43°44’51.6″N 81°43’05.6″W
Sept 19 – Maitland Valley Marina

I arrived at the marina at 4:00pm. The trip from Sarnia to Goderich was approximately 58 nautical miles & it took 9 hours.

The first hour out of Sarnia was very slow going because of the current but once I was a few miles beyond the mouth of the St. Clair River my speed went from 2 to 7 knots. That’s not very fast for most power boaters but it was a major jump for a little single engine trawler!

It started to rain about 9:00am but it was not heavy & was coming straight down so it helped to flatten out the waves. That made my ride a lot more comfortable – even if I was confined to the inside helm.

The trip to Goderich was very straightforward. I set the autohelm on a direct course to the marina entrance & then didn’t have to make any course adjustments for the next 6 1/2 hours! During that entire time I didn’t see another boat.

The rain was intermittent so every hour or so I went up to the flybridge to take in the fresh air & enjoy the solitude.

Even in the rain I had good visibility & could see for several miles all around me. By 2:00 I started to get glimpses of the huge salt storage building in Goderich Harbour but as you can see in the photo below, the sky was very low & overcast & the shoreline is barely visible in the distance. By this time the lake had also flattened out like a millpond.

At 3:45 I was finally approaching Goderich Harbour & began to navigate towards the channel to the marina

Catherine & her Mom drove up to Goderich to take me home. But first we celebrated our reunion by going out for dinner at a local restaurant across the road from the Town Beach. We finished our meal just in time to enjoy another beautiful Lake Huron sunset.

Even though it was not part of my original plan for this year, I enjoyed my impromptu voyage from Port Stanley to Goderich. It brought back a lot of memories for me of my trip on Ananda – in the other direction – in 2010. My first real adventure on a boat.

I’ll go back to Goderich on Friday to have the boat hauled out of the water & set up on jack stands for winter storage. It will be a bit of a sad day but I’m ready for a rest & I’m sure the boat is too.

Cheers!