July 17th, 2015. Lake
Huron. The annual Olson family sailing
trip. Oh yeah.
This year’s sailing season began in May, when I moved our sailboat Bella
Blue from Port Dover, across Lake Erie, up the Detroit River, through Lake St.
Clair, then up the St. Clair River to the city of Sarnia, which rests humbly at
the far south end of Lake Huron. I was
joined by my dad and two brothers, which was the first time the four of us had been
on a trip together for 19 years. We had
an excellent voyage and kicked off the boating season in fine style. But after spending four glorious seasons
exploring the wonders of Lake Erie, why did we feel compelled to move the
boat? Quite simply, it was time to
discover a new Great Lake. Living where
we do in south-western Ontario provides easy access to three out of five of
these freshwater oceans and we want to sail all of them. Though we have no plans to leave our home
anytime soon, we felt that it was the right time to move on to the next lake, and
what better lake to explore than Lake Huron with its 30,000 islands and 5000 kilometres shorelines.
We chose Sarnia’s Bridgeview
Marina to be our new weekend home as it is a 90 minute drive from our house, is
situated directly on the American border (think cheap US suds...) and is simply
a top class marina. When we were
searching for a new base on Lake Huron our initial inclination was to choose
between Grand Bend and Bayfield, both of which are amazing seaside towns and
less than two hours from home. But when
we went to check out their marinas we just weren’t that impressed. During our investigations somebody we met
suggested we consider Bridgeview Marina in Sarnia, so we made a trip there and
after a warm welcome and guided tour by the marina manager Mike we knew it was
the right place for us.
The day the boys and I sailed into Sarnia was gorgeous, hot, cloudless, and
the perfect launch into an expected beautiful Canadian summer. How wrong I was! It would be two full months before we saw a
daytime high anywhere close to what we experienced the day we arrived. Though Ana, the kids and I still travelled to
the boat nearly every weekend, the days were characterized by unseasonably cold
temperatures, frigid north winds, torrential downpours and docks that were
practically deserted except for us.
Since we weren’t able to enjoy much time on the water, we spent a lot of
time exploring Sarnia and Port Huron, which is her US sister across the
river. Sarnia has the unenviable claim
to fame of being home to the largest petrochemical processing centre in
Canada. “Chemical Valley” is a three
mile stretch of oil refineries, chemical plants and other sorts of industrial
monstrosities that feature tall smokestacks with fire shooting out of the tops
of them. But as usual, the places with
the worst reputations are usually where you find amazing culture, friendly and humble
people and lots of hidden gems if you are willing to spend the time exploring. So that’s what we did and we were not
disappointed. We found festivals, shows,
antique markets, cool shops, coffee houses, a horse racing track, farmers
market, pubs and, most importantly, an Olive Garden restaurant in Port Huron
which is literally a ten minute drive from the marina. And since that is Ana’s favourite restaurant
we have become Saturday night regulars.
Directly beside the marina is a nine hole golf course so Magnus and I
bought golf clubs and begin most Saturday mornings with a round of golf, while
the ladies cruise around Sarnia checking out garage sales. As a kid I spent many summers at our family
cottage in Fishing Lake, Saskatchewan and an integral part of those summer days
was playing at least two rounds of golf per day. So I was very happy that Magnus took an
interest in golfing, and Stella too is very excited to start too once she gets
a bit older and strong enough to clobber those balls.
So though we enjoyed our May and June weekends in Sarnia, the weather
was an absolute bust. In fact, we had
planned an extra long weekend sailing trip up the US coastline for the last
weekend in June, but the weather forecast was so atrocious that we threw in the
towel, flipped the middle finger to Sarnia and instead took a driving trip down
to Pittsburgh, Washington, Annapolis and the Finger Lake region in upstate New
York and had an amazing trip.
Thankfully, as soon July arrived the temperatures went up and summer really
began. We spent the first two weekends
on the water in glorious sunshine exploring the lake, river and did even manage
to make that long weekend trip up the US side.
So here we are on Friday, July 17th ready to embark on our
annual two week sailing trip. We bolt
out of work at 4:30 sharp, go home to load up our gear, and arrive at the
marina by 7:30 and the boat packed and prepped for the ride. Our plan is to leave tomorrow morning at 4am
and head straight up the middle of the lake for 143 miles to reach Tobermory, which
is at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula and serves as the gateway to Georgian Bay
and the North Channel.
After readying the boat and cleaning off five pounds of bird droppings
from the topsides, we meet up with our dock friends Rick and Patty and invite
them into the Bella Blue saloon for a Friday night drink. They are local Sarniavians (Sarnittes? Sarnappians?
Sardines?) and Patty serves as the Lord Mother of our dock. Her responsibilities include organizing the
annual potluck breakfast and Canada Day BBQ, official greeter, gossip verifier,
and most recently, chief boater lobbyist who has convinced marina staff to
provide fresh Timmy’s coffee and doughnuts every Saturday morning in the gazebo....for
free! Rick and Patty are lovely and pretty
much the only people with whom we have struck up a friendship, firstly because they
are so cool, and secondly because they actually spend time at their boat on the
weekends. The docks have been literally
deserted most weekends and we really haven’t been able to figure out why. Bad weather, sure, but there were still
hardly any people on the docks during the past two beautiful weekends. We think that most are locals and therefore
just come down to the marina, jump 0n their boats and take off, then return when
they are done and immediately go home.
Or maybe they come down during the week when we are not here. It has been one of the biggest differences
from Port Dover, where most of the boaters were not local and therefore stayed
on their boats all weekend, which provided for a very active social scene.
Our guests part company with us around midnight and we pack it in
shortly after that, wanting to get a few hours of sleep before our planned early
morning departure.
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