Friday August 6th, 2010,

Partly cloudy, Hot, Hazy and very Humid!

It was an extraordinarily busy week for both Grant and me. We still had a considerable amount of 'things' to accomplish before we could say we were anywhere near ready. We needed to shop for food: canned, jarred, boxed and preserved. We needed a little meat, and as many fresh fruits and vegetables as I thought I could keep in an ice box. I always make my own soups, stews and sauces, even my bread and pasta from scratch. So, for me to be able to open a can, a jar, or a box and say "voilà", dinner is served well be a relatively new experience for me. I will let you know how that goes.

For this trip, I was very limited for space, equipment and time. I only had two burners, one large and one small. Though there is an oven, it has never been used. I thought it best to experiment with that at a later date. In addition, if the weather continued to be hot and humid; the last thing we would need would be more heat in the cabin of the boat, where we all would be sleeping.
Another chore that I had to do was to make certain there was a sufficient amount to drink. I had plenty of water, regular as well as carbonated, V8, ginger ale and diet Pepsi. There were also other thirst quenchers to imbibe in. A little wine or beer at the end of a long, hot, busy day is good for the mind and soul!

We certainly needed to hammer out and finalize a few more details before we could comfortably say "we are finished". We were making lists and checking them twice. Yes; it really was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. With all the purchasing we were doing, we had boxes, bags and crates scattered throughout the house. We had ordered and received our 'foul weather gear': jackets, pants, gloves and boots, we got our Sperry shoes and Sou'wester hats. We also got new sleeping bags. We wanted to be prepared for anything Mother Nature would throw our way. We bought gallons of sun screen and couple of hats to ward off some of the effects of the sun.

We were still waiting for some of the articles we had ordered on the internet. Even though Grant was diligent about the quickest shipping time, there are just some things that are out of our control. He had ordered a GPS unit from Calgary. It got as far as Toronto, but for some unknown reason it appeared to be "stuck" there. He called GPS Central, in Calgary, and had another one shipped overnight, which would still give us a couple of days to spare. No sweat!

Of course, one would expect "overnight" to be there the next day, or at the very least, the following day, but two days later, we were stilling waiting for the delivery. On the day before we were to depart, Canada Post delivered the original one, the one that had been lost in the postal system for more than a week. Oh, the "overnight delivery? We're stilling waiting for that one.
Another tardy delivery that seemed to be beyond our control was our life jackets. They were ordered from a distributor from Windsor. It would normally only take a couple of days at most, to get from Windsor to London. However, we are still waiting.

I was out every day to a variety of different stores buying all the non perishables. I was making lists for my lists; I was slowly but surely striking items off my lists. I bought some plastic crates to hold everything. They would help me keep things organized and would be easy to stack. Furthermore, they prevented me from overstuffing them, making them too heavy to lift.
Grant was busy categorizing the charts for the Great Lakes. He was numbering them in the order that we would need them. We finalized the arrangements for the dogs, which was more complicated than we anticipated. The kennel we normally used was booked, as was our second choice. Finally, we found one that looked very good. They had an opening for Kira, so we booked it. Amber was staying with my son. She has never had the vaccine for kennel cough, Bordetella, and there was no time left to get her in for one. I knew she would be happiest with J and his family. We also asked a neighbour to "keep an eye" on the house while we were gone. Even though we live in a good neighbourhood, it never hurts to have someone watching the house.
On Thursday evening, after Grant arrived home from work, we drove to Goderich to drop the CRV off. We would require a vehicle at Maitland Valley Marina, our new "Home Port", at the end of our journey. Finally, we were rapidly approaching our departure date. We would be sailing in less than 48 hours.

I was getting the crates organized by category, packing my shower stuff, organizing my clothes, what am I taking, what am I leaving? What will I actually wear? Is it going to stay hot? Do we need our foul weather gear? It seemed extreme, especially in this heat, but with the weather, one never knows. I would rather have them and not need them, than the reverse. So, I packed them all, my philosophy, one can never be too protected when Mother Nature decides to hits us with her best shot.

