Nice sailing day - we averaged 6.35 knots today and it felt good to sail - running with the wind all day (hey isn't that a Bob Segar tune?) with all sails up. From Fairport we could see huge cooling towers in the distance for the Perry Nuclear Facilities and as we got closer I thought why not... 15 minute sketch with my colored pencils... I discovered that I have no perspective when it comes to drawing rolling waves... but it was fun to sketch again - it's been a while since I've picked up a pencil in Marcie's art room.

We put into Ashtabula at 2:45pm and Carpe' Diem was anchored already there. Looks like a mud bottom - 10-15 ft depths. They'd left in the morning about a half hour before us and it looks like they're heading in the same direction as us. We don't have our dingy in the water yet so I can't go over and chat with them. They don't have their ears on either so we'll wait a bit to contact them. It'd be nice to meet another couple doing the same thing as us.

Ashtabula is an interesting looking harbor. It has major iron piles and coal piles. We watched them unloading a freighter most of the evening and into the night too. A little history - The name Ashtabula is a Native American term meaning "many fish". The river was the boundary between the eastern and western tribes with the Iroquois claiming the western territory and the Algonquin claiming the land to the east. This was also the northern terminus of the "underground railroad" before the Civil War.