09/17/2009, Locksport, NY
We finally have a camera again. The picture above is of us tied up at the first of the Erie Barge Canal Locks. We left Tonawanda in the afternoon after George did some work. He starts his mornings woriking between 5:30 and 6:00. Normally, we try to leave the dock at some point in the morning and I take over the helm while George and Ben do their work. They take a break for lunch and coffee(for George). By late in the afternoon George is usually finished, with the exception of working on the phone, or if something comes up that he needs to deal with right then. Ben on the other hand often works until much later, of course he takes a lot more eating breaks and he doesn't get started nearly as early as his dad. But he is doing lots of school work and is ahead of where he needs to be in most of his classes.
Today we travelled just under 20 miles. An easy day for a change. We saw lots of wildlife, mostly birds but we did see several deer as well. The canal is really quite pretty as you travel along and you move in and our of populated area.
When we arrived in Locksport the lock master suggested that we spend the night tied up so that we didn't have to pay for an extra day on the canal system. He was really nice and gave us a tour of the area. The locks open up again in the morning at 7:00, but I don't know how early we can leave. A group of power boaters came in after us and two are tied in front of us and one is tied behind us. This is a tight spot and with the way this boat backs up I think we want the other boats out of our way, at least the one that is behind us. In fact I'm not sure there is even room for us to get out around him if we wanted to.
We'll see how it goes. According to the lockmaster we are still early in the migration south, so we have some time.
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09/13/2009, Buffalo NY
Time for an update. We don't seem to get to this every day or two, but we'll keep trying.
We left Geneva On The Lake before 8:00 Sunday morning. If you're ever in this area be sure to stop here. It's well kept and there are plenty of places to walk and/or ride your bike. The permanent boaters were extreamly friendly. In fact I want to say a big thanks to Debbie, Jeff and little Alex for helping us out by taking us to town to do a bit of provisioning. If Debbie hadn't done that we wouldn't have had any beer for the wonderful bonfire that we were invited to on Saturday night. Lots of people showed up and there was plenty of great food and they even had a live band (that was excellent) right there by the beach and fire. Thanks again guys.
We motored sailed to Erie. This is a very good harbor, but the scenery isn't the same as it is in Geneva and it certainly doesn't have that relaxed laid back feeling. The marina has locked gates at the end of each dock and you can see the gang kids hanging out up on the road by the marina. Kooper's walks were very short during the evening and early the next mornig. Our sail from Geneva to Erie was 50ish miles and it was generally pretty good, although we did run in to some following waves during the last two hours as we prepared to enter the harbor. There was a lot or twisting on waves but we made pretty good time.
Monday morning we left for Buffalo. NOAA was calling for winds between 5 and 10 knots coming from the west and moving to the southwest. The waves were to be building to 2 to 4 feet. We had to make this run in one day as there was no place between Buffalo and Erie that was deep enough to take our boat. The weather suggested that Monday was the best day since the rest of the week was going to be bad weather. We left at 7:00 and for the first hour or so we had land winds from the south and calm seas. As the day progress the winds picked up and moved to the north. This actually gave us some good sailing and the waves varied from dead calm to up to three feet. As we got closer to Buffalo the winds changed and came up from behind and the waves started to build.
About 20 miles out of Buffalo, just as the waves were approaching 6 feet from behind, we were stopped by Customs and Immagrations. They asked us several questions and when they discovered we were Canadians we offered to show them our green cards. The driver/questioner was a young guy and turned to his superior to see what they wanted to do about the green cards. The answer...ask them if their son is in school and how they are educating him. Clearly they were not interested in getting any closer than yelling distance with the waves building like they were. Good thing because it probably would have taken a few minutes to root the greencards out.
When we finally arrived at the Buffalo harbor we were running in front of 6 to 12 foot waves without any sails up. Too much gybing. Finally, after almost 12 hours, which is really quite good for and 80ish mile trip, we tied up behind the Buffalo Marine Museam and used the battleship to break some of the wind. After we had been in for a while the winds finally started to die down and the water outside the harbor appeared to be laying down as well. Maybe we should have planned for a night arrival.
Shortly after that my OLDer brother Mike came to spend his birthday with us. We had a nice dinner out and did some catching up. We were glad to hear how much he was enjoying his new Bayfield 32. We hope he follows us south sooner rather than later.