I dropped the dogs off first thing Friday morning; they are very good at making me feel guilty. They have the sad-eye, "please, don't leave me" look, perfected! I must admit, there were a few tears at having to leave them for such a long. I knew we would miss them, but I also knew they would have a great time.

I saturated all my flower and herb containers and the garden really well and said a little prayer to my Mom in the Heavens asking for some rain while we were gone. I figured the garden would survive; the containers though I knew would suffer the most, and really did not think they would do very well. All I could do was cross my fingers and hope for the best. The containers were already stressed from the blistering summer heat. I could only pray for some relieve for them, and maybe perform a rain dance or two.

I had everything prepared for Grant to load into my car when he got home from work on Friday, which was just after 2:00. He did his last minute packing, and then he tackled the biggest chore. He had to cram and jam all the crates, boxes, bags, suitcases into the trunk. Finally, he squashed and squeezed the cooler, the bottled water, and the beer, wine and soft drinks into the backseat, or maybe the other way around. It seemed endless. It was not an easy task as I have a two door Grand Prix, a much sportier car than a utility vehicle; believe me when I say "we had lots to try to fit in", maybe too much?
Having camped for many years, Grant is very experienced and organized when it comes to packing cars, though the crates, boxes, coolers and sleeping bags, etc, were arranged and rearranged a few times, they were in the car and out of the car and back in again, but finally it was done, everything was in, except us.

We barely fit in; I had to drive as Grant's legs would not fit behind the steering wheel. Trust me; it was not the most comfortable way to drive. I was not complaining though, I just wanted to get going.

I could barely contain my excitement, and I was pretty certain Grant felt the same way. We had been thinking and dreaming about this for three months. We had been all-consumed by all the planning and organizing.
When we got to the boat we wanted to get as much as possible unpacked and put away, so in the morning we would just have to get ourselves, and the crew organized. The plan was to set sail about 9:00 AM.

We were sailing from Bronte to Goderich. Earlier in the week we had talked with Ole and set our course and planned all our overnight stays at the various marinas along the way. The timetable for the first day, Saturday August 7th, was to sail from Bronte Harbour to Port Dalhousie. We would get up early and "motor" the couple of remaining miles from Port Dalhousie to the Welland Canal. We had no idea how long it would take to get through the Canal. The one thing we did know for certain was, commercial vessels took precedence over pleasure crafts, other than that, it could take six hours, or it could take twenty six hours.

Once through the canals, we will sail to Port Colborne for the night or day, depending on how long it will take us to get through the locks. On Monday morning, we'll set out on Lake Erie to Port Dover, Port Stanley and Erieau Marina staying a night at each Marina. We'll continue on Lake Erie to the mouth of the Detroit River and spend a night at a marina there. We think we may have to stop somewhere on Lake St Clair for a night and then sail up the St Claire River to Sarnia. Lastly, we'll sail from Sarnia to Goderich. We figure this will take about nine days, give or take a day, barring any trouble.
On our way to Bronte, we made a quick stop in Hamilton as there were a couple of things we still needed. The life jackets we tried to purchase on-line had not arrived, so we replaced them with a couple of Mustang PFD's. We will still use the original ones when we have guests on the boat. We finally got to Bronte Harbour at about 6:00 PM. We are standing on our sailboat! OMG, it's real. We did it. We really did it! It all seems surreal! It was just so damn easy; it went quickly and smoothly, no blips, bumps, hitches or glitches. Life really is Good!

Grant started to unpack the car; he was bringing the crates, containers and boxes, etc. to the boat. As he brought them to me, I would unpack them, find a home for each item, and hand the empty container back to him almost as quickly. He would then hand me another. I was wondering if I would ever see the end of boxes coming through the companionway door. I must admit, I was surprised at how much room there was on the boat, I was finding a home for everything.

