Cheryl's Notes:

The St. Clair river way had some tremendous houses. Some were older and small, and some were obviously new money and huge. We saw more boats in one place than we have seen the whole trip. We did notice a trend in some areas. The big boats were parked in their slips and the locals used their dinghies to run back and forth. I made my first navigational error of the trip. We had chosen a marina at the end of the Detroit River and then decided it was not big enough for our boat. We chose a different marina farther down river. I made the mistake of plotting our course to the first marina and then had to plot to the new marina on the fly. The pressure wouldn't have been too bad, but the area of the river by both marinas was very shallow. You could not navigate by sightline, but had to set very specific waypoints between the shallow areas. The channel into the marina was only five feet deep and the only slip that would accommodate us was the well for the travel lift. It was a very interesting evening. We had so many people talking to us about our journey that we forgot to take a picture of the boat in the well.

John's Notes:

We passed, were passed by, or saw more boats today than we have collectively seen on Lake Superior in the last several seasons combined. We also watched them consume a super tankers worth of gas and diesel. You can pretty much forget the rules of the road or common courtesy. Right of way belongs to the biggest, fastest boat.

The auto industry in Detroit may be in trouble but you would never know it from what we saw today. Brian Mackey's boat would be a support boat for some of the cruisers we say today. Gross Point must be the symbol for gross profit.

Interesting docking situation today at Erie Metro Park. Our slip is the travel lift well. There are about 160 slips crammed into a space that Port Superior dedicates to Dock 1. Lots of people came by to admire our boat. Guess they don't get many 36' sailboats in here. People were amazed that we could even get in. Cheryl continues to do a fantastic job of navigation. Tommy and I just have to follow the way points. Still don't think Tom is buying into all this electronic stuff. He would rather steer by sight but the water has been very thin even with our wing keel.

Something else I have learned. When I've been on previous long passages, I've had to resort to the use of one or two patches to combat the effects of motion. We have had some pretty lumpy conditions so far and I have had absolutely no signs of motion sickness. Even as I write this down below and we are rocking and rolling (written Monday morning 8-4), no problem. I think I can attribute this to the fact that I quit smoking last year (ok, except for a couple of Lamb's cigars) and limit myself to one or two beers per night once we are anchored or tied off for the night.