Well I finally did it.. I called the Clay Township Police department to let them know of our arrival date home.  We left Grosse Point Farms and headed up to Lake St. Clair Metro-park. It’s was about 16 miles from Grosse Point Farms.  We  spent our last night of our trip on Beauty  at Metro-park.   There are so many thing to explore at Metro-park. For all of our boater friends, it a great place to anchor or get a boat slip. We always seem to anchor in the north bay and dinghy into shore. If you are wondering what to do there, here are just a few ideas.

• Biking, walking, running, skating: there is a huge asphalt trail around the park
• Bird watching, boat watching, fishing, swimming
• Outside water park and pool
• Large beach, picnic areas
• Put-Put Golf, regular golf
• Very large marina with excellent facilities, the most protected place to anchor in all of Lake St Clair

This is the entrance to the park from the water.

 

Tracing our trip up Detroit, we anchored off Grosse Point in the south west end of Lake St Clair.  This is a photo of the Church we anchor in front of when the winds are right.  From here, our adventure took us North to Metro-park.

 

As we traveled up the lake towards Metro-park, we were passed the James R Barker.  He is a cargo ship.  Beware if you travel up the shipping channel in Lake St Clair.  These freighters run wide open up the lake and will often times throw a 10 foot wake.  The better way to travel through Lake St Clair is up through the middle, through anchor bay and through the North Channel.

 

This is the view of Metro-park from Lake St. Clair.  Just to the right of this point is the beginning of Anchor Bay.

 

We decided to get a pump-out.  Typically, in the South, it cost $5.00 for a pump-out and it’s free on the Erie Canal.  At Metro-park, it cost… get ready;  $15.00!!  That is for one tank.  Welcome to Michigan.

 

I enjoyed the day relaxing in my chair as we anchored in the North bay at Metro-park.

 

Before we knew it, the sun was going down.  We sat on the bow and reminisced about our trip.  We just wanted to wave to everyone as we passed our canal and restart our trip.  But work is work and Bryce promised his boss he would come back.

 

The following morning, we made our final stretch to home. The sky was dark. Looks like rain coming. Bryce gave me the thumbs up for anchor up and I put Beauty in gear and off we went.

 

If you are in the area you can rent a slip in the marina.  This is one of the best stops in Lake St Clair. Or just anchor in the bay.  We always anchor & swim.  This is a picture of the south Marina.  There are two areas to get a slip.  The North Marina is less expensive.  Seawall dockage is cheaper yet.

 

It feels like fall has already set in. There really aren’t any boats out and about today.  On the weekend, it gets much more busy.  We saw one boat headed in as we were going out.  We can remember when there were so many boats cruising Metro it was like driving on I75 in rush hour.  On the right in the picture below is the park area with trails that run along the water.

 

These are the buoys that guide us into and out of the park area.  For the other boaters, the charts seem to indicate the lake is quite shallow.  However, the charts show low water datum that occurs maybe once in 30-40 years.  This year, the water depth is about 4 feet over charted depth.  So water depth is excellent… and no tides!!!  The water depth into this park is about 10 feet.  The channel inside and the bay is 12-15 feet.  Shallowest is on the north side of this channel near these no-wake buoys.

 

If you decide to walk the park in this area, you can also uses these fishing piers to fish from.  The park walk connects these piers.

 

We headed to to the North Channel on Lake St. Clair.  As you can see, we were hit by heavy rain showers.   The whole summer was dry, but we brought the rain back with us.

 

This is the North Chanel Yacht Club.  The rain is just seconds away. LOL

 

To our surprise, George didn’t smell the area of the North Channel.  Normally, he would pop out of his towel and be very excited that we were headed home…HMM…I wonder what’s up with him?

 

The view of our Canal.  I miss the light the neighbors once had in their upper window that would guide us in at night. But they moved and things change.  Now with GPS, its not so difficult to come in at night.

 

Here is a shot of the canal. We have to go around the curve  and straight down almost  to the end.

 

We are getting closer. I feel a bit on edge (nervous) after a year on Beauty.  We just weren’t ready to come home yet.

 

Well, here she is.  We made it back! Bryce is turning so we can dock up. The cover stayed on the power boat. That was a good sign. As we were positioning Beauty guess what we saw….see below

 

This is our sweet neighbor and her lovely daughter.  They were welcoming us home. They had been following us on our blog and figured this was the day of our arrival back. It was AWESOME!!

 

With the rain, they had removed the sign. But it had stopped.  Before they could remount the signs, we pulled up. I think that is murphy…LOL

 

For some reason, George didn’t recognize the house.  Normally he jumps off the boat and runs up to the house.  Bryce had to carry him.  He cried all the way to the house.  He did not want to leave the boat!!  He still doesn’t seem to be happy that he is home.  Boy, we sure did turn him into a sailor…LOL

 

The final map of our journey shows the complete trip of about 7000 miles.  It completes what is referred to as the “Great Loop”.  With an added trip through the Bahamas.

I apologies for the delay of our finial blog.  I just have had an issues of closing it. I haven’t been on FB either.  Of course the most important reason is letting go of all  of you. We truly don’t want to say bye. But instead, THANK-YOU all for your support and listening to me whine about things.  Without you all, there would not have been a reason to even create a blog.  My tears are now rolling down my cheeks.  If I could I would hug you all. Until our next adventure I will see you all on Facebook. Jane Bryce Johnson is who we are if you are interested.

We are planning our next escape for 2017..  Stay tuned!!