That took us to 8:30 PM; we are uncomfortably hot, extremely tired, famished and very thirsty. We really needed a beer! We went to the local Pub, Coach and Four, for a late dinner. We thought this time we would try something other than their famous, and I might add very good, fish and chips. I ordered the Beef and Guinness Pie. Grant had the meatloaf, both were absolutely delicious, and of course we had a couple of tasty English beers to wash it all down with.
We checked into the Oakville Quality Hotel, which is five minutes from the harbour. Before we left London, I bought our crew member's gift certificates and thank you cards. Ole explained the "adventure" would be payment enough. I wanted to get the cards ready to hand out before we sailed. I knew I would have little, to no privacy, to do them during our voyage. Grant was busy downloading the manual for his new GPS unit; he wanted to be familiar with its operating system. He was actually quite impressed with all it did; he is in IT, so, for him, that's big.

I think it was close to midnight when I turned the lights off. We were hoping for a good night's sleep, as neither of us had slept well all week. We had been having trouble keeping our minds from venturing onto the mental lists of "things-to-do". At one point as I was drifting off to sleep, I realized I had forgotten to pack any sort of cutting knives. All I had were butter knives, and they were not going to cut much, yikes! We would rectify that in the morning.

Sunday August 2, 2010
London, Ontario

We are now the proud owners of a 1987 CS 30, we are so happy and excited about this newest addition in our lives. At present, her name is "Great Dane'; it is the perfect name for Ole's boat as he is Danish. However, we will be changing her name, as we want her name to suit us and our completely new life as sailors. I will let you know what her name will be in a later post, as I would not want to offend the gods', Poseidon and Neptune or any other god or goddess, for that matter.

One thing I negated to mention in my previous post is, Ole offered to help us sail our new boat to Goderich, with a couple of other crew members, as well as Grant and myself. This will be a perfect opportunity to get the "hand-on" sailing lessons we know we need. The offer had nothing to do with the final decision to purchase that particular boat, but it definitely is going to be a great opportunity for Grant and I. We will be sailing from Bronte Harbour, in Oakville, on Lake Ontario to Maitland Valley Harbour in Goderich on Lake Huron.

After confirming in our minds that the "Great Dane" really was the boat we wanted, we called Mike, the broker, and made an offer. There were many four way phone calls and emails between Mike, Ole, Grant and myself for a couple of hours. We put in an offer and stated it is the highest we will go, we really did not want to play the "back-and-forth" game of placing a low offer, and then having to increase by a few dollars, thereby dragging out the final result. It was a onetime offer, accept it or reject it! We did not want to offend the seller, as we knew it was a remarkable boat. As a result, within a few hours of putting in the offer, it was happily accepted, and depending on the Boat Survey, Great Dane would soon be ours.


The next step was getting an accredited boat surveyor. Once again, more phone calls, more emails, all to try and coordinate four busy people and their hectic summer schedules. Mike and the surveyor were both going to be away for a few days, so we had to wait until Friday July 30th, before anything could go forth; it seemed a painfully long time to have to wait!

This was going to be a "hands-on" sailing lesson, and an adventure all wrapped up into a very exciting holiday. We figured it would take about a week, maybe a little more. We knew we had a lot of preparation, planning and decision making to do, as well as lots of searching, shopping, purchasing and subsequently paying for it. Grant was doing what he does best, searching and researching, scrutinizing what we required, finding the optimum price, most importantly, the quickest shipping, as we had to have it before we sailed, then ordering it. We needed all the appropriate foul weather gear, life jackets for us and for our two dogs, Amber and Kira. We would also have to get flares, charts and information books about the Great Lakes, GPS units, waterproof flashlights, etc. You gotta to love the internet!
Grant was downloading information on Volvo diesel engines as well as all the facts and data he could find about CS 30 sailboats, as well as any other paraphernalia we may need for the boat.
It was up to me to take care of everything else, researching sea-sickness, and every conceivable cure for it: Gravol, ginger, in all forms, sea-bands which are an acupressure wrist band. Whether or not they work, well, that may be all in one's mind, but if one believes it does, then, well, it just may.
Another one of my tasks was to plan all the meals. I did not know if we would be in a Marina every night and if we were, did they have a restaurant on or near them? How many dinners would I have to make? I knew I had to get the morning and afternoon meals ready every day, which I did not think would be too difficult. As long as there was coffee first thing in the morning to ease the early morning fogginess, everything else would fall into place! I was pretty certain that breakfast was not going to be too challenging, or lunches for that matter.

