Saturday, August 5, 2023 Port Huron

Today was a long day at sea, 13 hours. I think my only trip longer was when I helped bring Voyager back from Port Dalhousie which was lengthened by a Coast Guard boarding. Nothing like that happened today, although I did have to "tack" to keep clear of a racing sailboat neat Port Sanilac. It was good to arrive at Port Huron. You can barely see Voyager leaving Harrisville in this early morning picture.

We were hoping for a couple of hours of nice flat seas. But when Peter and I talked on the dock we could hear the surf hitting the breakwall, so we knew flat seas were just a wish. The seas were not terrible, about 1.3 feet, But they were on the beam so our trawlers did their customary rolling, but it was tolerable. The big question was should we stop at Harbor Beach today or go all the wall to Port Huron. We agreed to decide once we got to Harbor Beach. 

Seeing a sunrise at sea is a rare event for us.

I had made coffee and tea for us before we left the harbor. Thanks to Marianna we had two delicious blueberry muffins to enjoy with our beverages. She later said she and Peter had a potato chip break thanks to us. 

Kerry took her first Dramamine of the entire trip today as a preventive measure. She was up for an hour or so then took her familiar horizontal traveling position. She got up again about noon fixed a pizza lunch for us before she was back into bed until about 3:00. Solo sailing anyone?

Earlier in the week we had been concerned about crossing Saginaw Bay in the strong westerlies we were experiencing, but the ENE winds of today eliminated that issue.  Peter called when we were 5 miles from Harbor Beach and said it was decision time. Their choice was to keep going to Port Huron. Marianna already had us lined up with reservations. (Actually she had us at Harbor Beach too, and at Lexington tomorrow - nothing left to chance!) That was our choice too, so it was an easy decision to point our boats to Port Huron, some 61 miles away. 61 miles away from CHICKEN! And, we won't have to worry about tomorrow's weather or the high winds predicted for Monday and Tuesday. (Marianna always calls to cancel unneeded reservations.)

Harbor Beach has a nice lighthouse too.

As we continued on the wind lightened from 9.8 to 7.8 and the seas diminished from 1.6 ' to 1.0.(This according to the Southern Lake Huron buoy) They also shifted from the beam to behind us, causing Annie to regularly surf, occasionally hitting the high 9's. Once we hit 10.3 knots. It was a very pleasant ride actually. I set our destination waypoint as the Blue Water Bridge. 

I must admit I wish the weather would have allowed us to leisurely cruise down Lake Huron instead of spending 4 nights in Harrisville and sprinting to Port Huron, I would have enjoyed stopping at Harbor Beach and Lexington. They are nice destinations and Peter and Marianna have not been there for some time. On hindsight, Peter and I think we probably could have traveled on at least one of those days. I am sure we would if we had a do over. 

Kerry made us a mini happy hour about 4;30 which turned out to be our dinner. Our incoming and outgoing wakes crossed under the Blue Water Bridge at 6:40 PM. Thanks to the amazing current, we zipped under the bridge at 12.9 knots, much faster than the 8.5 we had just been traveling. We pulled into Port Huron at 6:45. It took about 30 minutes to clear two the bridges and get docked. So, for the day we traveled 111 miles (a new Annie record) in 13 hours and 2 minutes at an average speed of 8,7 knots underway. We've traveled 686 nautical miles to date. Bed time was about 8:45 for this captain.

Since we were not sure we were coming here we do not have any plans made for our visit. We paid for 2 nights and could stay longer. The only item on my personal agenda is to get more fried chicken. Kerry likes the huge consignment store here and both the ladies love the upscale grocery store. There is a great hardware store here as well as a good marine store. And we all love the Raven coffee house. Peter is coming over tomorrow morning for his cappuccino and we'll start making plans then. Algonac will be our next stop. We hope to go from there to Middle Bass Island. It's about 81 miles, a trip which no longer seems as long as it once did.