Grayhaven State Mooring Facility - Detroit

We had a long distance planned for today but with a favorable St. Clair River current, we thought it should be doable in a normal day. The winds favored the sailboats going in the other direction. The wind came directly over the bow, so the sails would not have helped in power sailing so we spent most of the day just motoring. It really would have been nice to have a beam reach to see how fast we'd go. In any case the early wind felt weak and would not have helped regardless. We did have an issue with the wind speed indicator. The thing that spins on top of the mast was stuck so we really didn't know how fast the wind was going. It came unstuck later in the day; likely a spider web. The wind did pick up a little during the morning but the direction didn't change. When we hit Lake St. Clair, the wind died right when we had a chance to change the angle on the wind. So the motoring continued. We eventually got a little favorable wind later in the day for about an hour and did put up the foresail to gain some benefit.

A last look at the Port Huron boardwalk where the municipal marina slips are. This is a short walk to downtown. Many seasonal slip holders have picnic tables or bar tables, coolers, cornhole, etc. at the end of their slips. When they don't go out on the boat, or after they come back, they hang out and visit with other slip holders, transients (that's what we were) and passers-by. After dinner, a walk that should have taken us 10 minutes back to the boat took over an hour because all the boat owners that were moored in the municipal marina that we chatted with. The boater society is very nice.

This is likely a racing boat that is going to participate in the Bayview YC Port Huron to Mackinac Island sailboat race on July 20. It is a non-stop race that they winner will likely do in 30-35 hours of straight sailing. This year is the 100th anniversary and over 300 boats have registered.

Front view of the racing boat.

Another view of the Port Huron Yacht Club. It looked like they had more sailboats than power boats.

Industry on the Canadian side of the St. Clair River.

Residences on the Michigan side of the St. Clair River. There were many types of houses. Some older smaller ones and others where it looked like someone bought multiple lots and put up one huge house.

It looks like this guy has too much money (to pay a gardener) or too much time to mow a flag into his yard. This is a beautiful house but there were bigger ones.

Mining for gypsum (I think) in Michigan.

Lighthouse in Marysville.

This was a super big boat we first saw in Port Elgin Canada moored right in front of the marina office. We chatted with the guy and found that he was heading to the Bahamas via the St. Laurence. We saw him again in Port Huron, again with a sweet slip in front of the office. Here he passed us on the way and asked where we were headed. We might see him again in Put-In Bay. This boat was about 68 feet long, had 2 e-bikes, a Jet Ski and a dinghy that probably cost more than our boat.

One of several big ships that we saw. We'd come a long way hardly seeing any, and today we saw at least five. This is a choke point forcing all boats close together between stretches of open water.

A view of the Grayhaven Mooring Facility. The Detroit River and the northern end of Belle Isle are off the right of the picture. There is a big block of townhouses in the background. This place just seems like a place people keep their boats.

Grayhaven is not a marina per se but it does have bathrooms and showers. It's just called a mooring facility although I'm not sure what the difference is between that and a marina.

Being the 4th of July, an open restaurant was hard to find. Luckily my cousin lives close by and came down to see us and drive us to a restaurant. We ate at Fishbone's, which I think is a small chain. I had Jambalaya. Being a chain, they didn't have any Great Lakes fish. They had a pretty extensive beer selection. One that I tried was Norm's Raggedy Ass IPA from Griffin Claw Brewing Company in Birmingham MI, which was excellent. I also had a very good Founder's Mortal Bloom. They had many others on draft and in cans.