I am the type of person who welcomes a challenge; I was really looking forward to this new adventure. The dilemma, it has been many years, since I last cooked on propane. I think one of the biggest challenges will be space, as there is very little room to manoeuvre in a boat galley. I have a small "galley style" kitchen at home, so I knew I had to be organized. I do know how to optimise space, how to eke out and utilize every little nook and cranny.

Friday July 30, 2010.
Bronte Harbour, Oakville, Ontario.
Sunny Skies, and hot
Grant and I were up and out of the house by 7:00 on the day of the boat survey. We were to meet Wallace, the boat surveyor, at 8:30. We got to Oakville in good time; we stopped at Tim Horton's for a coffee. At few minutes before 8:30 we went to the Yacht Club to meet Wallace. As soon as we got to the boat Wallace settled right into doing his job. Ole and Mike were entertaining Grant and me with sailing stories, and Ole was giving us a few more tips about the boat.
We had the boat scheduled for a 10:00 lift out so Wallace could inspect the hull which is all part of the survey. I know all of us were keeping an eye on Wallace, as we all wanted a favorable report. There were a couple of times I was a bit concerned with what he was thinking. All of were keeping our fingers crossed, I am certain. He was finished about 11:30, and went over the report with us, and addressed his concerns, which were relatively minor ones, nothing that Grant and I could not work on over the summer. Wallace assured us, we had a bought an outstanding boat, confirming what we pretty much already knew. That made all of us, Ole, Mike, Grant and I extremely happy!
Grant and I took Ole to lunch, to the 'Coach and Four Pub' just up Lakeshore Road from the Harbour to joyfully celebrate the positive report. We had the Friday "special", fish and chips, and a cold, dark, tasty beer. We started to plan the trip, in earnest, now that we knew the boat was finally ours, and we would be sailing the following Saturday, August 7th.
We said our good-byes after lunch; we were all looking forward to our sailing adventure with great anticipation. Ole's job was to look find one or hopefully two crew members to get us through the Welland Canal, someone who would hopefully continue with us all the way to Goderich. We knew we needed to have someone with a lot of sailing experience, someone who had time to spend the next seven to nine days sailing with us. I knew it would make everyone, including Catharina, Ole's wife, feel a lot better.
On our way back to London, we stopped in Hamilton, to look at Brewer Brothers and Dowsar Marinas. We bought a few more things we would need. Let's just say, we helped the economy that day!
So now we start to plan, organize and arrange our trip. Grant and I would be leaving London on Friday August 6th, and set sail, Saturday morning, August 7th. This is going to be a trip of a life time, one we will always remember, a memoir of experiences we can tell others.

Tuesday July 27, 2010

It has been quite awhile since I have posted anything on "The Blue Water Diaries." I can give you lots of excuses, but it boils down to lost documents, crashed computers, and time...just not enough of it!

We did get out for our Sailing Lesson with Gary, the only problem; the weather was perfect, too perfect, not so good for sailing lessons though. Our time on Gary's Beneteau 33 was amazing; unfortunately there was virtually no wind, so not a lot of learning that day. But, it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed ourselves very much. However, a couple of things were realised during that outing, I fell in love with sailing, really what is not to love. It is peaceful, you hear the birds and the water slapping the side of the boat, the solitude appeals to me, as well as the visual beauty, white sails, turquoise water and blue skies. The other thing that little three hour cruise cemented for us, we are most definitely buying a sailboat!

So now the fun begins, we are in full search mode, looking for "our" sailboat, the perfect boat for us.

