Tim, Uncle Doug, and I ventured a trip on Lake St. Clair with our Com-Pac 19 sailboat on Friday. I was a bit nervous...this was BIG water compared to Stony Creek Metropark. At Stony, we are usually the biggest, heaviest boat. At Lake St. Clair we were instantly down-graded to minnow status! I still hold fast that we have the cutest boat, though.
The first thing we loved about our experience was the boat launch...nicely maintained and steep boat ramps....we hardly had to get the van in the water to launch the boat and there were no rusty nails sticking out of the dock waiting to scratch your boat. EAT THAT STONY! Look how smooth and cool we look launching the boat:
It's also great that the launching docks are located quite a ways from the actual lake, down a canal, so the water where you're launching is very calm. At stony, if the lake is majorly choppy, then so is the water in the boat launch...that makes things difficult sometimes.
Once we launched the boat, we proceeded down the canal toward the lake. The canal is lined with homes. Some of the people who live in those homes own some pretty good sized boats...I'd venture to say that some of the boats docked there cost more than some of the homes. I instantly felt like we were embarking on a voyage in a Barbie boat. He's a picture of Tim steering us down the canal.
As we got within sight of the lake, I grabbed my life jacket and put it on. This "lake" was looking like an ocean compared to stony (a.k.a. "over sized pond") and i was feeling a bit nervous. Three cheers for Uncle Doug who was quoted as saying, "Gee, Becca, I didn't know you were nervous...you hide it well."
Winds were predicted to be 10 to 15 knots increasing to 20 and the waves were predicted to be 1-2 feet. We really think the waves were higher...we were rockin' and rollin' in that boat the WHOLE time. I usually go up on the bow and walk around a bit...I didn't do that at all this time! We sailed around for about 2 1/2 hours. Nothing major went wrong. Yeah! We did have quite a few boats cross right across our bow (they are supposed to pass behind so that we don't have to sail through their big wavy wakes). One very large boat went right across our bow and the waves from the wake were so big that our started crashing up and down HARD...and off flew our VHF antenna...say good bye to $50 and the ability to radio for help.
Tim and I battled a bit of sea sickness...but thankfully never got sick. Uncle Doug has an iron gut and happily updated us on our location thanks to his GPS. He was the hero for the day, helping us sail and giving us much sailing wisdom.
I'm not sure how much we enjoyed the actual sailing. The conditions weren't exactly ideal...we were really getting knocked around by the waves...we couldnt just sit back and relax, and the wind was, at times, more than what Tim is comfortable sailing in. But, the whole time we were filled with the sense that we were really accomplishing something...so that more than made up for the lack of relaxation.
We were hoping to anchor somewhere in the lake and enjoy lunch...but setting the anchor and bringing it up in such choppy water would have been a bit tough. Instead, we elected to tie up in the canal and have a picnic.
All in all, the day was filled with a great sense of accomplishment! We can't wait to trailer the boat back to Lake St. Clair. We may even dock it overnight and try sleeping aboard. Speaking of sleep, we went to bed at 9:30 pm! The pirate life is a tiring one!
