Luca's Boat Ride to Canada and Back

Luca's Boat Ride to Canada and Back

(YOU CAN CLICK ONCE OR TWICE ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM.)

Luca took his first trip to a foreign country today on the Dream Queen boat. We left at 1:00 in the afternoon, followed the Detroit River northeast towards Lake St. Clair, went under the Bell Isle Bridge, circled around and crossed the river going south to beautiful Windsor where we followed the shoreline to the Ambassador Bridge and beyond. We then followed the Detroit shoreline again. We saw the People Mover that we rode a few weeks ago, many historic old buildings and some newer ones before returning to the docks.

The top photo came from Jennifer who works at GM in downtown Detroit. The GM RenCen is near to the dock for the Dream Queen.

There were so many things to see that we had a hard time focusing on everything.

We saw a boat called the Bristol Bay, named after a body of water in Alaska. The Bristol Bay has two jobs. It is both an ice breaking tug boat and it also works with weather buoys and aids-to-navigation buoys from Lake St Clair through the Detroit river and all the way to the western basin of Lake Erie to near Cleveland, Ohio.

We saw some of the buoys with numbers on them in the water on our trip.

As an ice breaker the Bristol Bay was designed to continuously break at least 20 inches of hard, freshwater ice, but can break ice more than three feet (36 inches) thick by backing and ramming the ice. We did not see any ice today!

Look at the attached photo of the Bristol Bay. It's hard to imagine that it can crush through that much ice. It breaks through the ice in order to keep the shipping channels open for the freighters. The red brick building behind the Bristol Bay was built in 1875 (I think).

All along the river on both sides, the Canadian and the U.S., we saw many people fishing. Luca saw several people putting bait on their fishing rods and even saw some catch fish.

We went under the Belle Isle Bridge which was built in 1923 and was named for General Douglas MacArthur in 1942. The bridge connects the city of Detroit with the island called Belle Isle, which means beautiful island in French. Belle Isle was designed as a park by Frederick Law Olmstead—the nation’s greatest landscape architect. It was opened in August 29, 1881 so it is more than 100 years old. We were not sure our boat would fit under the beautiful arches - but it did! There are two boat clubs along this stretch of water, the Detroit Boat Club and the Detroit Yacht Club.

There are many beautiful apartments, condos and homes lining both sides of the Detroit River and also many marinas where people store their pleasure and fishing boats.

For a while we had the city of Detroit on one side of the boat and Belle Isle on the other side.

After we got to the end of the island, we crossed the Detroit River and rode into Canada on the boat. We then rode along the river by Canadian shoreline crossing over the top of the tunnel to Canada which is under the Detroit River.

There was a neat sculpture park along the Windsor shoreline that we'll have to go visit one day.

From the front of our boat where the Canadian flag was flying we could see the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest international border crossing in North America. More than 25 percent of all merchandise trade between the United States and Canada crosses the bridge.

We also went under the Ambassador Bridge and then turned around and crossed the river for the second time.

If Luca has his passport, we could go through the tunnel to Windsor and then back over the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit on one of our adventure days.

We saw the J. W. Westcott II mail boat that delivers mail to passing freighters. It's the only boat that has its very own special ZIP code 48222.

The company was founded in 1874 by Great Lakes Captain J. W. Westcott. Captain Westcott used a rowboat to deliver ship's orders to passing vessels. In 1895 he began delivering mail as well.

The company has been operating for over 100 years! To send mail to a vessel on the Great Lakes that passes through Detroit, you address it to:

(Vessel name)
Marine Post Office
Detroit, Michigan
48222

There are some photos of the mail boat delivering mail to one of the two freighters we saw while we were on the Detroit River. We were told that this south bound freighter was carrying grain and that was why it was low in the water. The other freighter we saw was going north to pick up ore to make steel and was riding high because it was empty.

When we got back on land we found that all the electricity in Detroit was down probably because of the use of air conditioners. All the businesses, colleges, the People Mover and all the traffic lights were not working. Nana very cleverly got on I-75 and drove all the way home safely. Even though it was not rush hour yet, it was extremely crowded with people trying to get home.