We called JR to arrange another visit to look at the first boat we saw, the C&C 30, this time though, we would be looking at it with 'buyers' eyes. We were going to be asking questions, lots of questions, as this may be the sailboat we could be calling "ours" so we wanted to know everything about it.
One consideration was, it was over 30 years old, apparently in "boat years", that is not old. All the same, there were some issues that made us a 'tad' apprehensive. The main one, the boat leaks, evidently that is the nature of the beast. It is a man-made vessel, spending half its' live on the water. Odds are, it will leak at some point. What concerned us was why had it not been fixed? Another thing to consider was, no one seemed to know where this leak was coming from. Furthermore, it had leaked so much at some point 'while sitting on the hard', the water could not escape, so the water sat on the teak floors and stained them a sooty colour. The owner had covered the worse part, which was in the galley, with a black rubber matt. Our main concerns at this point were, how much was it going to cost us to find and fix the leak? When were we going to be able to get her out and sail? How much time did we want to spend on a boat "fixing her up"?

We thought we knew what we wanted, but now, maybe, not so much. We talked all the way home and well into the night about what we really wanted. We pretty much knew we did not want a fixer-upper; we did not want a boat that leaked. We also figured that a boat in excess of thirty years was maybe just a bit too old for us!

So, again after much discussion, we decided to ante up more money. That did not mean we wanted a larger boat, as we felt that 30' was large enough for us, but we thought it would buy us a slightly newer boat and that there would be more choices. As it turned out, there were actually fewer boats in our price and year range.

We did a lot of searching and researching. We search every yacht site we could find on the internet, we looked at individual broker's sites. We went from Bayfield to Goderich, to Hamilton, and then off to Scarbough, Port Credit, and Oakville. We were spending a lot of our spare time on either on a highway or on the internet looking for the right boat. What we had decided for certain was we both really liked the CS 30's. They have a great look. The outside is still a classic looking sailboat, and below decks appealed to the designer in me.
After many hours of driving the Highways, virtual and real, we finally found three sailboats we liked, well, actually, we found two we liked and one we loved, though it was considerably more money than the other two. It was a beautiful sailboat, one we would be very proud to call "our" boat. She had been lovingly cared for and it was very obvious at first sight why she was listed for more money.

So, again, we had lots to talk about. We weighed the pros and cons of all the boats we had looked at thus far, and we really did not want to look any further. We had three boats that appealed to us in different ways. One had a good price, but was in rather rough condition, the other had a "decent" price and was in "decent" condition, and the third, had a big sticker price, but was in immaculate condition. What was more important to us? Spending more money now, on a boat we could just sail away in, or spending less money now, but probably more dollars over all, not to mention the amount of time we would have to invest in her to get her up to our standards?

So we talked about it, came to the same decision rather quickly. We wanted a boat that we could be proud of, one we did not have to make any justifications for. We wanted the boat that we could just put in the water and sail away on. We wanted the boat that we fell in love with on first sight!

So, we found our boat, now it is time to go through the buying process.

Sunday July 4, 2010

It started about a month ago, in a restaurant on a warm Saturday evening, in the small port village of Port Stanley, not far from where we live in London. To get to the restaurant we have to pass a marina. Unbeknownst to me, my partner, G, had a dream, an unfilled, passionate dream that he had suffocated 12 years ago when he moved from New Brunswick to Ontario. We are sitting at a window table at M.E & Suzie's Restaurant and half way through our dinner, G throws out a jest, a joke, a little "ha ha", about buying a sail boat, selling it "all" and sailing around the world. I do not think he expected to get such an enthusiastic and positive response. Though, I had never really thought about sailing around the world, the thought took hold and a mere thread of a comment grew, and grew and grew. . .

After dinner we walked around the marina, and he talked a bit more about his dream and shared his knowledge of sail boats with me, which was a lot. This is really starting to sound and feel good. Of course the boats are beautiful. I love marinas, looking at all the sail boats with their sails put away, their tall masts standing sentinel above everything, seemingly trying to touch the sky. I was really starting to like the idea! Maybe not the "lets-sell-it-all-and-sail-around-the-world" part, but buying a sail boat and spending summer weekends sailing on one of the Great Lakes was really starting to sound like a really good idea.

