Lake St. Clair and The St. Clair River

Lighthouse on the Detroit River

From Kean's Marina, I made a nearly 40nm run to St. Clair Boat Harbor. The first couple of miles I was still fighting the current in the Detroit River. After the river loosed its grip, I had a smooth cruise across Lake St. Clair. Well, mostly smooth.
Let me back up a bit. When I started the cruise, I was towing the dinghy. After some problems, I decided to carry it on the swim platform. That has been working just fine for the last thousand or so miles. The only problem with it back there is that my rear vision is blocked. As a result, every once in awhile I'll steer to the port side and clear my stern.
So, I'm cruising across Lake St. Clair and I decide to clear my stern. And, I got the crap scared out of me. Right up close behind me is this huge Great Lakes freighter and it making about 12 knots. At least twice my speed. I did a hard starboard turn and went past him in the opposite direction. I got beat up a little by the wake, but I tucked in behind the ship and everything smoothed out.
In the early afternoon of August 9, I entered the St. Clair river. And, again I was fighting a strong current. So much current that I throttled up to full power. When I've still got about two hours to go to my destination, suddenly the power on the engine goes to about 1/4 throttle. I wasn't sure what to do, so I throttled back to zero. The engine, at idle speed, was shaking like mad, so I shut it down. Now, I'm drifting back down the river. My first thought was that I had run out of fuel. Illogical as I had fueled up the night before. But, I checked anyway and found a nearly full tank. I was getting ready to declare an emergency, as two more freighters were headed toward me, when I thought - let me try to start the engine. It started right up and I continued, at full power, to St. Clair Boat Harbor.
Safe and sound, I filled up on fuel and tied in for the night.
In the immortal words of Scarlett O'Hara, I'll just think about this tomorrow!