Flushed Out, We Say Good Bye To Lake Erie Ep. 83

I’ll just get it out at the beginning. Leaving Detroit behind and entering Lake Erie, we were both a bit apprehensive. Apart from the tasty mojitos at Put-in-Bay on our way through last time, Lake Erie had not been very kind to us. Bugs, hurricane-force winds, shallows – I would have been perfectly happy finding a portkey of the kind Harry Potter would discover to take us directly to Lake Ontario. But being mere Muggles, we were going to have to do this ourselves.

The action adventure got off to an immediate start as we were pushed down the Detroit River, running with the strong current directly into an opposing wind, what we affectionately call the Buzzards Bay effect, as it is reminiscent of being flushed out the Cape Cod Canal into Buzzards Bay with it’s prevailing SW winds and step square waves.

The waves settled down after we got out of the current effect of the Detroit River and we turned to port to make our easterly progress. The destination for the night was Pelee Island. But before we could enjoy this uniquely Canada island, Mother Nature had some more tricks up her sleeve. We watched as the skies darkened to the west of us and a distant crack of thunder could be heard. Canada Coast Guard came on the radio to warn boaters about strong wind conditions in Western Lake Erie. At the end of the broadcast, they let the word ‘chance of waterspouts’ linger in the air waves as they signed off. Immediately, we started pulling up the NOAA radar page for the region and checked other weather sources. Sure enough, there was a heavy rain system marching across the Michigan/Ohio border, from Toledo and on out into Lake Erie, intersecting directly with our course. NOAA does a great job with these radar images, providing estimates of rain fall starting with light green coloring (light rain), to yellow, and finally to red which indicates very heavy rain. They will also box off areas on the image to show where there’s a risk of severe thunderstorms or waterspouts. Here’s an example of what they look like.

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