42°59′43″ N 82°25′6″ W

Tuesday was a long day on the water – 9 hours – so we decided to have a slow start from the marina in Sarnia.

Pennie whipped up some awesome omelettes for the crew so we would start out with a full tank for the next leg of our journey.

By the time we polished off the breakfast it was 10:00am so we were keen to get underway.

As soon as we entered the St. Clair River we got a very nice speed boost from the current and were moving along at 8-9 knots. That’s a considerable improvement over Santosha’s “normal” cruising speed of 6.5 – 6.8 knots. Last fall when I was taking the boat to Goderich my average speed on this part of the river (going against the current) was about 3.5 knots!

Once we entered Lake St. Clair our speed dropped a bit but we were still making very good time. We encountered the first freighter right at the junction of the river & the lake.

It also wasn’t long after that when a Canadian Coast Guard helicopter took a close fly past us.

I guess they figured we were ok ’cause they didn’t stop or circle & kept right on going by.

It took us about 2 hours to traverse Lake St. Clair & enter the Detroit River. Through the day we took took turns at the helm. Pennie was in charge as we passed by Windsor & Detroit. The Windsor Casino seemed to have a magnetic draw on the boat as we passed by but we managed to escape it.

Traffic on the Ambassador Bridge was very backed up but we pretty much had the river to ourselves.

Our original goal was to make it to the Colchester Marina on Lake Erie but it was becoming obvious that we would have to keep going until 7 or 8 pm so we decided to find another marina on the Canadian side of the Detroit River just south of Windsor at LaSalle.

This was our last night before we would enter Lake Erie. Our passage from Sarnia was a great day’s journey. Time for some R & R.

Cheers!