Leaving Sault Ste Marie today for Detour Village located at the Lake Huron end of St Mary’s River. St Mary’s River is the main route between Lakes Superior and Huron. It is quite narrow in spots and has unbound and down bound channels. There are two sets of locks. One on the Canadian side which are now used for pleasure boats. And the other on the American side which handles the commercial traffic.
Before we pulled out, we check what we could see in the American locks and also check Marine Traffic – an app that tracks all vessel equipped with ASI. We wanted to know what was unbound that we might meet on the way. The channel just downstream from where we were is one of the narrow spots. The commercial vessel traffic is managed by the port authority as two ships would have issues trying to pass each other.
Image of traffic when we were leaving Roberta Bondar Marina showing three vessels. The Paul R Tregurtha over 1,000 and the Algoma Strongfield and the Sam Laud.
Moon Dance IV 