Tuesday, after a very leisurely start for me, (Ben spent time doing lots of school work and George spent even more time doing regular work.) we i left the dock for the slow easy trip down the Black Rock Canal. We past under one bridge. through a lift bridge and a swing bridge before reaching our first lock. We had to wait for a large barge to clear the lock before we entered and had the whole lock to ourselves. It was much more stressful thinking about it than actually going through.
Last night we tied up at Rich Marina just below the lock. We took the sails all down and both booms off. Today, the marina pulled the masts and put them on the racks that George and Ben built and set on the deck. After that we motored to Tonawanda where we are presently tied. That means we are actually in the Erie Canal. Yea!
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jk
09/11/2009, Geneva State Park Marina
Well. we've been "slow" and the winds have been "steady." Unfortunately they have been "steady " right out of the northeast. We returned to the boat on Wednesday evening, just before midnight, and we met a very nice man who talked to us for almost an hour. He had been out racing earlier in the evening. He shared lots of information with us and I loved the name of his boat, "Flat Stanley."
Yesterday, we left Cleveland, afte a week, and headed northeast along the coast. We were hoping to get to Ashtabula, which was about a 55 mile trip. After 2/3rds of the distance had been covered the light east winds and 1 to 2 foot seas NOAA had called for turned out to be gusty northeast winds with 4 foot seas, both on our nose. We changed plans and called for a slip in Geneva State Park Marina. We dropped down to about 4 knots with the engine running. But we made it and are tied up comfortably to the wall.
Today, Friday, NOAA called for building seas and 20 knot winds on our nose. That information, combined with several conferences calls George had to make lead us to decide to spend an extra day here and hope for better winds tomorrow. It wasn't so bad. it meant George got a lot of work work dones and he was able to build the first of our mast supports for the Erie Barge Canal trip. He also has a line set for the height he wants to set the masts at.
Ben spent the day doing school work. He's doing really well, although we did have to sit him down today and make him do more detailed writing when he answers his questions.
I spent the day stowing things that still have not found an appropriate hime and adding another coat of varnish to some of the seat teak sticks.in the cockpit. I can screw them down sometime tomorrow and then I can move on to the last dozen sticks, and they're all short ones.
Tomorrow we hope to head to Erie and then on the Buffalo on Sunday. We hope that our luck with the wind changes and we'll get some steady winds with a westerly element to them. But according to NOAA I shouldn't hold my breath. For those at home keeping score we have not fought dominantly north winds all the way up Lake Michigan, southerly winds down Lake Huron and now it would appear thet Lake Erie does not plan on being out done by the other lakes. I guess it's just good practice for the time we get to head east into the trade winds.
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09/05/2009, Edgewater Yacht Club, Cleveland
I guess we can just put it down to bad planning...or is it? We left Put-In-Bay on Friday morning, at 10:00, and sailed toward Cleveland. We figured it was time for a 50ish mile day. We started calling for slips around noon. Edgewater Yacht Club was the only place we could find. That's not the bad planning part, because Edgewater is a great club. They have over 400 slips and they are very accomodating. We came in not knowing where we were supposed to be, as usual, and we tried to pull a St. Hogs tie-up (Captain Ron style) but there were about four guys out there to politely tell us where to go. When we got to where we were to dock we had at least six guys ready to help us tie up. Very friendly folks.
We were invited by everybody to head up to the restaurant/bar/club house as soon as we were settled. When we got up there for a drink and a quick bite to eat we found that not only were they having their meeting but also a birthday party and they had live music. We think the guy that was entertaining was the same guy we say in a bar when we were at Put-In-Pay. His boat is clearly much faster than ours.
This morning we got up and decided to call for a slip tonight before we left. Good thing we did. There wasn't anything between here and Erie, and Erie was too far for us to make in one day. Well it's too far for Kooper to make in one day. So back to the office and a quick talk with John the head of the marina and we were good to stay until Thursday. George has to go to the office on Tuesday and the next place we can rent a car is Erie, and that's more travelling than we want to do in a day.
So today we managed to get a good chunk of the cockpit seats stripped and a first coat of varnish on. We were also entertained by the air show. The jets flew right over head and we could see the stunt pilot do their thing by the airport. It was like ring side seats. George especially enjoyed watching them fly by. Tonight there is a different group performing at the bar, and we don't even have to leave the boat to enjoy listening.
So in the end, although we didn't plan well in the organizing of a slip we ended up getting stuck in one of the nicest places. We also have managed to get a lot of work done on the boat, and it's always good to shorten that boat chore list when you get a chance. We'll head off again on Thursday, assumming the weather co-operates.
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