that it did not all melt during the short, mild summers. As the snow piled up year after year, the weight of the snow mass increased, and the great pressure exerted on the deepest, oldest snow slowly converted it to ice. The glacier continued to grow, the pressure became greater, and more and more ice was formed. The thick ice under heavy pressure, even though it was still very solid, began to flow and ooze over the land surface like a sticky pancake batter in a ‘head over heels’ fashion. The ice at the bottom of the glacier dragged slowly over the ground and was continually overrun by the slightly faster-moving ice above it. Such movement is very slow, perhaps at a rate of only an inch or two per day.
It may have taken 5,000 years for the glacier, which advanced in a southwesterly direction during what is called the main Wisconsin glacial advance, to finally make its way from the point of origin to the area of Ohio. By the time the sculpting of the grooves reached its climax, the glacier was more than a mile thick here and it covered many thousands of square miles of land surface.”

Touring the rest of the island we discovered the 10-area Herndon Sculpture Garden, an eclectic array of work ranging from bright red modern pieces to classical pieces, all done by Charles Henderson. The gallery was closed but we enjoyed a peaceful stroll around the garden, we really liked his abstract stone sculptors.

 

Geneva to Cleveland, OH

August 14, 2017  Monday

What a difference a day makes. When we left Erie yesterday the forecast was waves one to two feet, what we got was two to four in the morning calming down to one to three in the afternoon. Today the lake was placid with the only waves coming from the wake of other boats, a perfect day to be on the water, or so we thought. By the time we got to Cleveland it had turned choppy and the waves were hitting our bow. Perfect morning, long afternoon.

We cruised by the Perry Nuclear Power Plant which began operation in 1987, it was the United States one hundredth nuclear power plant. More than one million homes get electricity from this plant. Since 1987 more have been built and others have been shut down, the total count for US nuclear reactors today stands at ninety-nine.

Cruising along the Cleveland skyline we passed two lighthouses while researching for the names of the lighthouses I came across a National Geographic photo of the West Pierhead Lighthouse, I’m not saying it gets cold in Cleveland but compare my picture with theirs

Erie, PA to Geneva, OH

August 8-13, 2017 Tuesday – Sunday

Aug. 8 – Tuesday: Today we visited Presque Isle State Park, often referred to as the crown jewel of Pennsylvania. The park, a 3,200-acre peninsula, is amazing and has so much to offer it would take days to do it all. Some of the highlights for us; beaches, walking trail, lighthouse & museum, boat houses on Horseshoe Pond, and the Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry Monument.

The Presque Isle Lighthouse is the second oldest lighthouse on Lake Erie and has had a resident for 141 years. Completed in 1873, it has been home to nine U.S. Lighthouse Service keepers and their families. The service keeper would climb to the top of the tower 3 to 4 times every night to put fuel in the lamp. The light beam from a single burning oil lamp was reflected through the fourth order Fresnel lens and was visible some thirteen nautical miles out into the lake.

At Horseshoe Pond, here is a community that consists of twenty-four houseboats. These boats, anchored in the calm, shallow water surrounded by sand dunes, beaches, and marshes, share their world with turtles, eagles, fish, and other animals. It is said, the one with a lighthouse catches sunfish through a hole in the kitchen floor.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry arrived at Erie, PA in the summer of 1813 and constructed a fleet that included the brigs USS Lawrence and USS Niagara. With this fleet he won the Battle of Lake Erie, sending the dispatch, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” The Battle of Lake Erie ensured U.S. control over Lake Erie and the territorial northwest.

Aug. 9 – Wednesday: No outings today, it was time to service the engine. Rick did the manual labor and I was his gopher for the day. When not working with Rick I conducted other boat duties.

Early this morning, I took a brief video of the marina bath house, this might seem strange to you but we have been to some marinas where the bath house is so bad that we retreat to Andiamo to shower. The facilities at this marina are, without a doubt, the best we have ever had. When you see the video I think you’ll understand.

Aug. 10 – Thursday: With the service on the boat complete, we spent a relaxing day at the Erie Bayfront visiting the Erie Maritime Museum area, checking out the USS Niagara, climbing around the Bi Cenntinal Tower, watching kids play, fishermen fish, and tourist boats.

Aug. 11 – Friday: All week we thought we would be able to leave today, however, Mother Nature had other plans and we had to spend another two days in port. We still had the car so we decided to explore further west following the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail. At Conneaut, it was pouring rain, but there were still lots of people at the park under the covered pavilions or just sitting in their cars watching the storm.

Our next town was Ashtabula, the first city in Ohio to adopt an election system based on proportional representation and single transfer voting. In the middle of the 19th century it was an important destination on the Underground Railroad, at this point refugee slaves could take ships to Canada, gaining the freedom they longed for.

Geneva, originally settled in 1805, is known as the home of American Penmanship. Spencerian Script, developed in 1840, became the standard across the US until the 1920’s, at which time it was replaced by technology. The technology that replaced Spencerian Script was the typewriter, which is now also obsolete, technology marches on.

At Geneva-on-the-Lake we discovered Ohio’s first summer resort, a collection of fast food restaurants, old time arcades, miniature golf, Ferris wheel and more. For all my biker relatives, a major draw to the area is “Thunder on The Strip,” an annual Biker Rally held the weekend after Labor Day,

At Fairport Harbor, we viewed the Grand River Lighthouse, built in 1871, and went for a short walk around town. Unfortunately both the Fairport Harbor Marine Museum & Lighthouse and the Finnish Heritage Museum where closed.

The Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail runs 293-miles from Conneaut to Toledo but it was time for us to return to Erie. On our way back we left the trail to explore a few of the 16 drivable covered bridges of Ashtabula County. Built in 1868, the Root Road Bridge spans 114 feet over the west branch of the Ashtabula River. Both the Creek Road Covered Bridge, 125 feet long, and the Middle Road Covered Bridge, 136 feet long, span Conneaut Creek, nice back road country drive.

Aug. 12 – Saturday: With the car returned to Enterprise, and hopes of being able to leave tomorrow, we spent the day cleaning the boat. We were not alone, the dock was a buzz of activities with boaters repairing boats, cleaning boats, relaxing in the sun, reading a book or just visiting with other boaters. A few took their boats out but didn’t stay long and by 5:00 a dock party was in full swing. Great group of people, we certainly enjoyed our time here.

August 13 -Sunday: Finally, a break in the weather allowed us to leave Erie this morning and once again we find ourselves at Geneva-on-the-Lake. This time we came by boat and are staying at the State Park Marina.