Gunkholing in the Detroit River Mouth

It was Memorial Day weekend, and we both had Friday and Monday off! The opportunity seemed ripe for adventure. First, there was talk of doing a Huron-to-Erie Corridor motor/sail on the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and the Detroit River. Then, there were hopes of a trailer sailing expedition to the Straights of Mackinac. When we awoke on Friday morning, however, the thunder storm forecast in St. Ignace was getting dicy, and they were calling for about an inch of rain over the weekend up north. Instead, we decided to avoid the Memorial Day rush to the north country all together and enjoy an overnight sail in our home turf: The Detroit River Mouth.

The forecast was good for Friday and Saturday morning, so we decided to put in at the boat launch at Lake Erie Metropark, do some sailing in the mouth of the Detroit River and Lake Erie, and then to head in to a nearby island with a shallow harbor for the night where few boats would have shallow enough drafts to enter.

The Detroit Light marks the entrance to the shipping lanes for boats traveling between Lake Erie and the Upper Great Lakes. As we passed it, we thought of a friend who told us of a time he sheltered there with a crippled sailboat in a March snowstorm. It's no longer manned, but the sea gulls keep it white washed.

This was our first overnight sail of the season, and we were enjoying an easy breeze and zero commitments. There was a light breeze from the south, so we tacked upwind to the lighthouse for the afternoon.

Who knows how many times we've rounded this light house? Something about rounding a lighthouse is always exciting, though. especially when there is a freighter in the channel!

After rounding the lighthouse, Mark took a snooze in the cabin while I sailed downwind. Eventually, he came up top, and we changed to wing on wing for the rest of the downwind run.

We turned in to a local *very* small boat gunkholing location in the Detroit River: a sheltered harbor in an island, with less than a couple of feet of water, even when Lake Erie is at high levels. We paddled the boat in, and enjoyed a peaceful evening listening to the birds and watching the giant goldfish swim around (we've seen koi in these parts before). The air was dead calm, so we crawled into bed without even tying off the halyards or lowering the burgee. We settled in to a deep sleep.

At about 4:00 am, we got a shocking wakeup call. Suddenly, there was bright light filling the cabin of the sailboat where we were sleeping and the sound of a loud motor humming only feet away. The first thought was that it was either a UFO or a minnow trapper. Minnow trappers tend to travel around at night with bright lights in shallow areas. Then, we heard "yeah!!! Is he dead? That's a big one!" Minnow trappers are never prone to saying, "That's a big one!", so we realized it was actually the local young folk bow hunting carp. Apparently, we were not the only vessel with shallow enough draft to get into this harbor. They paid us no mind, but slowly motored around the harbor hooting and hollering, with their lights continuing to fill our cabin. Finally, they left the harbor and continued around the island. We fell back into our deep sleep, this time dreaming about UFOs.

We continue to feel so lucky to have a boat so small that it doesn't matter what the weekend weather turns out to be. A stormy weekend in the north? No problem! We can go south!