Port Huron Floatdown, St Clair River MI

Sunday morning, my SIL Nadine came out to the RV to tell me that my BIL Roger would be here shortly to take us to lunch and to go see the Floatdown so we would have to hurry to get ready. He told her noon so she needed to run and get ready because that was only 1 hour and 10 minutes away. Being as I can be ready in 10 minutes, I knew I had plenty of time so I took the longdogs out for some playtime in their pen. I had already planned to go and see the event but didn't know if I could talk her into it so this worked out perfectly.

Roger took us to lunch at the Freighter which is right across the road from the St Clair River so we had a view of the very first floaters to come down. The traditional run for the floatdown is from the Lighthouse Beach (Conger Park) in Port Huron floating down 8 miles downstream to Chrysler Beach in Marysville. This event has been in existence since 1977.  You can read a lot more about it here.

The St Clair River is part of the St Lawrence Seaway which starts at the Atlantic Ocean and comes all the way inland to Duluth MN on the southwestern tip of Lake Superior. Gigantic ore carrier and foreign ships hauling grain use this passage between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. The water is very deep and moves very swiftly especially under the Blue Water Bridge between the U.S. and Canada. It takes about a mile to stop one of those big ships so small boats even have to stay out of their way.

The water is cold but the floaters had a nice sunny day for their float. Here they come.

Sometimes there are large clumps of floaters tied together. That's Canada that you can see on the other side.

This is a picnic table with barrels under the benches. Keep it in mind as you read through to the end of the post.

We walked all along the Riverwalk but I am going to do a separate post on that.

There were no ships going through the river which was very fortunate but you can see a couple of them tied up on the Canadian side for a size comparison.

We drove on down to Marysville to see some of the floaters coming in. Some used this boat ramp which was very slippery. Okay, apparently I am missing the "after" picture of the picnic table picture I pointed out so you will just have to picture it. One guy was trying to paddle them in, another was trying to balance them, and one of the women was sitting on the table hanging on tightly to the big guys shoulders because he was drunker than a skunk and would have fallen into the water had she not had a death grip on him. There was a lot of "celebrating" as people floated downstream.

Others came in on the beach which was much easier although crowded with people trying to get their floats out.

And lest we forget, those of us that live in the south are not the only ones that live on a border.

I had to add this photo for my family members. I saw this guy collapsed on his board as were were leaving. Who knew there were Amundson's in Hawaii?????

We were out and about for six hours having a wonderful time. Thanks again Roger!