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We left Bayfield at 0700 under cloudy skies and a cool, light breeze  from the SE. A boat we met up with in  Bayfield, Liberty’s Reach, with Mark and Eva Armstrong on board also left with us. We motorsailed with the main and made good time thanks to the help of a favorable current and arrived in Kincardine at 1230.  We made a quick tour of the town and then returned to the boat where I had a chance to read for a while before cocktails and a return to town to dinner. We ate at the Bruce Inn patio overlooking the lake and we all enjoyed all you could eat fish and chips or in my case shrimp which I washed down with Guinness. It was a very pleasant evening. Tomorrow we are off at o7oo again for the 60 NM run to Stokes Bay where we will tie up at the Tamarac Inn. The wind are predicted to be SE to E. so it should be another pleasant day. I doubt we will have an internet connection so the next update will be the next day from Tobermorry.

We planned to stay today at Bayfield. I stayed on board after a quick trip to the grocery store for some supplies and worked on a series of small projects. Don and Lew biked to the fish store and bought some smoked trout and salmon while Kerry and Gretchen made the rounds of all the shops in town. At 1800 we gathered on Royal Eagle for margaritas and then to grill steaks, bake potatoes and enjoy a cauliflower salad I made earlier that day. We were all in bed by 10pm for our early departure tomorrow for Kincardine.

The weather forecast for our trip across southern Lake Huron to Bayfield was a little troubling since the 10-15 knot SE winds were predicted to shift to the E at 20+knots sometime during the day. That shift would put the wind and seas on the nose. Nevertheless we decided to leave since the forecast for strong  N winds for the next day was even less appealing.  We departed at 0700 under thick clouds and a forecast calling for showers.

Final preparations before an early departure from Port Huron.

We moved over to the Canadian side of the river where there is less current and made our way out into Lake Huron, cleared the shoal water on the east side of the shipping channel and turned for Bayfield. The prediction of 10-15 knot winds was accurate but they were in the E from the beginning and we elected to sheet a partial jib in hard and motorsail making 7.3-7.5 knots. Soon after entering Lake Huron it started to rain and we had light to moderate rain for the rest of the day. The temperature was cold en0ugh for us to see our breath. Under the protection of our dodger and and cockpit cover we were comfortable and dry. We furled the jib up just outside of Bayfield as the winds started to pipe up and tied up at the Bayfield Marina at 1345. All in all not a bad day and we were glad we elected to leave.

Bayfield is a quaint village filled with interesting shops and restaurants and is our favorite harbor on Lake Huron. It has the Red Pump restaurant which is our favorite restaurant on Lake Huron so it is not a surprise that we walked there  in a light rain for dinner. My saffron risotto with seafood medley was outstanding and everyone else raved about their meal as well.  And to top things off the rain stopped while we ate dinner so we walked down the hill to the boat in the first dry conditions of the day.

Royal Eagle and Wind Chaser at the dock in Bayfield.

We left Windsor’s Lakeview Park Marina at 0730 and tied up at GPYC’s fuel dock at o845. They were expecting me and the dock attendant immediately drove me over to West Marine to pick up my regulator AND A SPARE.  So I am back in the grilling business. We departed at 0930 and started the long haul across Lake St. Clair and the up the St. Clair River to Port Huron which is only about a mile south of where Lake Huron empties into the River. We had good weather for the trip but the fluky east winds which was constantly shifting and rarely over 7 knots meant we never tried to sail. Freighter traffic was light with no upbound traffic and 3 downbound ships. We arrived in Port Huron at 1730, took on 30 gallons of diesel at the marina across the river from the Port Huron YC and then moved to the wall in front of the club.

Taking on fuel at Port Huron. Port Huron Yacht Club can be seen across the river.

After a quick round of cocktails, We walked three blocks to Fog Cutters restaurant for dinner. The restaurant is on the top(6th)floor of a building near the river and offers both an extensive selection of fish and panoramic views of the river and the Blue Water Bridge which connects the US and Canada. The food was great as usual but we did not linger since we expected to leave early tomorrow.

Gretchen, Lew, Kip, Don and Kerry (L to R) enjoy dinner at Fog Cutters Restaurant.

We left PIB at 0700 on a beautiful, sunny cool day.  The winds were a light 7-9 knots from the NE so we got some drive from the mainsail, but it was basically a long day of motoring.  It was an easy, largely uneventful trip.  Ship traffic was light up the Detroit river as we only encountered one up bound and 2 down bound ships.  We did pass several large groups of swans in the small craft cut-off.  The unnerving part of the trip up river was the complete lack of activity at the steel mills on the west side of the river.  They literally were silent.

