St Clair, MI August 10, 2016

Today started with blueberry pancakes made by the Skipper for the Princess. Yum! We left Port Sanilac at 8:30 on our way to St Clair. As it turns out, we were very fortunate to get in. They are sold out for the weekend. Some yacht club reserved all the slips. If we had not skipped two ports and moved our arrival dates here up, we would have been closed out.

It was a straight shot from Sanilac to the Blue Water Bridge. It was 39 miles to our dock in St Clair. We made the 1:00 bridge. I had to speed up a bit to make sure we made that bridge opening.

Pine River Bridge that opens on the hour and 1/2 hour.

We motored at 8.1 knots today, but hit 12.8 knots once with the same motor speed going under the Blue Water bridge because of the strong current. I was able to spot the bridge 14 miles from it. Our next trip to Boblo island is about 70 miles, but we should be able to average 10 knots with the favorable current.

When we went under the Blue Water Bridge we completed a circle. If a string had followed in our wake, it crossed over the outgoing string yesterday at the bridge. We had traveled 1037 miles at that point. We have traveled 1049 nautical miles now that we are in St Clair. Our trip home from Leland has been 326 miles so far.

The seas were really flat today. It was a perfect day for a powerboat trip down the lake. The AIS tracked Annie as we traveled. It is amazing technology. It sure helps keep track of freighters too.

The water color was spectacular. I am not sure if this picture conveys how beautiful it was, but as the Donald says, "Trust me!"

Of course we passed a bunch of lighthouses today. This one warns of the shore on the west of the Blue Water Bridge.

While I was looking forward to getting into the St Clair River, I should not have been. The waves in the river were horrible. Speed boats kept blowing by us with huge wakes, and those wakes bounced off the metal sides of the river sides making it very rocky. 

Once we got in our dock and tied up we were very hot. You don't notice the heat on the water, but it was stifling on land. My super crew presented me with a cold Stella in the proper Stella chalice once we were inside with the air conditioners on. What a great crew!


There is no laundry at the marina, but they have a shuttle service and they took us to a downtown laundry. Kerry thought our dirty clothes were cleaner than the machines, but we washed anyway. There is a great downtown mall here, so we were able to stay very entertained while the clothes washed and dried.

You can learn something every day. The couple docked next to us demonstrated how to stay cool using a sprinkler on the dock. They took a tour of Annie as they had never seen a boat "quite like that."

It was too hot for a kayak ride today I was told, but the Princess promised we could do one tomorrow morning. I really want to see what is down the river. We had a pizza delivered to Annie for dinner. Our beautiful weather could be ending tomorrow, as there is a 50% chance of thunderstorms for the next couple of days.