August 4, 2021, Wednesday, Jefferson Beach Marina, St. Clair Shores

Today started a lot like yesterday. Coffee done and blog posted by 8:00 AM. Peter was up and busy soon afterwards. He accepted my offer of a morning cappuccino. While we visited we had a Skipper's Meeting to plan today's voyage and departure times, and also the trip to Algonac. We plan to take a different route to Algonac than I did last year, which will have more to look at and also be 4 miles shorter. 

We had a late departure today as we cannot arrive before 1:00 PM and the trip is only 13 miles. I took a nice walk around the area while Kerry slept in. It really is very nice in this marina and the areas surrounding it. It is kept very clean and orderly by many employees (an amazing number really) and police on bikes. We have not felt unsafe here. A lot of the 23 permanent dockers here are black and are very friendly. I remember talking to some last year. The chap next to me has organized a 50 boat rendezvous in Metro Beach, MI for this weekend. There is a 6 year wait list to get a dock here. 

We left Milliken around 11:45, a good half hour or so after Brillig. We helped them shove off then had lunch. It was 13.4 miles to our dock in Jefferson Beach. It took us  2 hours to travel at an average speed of 6.6 knots. We never caught Brillig but entered the marina just a few minutes after them. Our trip was very pleasant and we took showers in the sun off the back of Annie on the way over. 

I navigated a new way today, one I have never done before. On my phone I have app that will do an automatic route for me, from one destination to another. So today I had it chart the route from Milliken to Jefferson Beach. Then I followed the route using Annie's auto helm to stay on the charted course. On the chart picture below, the pink is the charted course and the orange is the course that Annie is following. It worked really well. I program in the draft of Annie and the app chooses the route so that we will not run aground. 

Brillig was tied up when we arrived and the Orros helped us dock. It took a while to get settled because of strange electrical and dock cleat arrangements but eventually we got both boats got settled in. This is a big commercial marina and Kerry and Marianna made their dissatisfaction with the ambiance known. Our plans called for us to stay here 2 days on the return trip too. Well, after a short discussion we called Algonac and made reservations to stay there on the return instead of here. As a bonus, there is even a bourbon festival going on in Algonac then. We will cancel our reservations here.

We got our bikes out and all rode to West Marine where Peter had a new set of boat shoes waiting for him. We had dinner at a nice Greek restaurant, Pegasus Taverna. All of us enjoyed our meals. Kerry and I had big Greek salads. Later Kerry and I rode to Kroger's to get some items she needed for this special eggplant recipe she is going to prepare for us. 

Back on the boat we climbed onto the top deck to enjoy a glass of wine and read. Peter joined us for a little while. It was cool and pleasant. No big plans for tomorrow other than hitting Mike's Marine Store and a couple other random gift shops. Oh - Kerry wants to wash our windows too. Peter plans to tour this giant marina in his dingy to check out all the boats. I hope to be able to catch a ride with him.