St. Clair Shores, MI

As we left Monroe at 8:00 am this morning, not many of the other boaters were stirring. I guess the Regatta went until the wee hours of the morning.  ðŸ˜† 

We headed up the Detroit River and said good-by to Lake Erie.  The Detroit River is part of the connection between Lake Erie and Lake Huron - whereas the Erie Canal is the connection for the Northeast and the Midwest.  The Erie Canal has locks because the Oswego River and the Hudson River are at different heights. So we go thru locks to raise or lower the water level for the boat. Similarly, Lake Huron and Lake Erie have a difference in water elevation of 8 ft. This is not addressed by locks on the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, or the Detroit River, so the water from Lake Huron is flowing downhill to Lake Erie. That creates a current for those of us traveling upstream. Today, we had enough current to lower our speed by 2.5 knots. 😳 

Entrance to the Detroit River from Lake Erie

The Detroit River is a major shipping lane in the United States.  Therefore, the channels are huge.  In some places, there is one channel for downstream and another channel for upstream.  This is a middle of the channel marker.  We hadn’t seen anything like it before.



Here are some pictures of our trip up the River so far, including the City of Detroit. 


City of Detroit


Canada on the east side of the river

Henry Ford’s River Rouge Complex.  Henry Ford knew he could have a larger profit if he took raw materials and made all the components for his cars himself.  Therefore he built a factory to make everything his cars needed. It’s an extensive area. The Ford F-150 is currently made here.

We are in one of the marinas just off of Lake St. Clair at the end of the Detroit River called St. Clair Shores.  Michigan has the second most boat registrations (California is #1). There are so many boats here that the road that services all the marinas is called the Nautical Mile. Michigan is surrounded by water with the exception of its southern border. I’m not going to say that boating is different here. I’ll just suggest you watch this video:  Boats in Michigan

Another nuclear power plant on Fred’s tour. This is the Fermi Nuclear Power Station south of Detroit in Lake Erie.


Comments

  1. BrickJuly 26, 2021 at 6:28 PM

    I recognize Detroit from when I did a year-long working gig in that area. But I really loved your picture of Canada. I guess you can now say “been there, done that!”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Taurus Great LoopJuly 26, 2021 at 7:17 PM

      Interesting - I forgot you were in Detroit that long. I do remember talking about the airport though! And no, technically we haven’t been to Canada; we may have touched on the border line in the water. 🤫

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