Downbound on the St.Clair River
Rob Bondy
Big houses, small houses, houses with round turrets and stained glass windows. Houses with brightly painted Muskoka chairs out front. A family with generations, all outside playing and enjoying a summer’s day and all that life has to offer.
Old churches, some simple and straightforward, painted white, some stone and ornate.
So many love the water and are drawn to it as I am. It's calming and soothing. A highway for commerce and a playground for families and individuals too, like me.
One boater tows another upstream as I chug along at 9.3 knots downstream, the mighty St. Clair pushing me a little faster than my normal 7 knots.
A freighter approaches from astern. He's loaded heavy and looks like it might be the same one that passed me in Lake St. Clair, on my way to the town of St. Clair, for the Antique and Classic Boat Show there. I approach the St. Clair Cut now and will soon be in Lake St. Clair, homebound.
I slowly gain on a big tug, pushing a barge loaded with large coils of steel - scores of them.
All is calm and the sun shines at 5:38 p.m. Overcast to the west, but the nasty stuff is behind me now, to the north, up Sarnia way. I wear my spare spectacles to write these words. My favoured pair fell from my shirt pocket and into the water as I tied up at Algonac, Michigan, four hours ago.
The water here is so clear and blue.
The tug, Anglian Lady, Pudgie, and the freighter are all in a line now in the St. Clair Cut. Slowly, gradually, the freighter closes in on us and I see now that it is indeed the Michipicoten. Built in 1952, 698' long, and she's still working, paying the bills.
I'm a lucky dog, I am. Such a neat old boat I get to enjoy. Another adventure among the islands and small towns along these mighty rivers and lakes. The beauty they behold and the history that they are. I'm a lucky man indeed!
Note. I ramble along these waterways in my 35' cruiser, Pudgie, built in 1949. I spend a month each summer roaming the lakes and rivers in this neck of the woods. In 2008 and '09 by myself and now with a sweetheart of a girl on a sweetheart of a boat. Life is good!