Christopher Cross sang about the joy and wonderment of sailing in his song by the same name. My boss Robb is sailing, if this would be the correct term for hopping a freighter in Detroit and plowing through the waters of Lake Erie enroute to Cleveland. The second leg of the trip will find him in Lake Superior and docking in Wisconsin. Robb is on day one of a four-day trip on a freighter named the S.S. Alpena, one of several cement-hauling freighters owned by one of our clients. This is an annual trip for Robb and he usually goes with an attorney friend mid-Summer, but for months their schedules, as well as that of the boats, just didn’t mesh. Robb decided to go solo after Scott bowed out due to a hectic trial schedule. While the accommodations are not as snazzy as that of a cruise ship, he has e-mailed me pictures of his living room with three big portholes and a picture of the view from just outside his room. That picture is above; the freighter is preparing to dock near the Cleveland cement silos. I have not been on the S.S. Alpena, but several years ago I visited a larger freighter, the J.A.W. Iglehart which often has paying passengers for Great Lakes cruises and the accommodations are very nice. The meals are taken in a dining room on bone china with crystal glasses – very elegant and you would never know you were on a freighter. Before the Detroit River Walk project was initiated, the cement silos were just a stone’s throw away from our office so Robb and I walked over to visit and have lunch a few times. They have a full-time chef on board and the food was exquisite; one time it was ratatouille and white wine in the dining room with the officers and another time we had hamburgers and massive onion rings in the ship’s galley. Robb has certainly developed an affinity for sailing. Over the last year he was on a large yacht sailing the Galapagos Islands for the Christmas/New Year’s holiday and then April found him sailing aboard a catamaran in The Great Barrier Reef and now he is aboard a freighter in the chilly waters of the Great Lakes. Hopefully, he will find a good night’s rest with the lapping of the water against this huge steamship and just a bit of paradise with the wind whipping in his face and hair. This landlubber will be visited by Mr. Sandman just as quickly after walking nearly five miles this morning.