One of the three freighters we saw

I was able to call West Marine’s Sinclair Shores store and determined they had my propane grill regulator in stock so tomorrow before heading across Lake St. Clair we are going to pull into the Grosse Point YC.  The GPYC is only 15 minutes from the store and the Harbor Master has agreed to give me a lift to the store to pick up the regulator.  I also got a call from Raymarine and learned they hope to have my RC 320 Chartplotter fixed tomorrow and on its way to Kevin Scheiferstein who will bring it with him when he meets me in Sault St. Marie on July 2.  The chartplotter was a last minute failure the week before I left Vermilion, and it is a backup in case I have a problem with my laptop based navigating system.

We arrived in Windsor at 1515 and that represents our fastest time up the River.  Tomorrow, after picking up the regulator, we will cross Lake St. Clair and head up the St. Clair River to Port Huron and dock at the Port Huron YC.  If all goes well, we will be there before 5 pm.  It is a long trip as we will be fighting a strong current  that gets as bad as 3.5 knots in the vicinity of Port Huron.  I should be able to update the blog again tomorrow.

It is 7:30am Monday morning and we are underway from PIB to Windsor, Ontario via the Detroit River.  Sorry for the lack of updates, but the last two days were very trying.  I awoke last Saturday morning expecting to get underway for Windsor only to discover when I started the engine that I had no output from my altenator.  We went into the city docks to get access to power for my AC battery charger  while we assessed the problem.  After talking with some locals, we all came to the conclusion that I had a bad regulator and there were no replacements on the Island.  The only thing to do was to go back Vermilion, and that’s what we did.  On the way back we talked to Ken Anderson and determined he had a replacement regulator  and would drop it off at the boat later that day.  So late Saturday afternoon, I installed  the new regulator , turned the engine on and we still had no output.  Fortunately, earlier in the day I had called Marcy and arranged to have a spare altenator I had at home  delivered to Vermilion.

Sunday morning Tim Quigley was kind enough to come over to the boat at 8am and after checking things out we determined the altenator was indeed bad.  Off it came, we put my spare on with some difficulty, and lo and behold by 11am we were once again charging.  I owe Tim big time for his help.  At 12:30 we repeated our departure for PIB, and this time enjoyed a beautiful sail in 9-11knots of wind for 20 of the 25 NM miles of the trip.  This time Lew and Gretchen Myers on Windchaser, a sistership of Royale Eagle, were with us and they will be travelling with us until about June 30.

So once again thing are relatively well aboard Royal Eagle except that I dropped the gas control valve for my grill overboard last night and I will need to find a replacement in the Windsor area.  But I will be out of Lake Erie in about 4 hours and hopefully out of the clutches of the evil spirit that has been dogging me with one system failure after another for the last several weeks.

Marcy and I drove to the boat yesterday and spent the night after loading the last supplies and clothes.  We had dinner with Lew Myers and his granddaughter Alysha(sp?), who had sailed down fron Mentor to Vermilion, and Bill and Cindy Boaz at a local Mexican restaurant that serves great margaritas.

Friday morning I was up early to start a clean-up topside and to make final preparation for a noon departure.  Don and Kerry Albanese arrived at 10:30 and we packed up their final contributions including lots of fresh vegetables and fruit.  We left early at 11:45 into a lake that had lots of left over lumpy seas from the NW/N winds that blew yesterday and last night.  We motorsailed using the main and made good time despite the falling wind and slop.  We arrived in PIB at 1530 and picked up a mooring buoy in the harbor using our “Happy Hooker” ( what a great, ingenious device).  We plan to go into town for awhile and then eat dinner on board. In the meantime I am typing this blog entry and enjoying my first rum and tonic of the trip. 

Booting up the PC to plot the course on the virtual charts

Royal Eagle at the mooring in Put-In-Bay

Tomorrow we plan to leave early and go up the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario. Fighting the substantial current going up the river makes it a long day.  We had planned to go to Windsor on Sunday but while talking to the Marina I learned the river will be closed for 4 hours Sunday afternoon for airplane races.

We are off to a good start with everything working well so far and a good forecast of sunny settled weather for tomorrow

In 2005 Royal Eagle and I along with a number of family and friends enjoyed a 10 week cruise from our home port of Vermilion, OH (Vermilion Yacht Club) on Lake Erie to Lake Superior. We spent one glorious month in Lake Superior. My feelings about that trip were summarized in the last words in my log from the trip….”When can I do it again.”

Well 2009 is the year to do it again. I plan to leave June 10 or 11and return September 13. By leaving earlier and returning later than the 2005 trip, we will be able to spend almost 7 weeks in Lake Superior. I hope we have something close to the great weather we had in 2005.

This trip I will be using a blog to post the details, including pictures, of our adventures. If you have an interest in keeping up with our travels you can check back to the site often, or better yet, just enter your email address into the “Subscribe to Blog” box found on the lower left side of this page.  If this doesn’t work or you later want to be removed from the email list, feel free to drop me an email (kschmidt@ctnet.com) and I’ll make sure the update gets processed.