Saturday 7/1/23
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| Bridge Harbor Marina (AKA redneck yacht club) Sunrise was pretty even with a freeway in background |
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| How can it be a bad thing when biscuits and gravy are this nearby? |
The road noise from the nearby busy freeway was something that we’d become accustomed to NOT hearing over the past several weeks however it had no affect on us getting a good nights sleep. Departing the marina we would be heading back down the Black River a couple miles before turning to continue down the St Clair River. It was determined that a couple of the lower lift bridges on the Black River that we would need raised would not open prior to 8 or 9am so we putzed around on the boat for a boat prior to departing at 9:20am. We had to wait for the first bridge (10th St Bridge) for only a couple moments before it stopped traffic and lifted for us to pass under comfortably. The second bridge (7th St Bridge) only would open on the 1/4 and 3/4 hour so we had to drift and wait for about 20 minutes to wait for it. The final one (Military Rd Bridge) opened almost immediately as the 7th St was down allowing us through to get back onto the St Clair River. As we continued down the river the landscape on the Canadian side was very industrial; packed with smoke stacks, ships and other industry. In stark contrast the American side was mostly residential and lined with many nice homes.
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| Canadian Industry We suspect this is where all of the smoke is REALLY coming from and the whole wildfire thing is just fake news 🤣 |
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| Cruising along at 12.8 mph at just barely over idle throttle As the morning ride went on and as we got closer to Lake St Clair more and more boaters had awoken from their stupors to start up their engines ruining our smooth water….the nerve these locals have! We had read that there was a morning boat parade as part of the annual ‘Pickerel Festival’ in Algonac, but we figured we would be a bit too late arriving to see it. We did miss the formal parade, however, as we were coming into town we got our own personal parade watching what seemed like dozens of classic boats (mostly old Chris Crafts) departing up and down river after participating in the parade. It was very cool! The question came to our minds of, “what kind of a fish exactly is a pickerel?” |
Some old reliable internet research left maybe more confused than we were because one of the first pages we came to stated that what Americans call a walleye crazy Canadians call a pickerel…hmm, who knew?
But…and now for the rest of the story!
Hard to fathom but it turns out the first internet page was WRONG (more fake news 😝)
Further research got us to what we now believe is accurate, or at least the story we will stick with. The pickerel is a member of the pike family. The walleye is the largest member of the perch family. All of this research has brought us to a couple conclusions:
1) perch is delicious and since walleye is just a large perch it makes sense that both are palate pleasers
2) pickerel is a pike and Erik’s experience/recollection of childhood pike fishing in Canada is that it was a bony ass fish not very good to eat telling him that he does not want to waste his time entering the pickerel tournament today.
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| Plethora of beautiful old Chris Crafts |
Happy Destiny slid into her slip at Algonac Harbour Club at noon with the sun and humidity bearing down making us grateful to have shore power to fire up the A/C.
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| The favorable current on the river allowed us to increase our fuel “efficiency” (oxymoron word on a big boat) to 1.36 MPG! |
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| Chris Craft started in the early 1900’s were manufactured here in Algonac until 1972 when they moved to Holland MI and later to Sarasota Fla This building at the marina, seen in the background, is over 100 years old and is now used for inside heated bot storage in the winter and parking for the marina during the season It’s a HUGE building stretching over 200 yards |
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| Algonac Harbor has its own water tower |
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| In the slip two over from us is this 43’ Tiara open bow cruiser Powered by (3) 600 HP V12 outboards Total of 1800 HP! 😮 |
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| Notice Riva taking a break in the shade under the car She was even savvy enough to choose one with a 454 engine (Same as Happy Destiny’s engines) |
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| We couldn’t finish it Had to surrender and ask for a doggie box |
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| The boom booms were nice but they did leave Riva, who was over a mile away secured on the closed up boat with fans and TV on, trembling and nervous |
Riva’s anxiety coupled with our exhaustion from all of the days activity lead us quickly to bed where Riva
appreciated the company and snuggles until we were all fast asleep.
Sunday 7/2/23
A local dock neighbor says they eat their weight in mosquitos every day
Layover days are a nice chance to get some rest and slow down for us and much needed. Erik even slept in until almost 6am today! The morning was spent lounging on the aft deck, fixing a big breakfast and then spending an hour or so at the pool/hot tub. There was a light rain occasionally and then the sun would peak out to raise the humidity throughout most of the day. Mid afternoon we rode into town to attend a 3pm AA meeting. On the ride there we managed to catch the tail end of the holiday parade. The church that the meeting was at was right on the main road that was shut down for the festival and parade making it challenging for regular meeting attendees to get to it. It turned out to be just the two of us and one other lady but was a good literature (Big Book, ‘Working With Others’) meeting.
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| Pickerel Festival parade float |
This is the 2nd parade of our trip with them 🤩
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| Every AA meeting should be required to supply PayDay bars |
On the way home we stopped at a pet store to get some shampoo for Riva. There just happened to be a West Marine in the same strip mall that was advertising a July 4th sale….can’t pass that up. We left there with a larger soft blanket, a throwable floatation/seat cushion for the helm seat, and a nice folding chair.
Folding chair complete with backpack straps
We are ready for the next parade…warm up the bagpipes!
Back aboard we grilled chicken thighs for a yummy dinner. One last ride on the bikes was made down the road to Kroger after dinner for a few essentials. The evening was spent filling water tanks and making routes for the chart plotter followed by a little TV viewing while finishing up the blog for the past couple days.
We are planning for an early, predicted damp, departure tomorrow morning because depending how we are feeling and how the cruising goes we may make it a LONG trip from here to Maumee area of Lake Erie. Or, maybe a significantly shorter run to Detroit area if our minds and bodies tire to quickly….one day at a time 😊
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