The silhouette was a gothic tower spreading from a wide base at its deck, chain plates and lower shrouds lifting the eyes up the masts in line and the booms with sails tightly furled up to the slender masthead. As it came abreast of us, I dipped my Canadian flag, a tradition of saluting a navy ship. However it did not return the salute. It was a lovely sight motoring up through the misty river. I gave him several blasts on my horn before he even saw me and then tried to stop.
Night sailing up a river is interesting and challenging.
The buoys have to be carefully watched as even a few feet outside the channel will take you from 34 feet to three feet or less. The main buoys are lit, but the spar buoys have only reflective tape. Going up the edges of the river have less current than the middle, and so we skirted up the shoreline. The current increases as you get closer to Sarnia, with the current under the Bluewater Bridge being 4 to 5 knots before getting into Lake Huron. Winds were light and of course in the wrong direction.