My trip and story............

Well some may have noticed a few weeks ago, random posts about me being in Canada, and I just realized I never got a chance to tell my stories about it.

First our route:


The red is our proposed path. I was on it, all of except the blue. but thats a story in itself.

set-up: we have owned a 30' sailboat for about 7 years and we took it on the North Cruise with our sailclub. I have been sailing about 6 years off and on, and racing for 3 years. Needless to say I know most of what there is to know. I just hate steering.
    Now the crew for this trip. On our boat was me, my dad, and my brother. Later on at Port Sanillac we picked up my dads roommate. I hadn't seen most people in the sailclub for like 4 years so they were surprised how much I changed. Now keep in mind almost everyone in the club is retired (old).
People my age: Rachel was 14, my brother 17, Liz 19, me 20. The next youngest person would be my dad at 44.

Day1: We motored up the Detroit River from Grosse Ile with the aid of a mainsail for stability. Stopped at Tricentenial park (still in Detroit). on our way to dinner we saw a carful of black kids pull up behind a truck and steal the spare tire.
Day2: got back out into open water of Lake St. Clair. Its really shallow  so we are limited. We took the Middle channel to get into the SAt. Clair river. stopped in Algonac for the night.
Day3: continued up the river to the mouth where we stopped in Port Huron. really nice club house and $0.50 for a pint. Not legal drinking age in the Us though. Ate at a brew house and had my absolute favorite sandwich. A Muffelata.
Day4: Got into Lake Huron and stopped in Port Sanilac.
Day5: spent all day installing a new transducer and running wires for it. Now we have a depth sounder. Finally got Liz to leave her boat and be social. Shes uber shy and spent all day watching movies or talking on her phone. Shes purtty too.
Day6:Headed up the coast further to Harbor Beach.  We had the wind at our backs so we flew a spinnaker (big colorful one). We took 30 minute watches since we had 4 crew now. Of course on my watch the wind did a 180 and we had to haul in the spinnaker.

Day7: the story worth hearing. we had a strong North wind now, and that meant the waves had a large distance to build. 6-8 foot waves with 10 foot swells. So I was volunteered onto another boat. The Flying Dragon. Terry had almost no clue what he was doing or how to navigate. He was a power boater that got a good deal on a sailboat. So I helped him out and his wife went onto a larger boat. So I sailed with Terry and Liz. We got quite soaked but we were sailing a good speed and making great time. Then entire headsail and forestay broke free from the stress and crashed to the deck. so we no longer had anything to keep the mast from falling back other than its bolts. So we had to start up and engine and change our heading to releive backward pressure. We motored for about 6 hours before we saw the opposite shore. But when I compared our longitude and latitude to our charts I realized that the waves had knocked us about 15 nautical miles south of Kincardine. But we were only 3 miles North of Goderich, the next port. So we ducked in there since we were wounded, cold, and wet.

But that was our port of entry into Canada. And all my ID and everything were in Kincardine on our boat. Luckily Canadian Customs is cool. We explained when we called in and they said it was no problem. So I spent the night on their boat (next to Liz). Luckily Terry's family was supposed to come up to visit the next day in Kincardine so they stopped and picked us up. Now, Liz has a twin sister Kate. I expected them to look the same. No way, Kate is drop dead gorgeous. and I have pictures.

Day8: got picked up and spent the day in Kincardne. Finally had a beer. Blue.....
Day9:Traveled down from Kincardine on MY boat back into Goderich.
Day10: walked around town had and excellent dinner. Chicken Breast stuffed with dried tomatoes and goat cheese, served over Linguine with tomato basil sauce. Got a chance to stop at the library and make my forum post. Liz got sick of the whole trip and left with the rest of her family.
Day11: Went down to Grand Bend. PARTY TIME!!!!!!!! First day it rained all trip. For those that don't know Grand Bend is one huge Canadian party town. Bars, clubs, huge beach, gold course, and lots of ladies walking around.
Day12: still in Grand Bend. Terry left early for Sarnia so he could fix his boat while the business was open.
Day13: Traveled to Sarnia Bay in the mouth of the St. Clair River.
    Dinner Story: We went to an Irish pub for dinner. Hostess was cute but our waitress was hideous. We sat with a large group. Well Terry decided to start a little war. He tosed his straw wrapper across the table (like 10 feet) and right in my beer. Right as our entrees arrived I returned fire and hit him square in the forehead. Rachel returned fire FOR him in the form of a heavy cane sugar packet. I wasn't looking and the corner hit my eyeball scratching the cornia. So I had one eye closed all night. Of course it was tearing, which made the other tear, which made my nose run too. To amke up for it Terry bought me a beer or 2 (4 pints of Wickard's Red). Now Theguy does not drink very often at all. 4 was enough to get me pretty messed up. Plus I had no depth perception, which made it worse. As soon as I decided to lay down for the night, the boat started doing barrel rolls. The direction changed depending on which way I layed. Woke up without a hangover though.

Day14: Took the South Channel out into Lake st. Clair again and stopped in Belle River. Had some good Greek food and Saganaki (flaming cheese, its a Detroit area thing)
Day15: homeward bound, lots of powerboat traffic on the detroit river.

Too many words.

bigmike102 wrote: muffilata!!!! mmm mmm good

man was it good. Its tough to find them up here.

rootsradicals wrote: i skimmed it, and saw "drop dead gorgeous" and "pictures"...but saw no pictures

yeah I took about 100 pictures with my digital camera, and had to load them onto my dad's laptop during the trip. Still waiting on the CD from him.

that was long

You should have went the other way....across Lake Erie and passed through the Welland Canal...then you would have sailed past me.

phantom87 wrote: You should have went the other way....across Lake Erie and passed through the Welland Canal...then you would have sailed past me.

We alternate each year between a Lake Erie trip and a Lake Huron. So next year I will be on Lake Erie. But the furthest East we go is Cleveland.

Edited by themovielife

Dinner Story: We went to an Irish pub for dinner. Hostess was cute but our waitress was hideous. We sat with a large group. Well Terry decided to start a little war. He tosed his straw wrapper across the table (like 10 feet) and right in my beer. Right as our entrees arrived I returned fire and hit him square in the forehead. Rachel returned fire FOR him in the form of a heavy cane sugar packet. I wasn't looking and the corner hit my eyeball scratching the cornia. So I had one eye closed all night. Of course it was tearing, which made the other tear, which made my nose run too. To amke up for it Terry bought me a beer or 2 (4 pints of Wickard's Red). Now Theguy does not drink very often at all. 4 was enough to get me pretty messed up. Plus I had no depth perception, which made it worse. As soon as I decided to lay down for the night, the boat started doing barrel rolls. The direction changed depending on which way I layed. Woke up without a hangover though.

we need pics of the twins