Gentle Giants

Our first night on the St. Clair River was spent docked at Sarnia Bay Marina. The employees welcomed us in our little canoe and couldn't believe how far we had managed to paddle. The further we travel, the more we enjoy watching people's jaw dropping expressions when we tell them where we started our journey.
As I looked downstream from the marina, towards the industrial heartland of Sarnia, I couldn't help but feel apprehensive about the amount of ship traffic we were going to encounter. Our experience from previous summers has taught us to avoid paddling close to large freighters. The steep walls of the ship allow waves to reflect off of them producing large and confused seas. At this point, we had only paddled next to ships that were docked and I had no idea how we would manage to paddle with moving freighters.
The following day, we were surprised at the gentle wake generated by the passing ships and after having a large 1000 footer pass by our canoe we aptly named the freighters - "The Gentle Giants." As the day wore on, I even mustered up the courage to touch the bow of one of the freighters. It was docked of course.