Category: Detroit River

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.

 

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.