We’ve started our trip with the Club race to Middle Bass Island. This race always seems to be a drifter as was the case this year as well. After an hour and forty minutes we had only reached Mouse Island – a couple of miles away so we decided to pull out. Glad we did as it didn’t get any better. Down come the sails and we motored to MBI. Nice relaxing lunch and watched as the rest of the fleet pulled in 3 hours later. Life is too short for ‘drifters’. At the awards ceremony I got a ‘non-participation’ trophy – what’s with that Mark?? On our way to dinner we ran into Dale and Pat, old friends from Mentor Harbor – 90 miles away. Small world.

On Sunday we had the most fantastic sail all the way to the Detroit River with winds on the beam between 14-16kts. While we were hailing Bablo, our destination for the evening, other friends of ours from Mentor heard us on the radio – but they were already in Windsor, four hours north of us. Did I mention small world?

The good news – we made it to Boblo Island in 4.5 hours. The bad news – it was filled with seaweed (lakeweed?). So after 3 attempts we decide to abandon this destination and on to another port. Uh oh something doesn’t seem quite right with the rudder and engine – more to come later.

After a few frantic calls – no dockage anywhere (hydroplane racing in Detroit), a quick call to our Vice Commodore, who was organizing this trip, and he got us into Grosse Ile YC. That’s where I dove down with knife in hand to cut away the seaweed from the prop shaft and rudder post – major problem averted! But wait – there’s more. As all of us started plugging into the power grid we’re blowing breakers (and they couldn’t find the breakers), by the way, who puts 15 amp outlets on docks anymore??? The club responded by getting one of the members to string 100+ ft of 30 amp cord to each of our power lines so we could have air conditioning . We finished up the day with a wonderful dinner with all of the couples from the other CIC boats docked there. Tomorrow - it's up the Detroit River to the 'Old Club' on Harsens Island on the northern end of Lake St. Clair