As a child I spent every summer, on Lake Huron in the Bayfield area, so naturally that was where I was most interested in starting out again, that is where I really want to go back to. I know that going "back" is not always a "good thing", but in this case, I was starting something new, with someone new and doing something new. We were about to start our new dream, as it is no longer just G's, by now I had taken ownership of it as well. Also, to me, Lake Huron is the most beautiful of all the Great Lakes, AND, the sunsets are ranked in the top ten, as I recall. They are absolutely awe inspiring!!!

Over the next few weeks we each had our private thoughts about buying a boat, but I think G thought I had forgotten about it, but one night, again, over dinner, I mentioned that I had been thinking a lot about our dream of buying a sail boat. So, from there, it seems things really started to move fast. We thought it best if we went on a cruise, just a cruise, not lessons, not me hauling in lines, or reefing sails. . .just a three hour cruise! It proved to be more difficult than we thought. It seemed all the sail boats in the area had gone on vacation. . . sailing. We were not going to let this dampen our spirits. So, we did, as people often do, we pulled a few strings, talked to people, who talked to people who, well you get the idea. So, last Monday, we were still looking for a cruise, by Tuesday, it was a cruise with lessons, by Wednesday it was maybe we should buy a boat, a small one to start with, a 22 footer. I am texting back and forth with a friend, JP, who owns a Marina on Lake Huron. I am making arrangements with him for us to come and see him and a couple of boats that are for sale there, at the same time he gives me a another brokers name in Bayfield. Oh yea, this is really starting to sound good.

So it seemed everything was good, going our way, it seemed almost too good to be true. Lake Huron, check. Bayfield, check. Sail boats for sale, check. Life is good!

Saturday could not come early enough. Friday night I did not sleep in anticipation of looking for our small 22' sail boat and the possible start of our dream. We wanted to leave London early as we had to be in Bayfield at 9:00 AM to meet up with JR, and we did not want to be late. But I woke up feeling out-of-sorts, and the great guy that G is, asked "did I want to cancel"??? At first I said "no", then I said "yes", then, after a few minutes of deep thought I said "no". . ."let's go" So, off we go, we are a half hour late to Bayfield, but fortunately, JR is still there, waiting for us. Whew!

We tell him what we are looking for, a 22' boat, to start. He informs us he does not have any boats that size for sale at the moment. Of course I am all starry eyed, looking at every size of boat imaginable, everything, except a 22' boat. G asked, could we look at look at one of the larger boats interior as I had never been on a sail boat before, I had been on lots of power boats, but never a sail boat. . ".sure", says JR, "no problem". He shows us one that is sitting in its cradle on land. It is a red 30' 197-something, C&C, a lot bigger than the 22 footer we thought we wanted. The 30' is red and is sitting against a green grass and blue sky background, to me it seems huge!

So we climb on board. It still seems large to me, I am thinking "how are G and I going to sail this on our own". JR assures us that a 30' boat is not difficult to handle, in fact, it may even be easier that a 22' boat. He spent a lot of time talking with us, giving us the benefit of his many years of experience and knowledge and instilling the confidence in us that we were lacking at that time.

Next, he showed us another 197-something C&C, at least this one is smaller, by 6", but really, it does not seem as big, it's in the water, all nice and pretty sitting in its slip, with its mast looking tall and proud. The slip is close to the lake. . .my mind is working now, hmmm, we are nice and close to the lake, should not be too difficult to get out of the marina without embarrassing ourselves too much. And though it was only 6' smaller, it really did seem smaller, well, I guess ''all things are relative'. And JR, did tell us boats "shrink in the water", and it did seem to be true.

I like it, I see us sailing it, it does not seem to be too much of a feat now, but JR has done a great job of building up our confidence. We have taken up about two hour of JR's time, so we exchange info, shake hands and off we go to Goderich, to meet our friend JP. Though it was really nice to see our friend again, the boats there were really too big, or at least we thought so. We met up with a man who had two boats for sale. He had a 34' or a 36', now I really do think they are too big, but B, seem to think we could handle either one quite easily, of course he did want to sell them. He told us it may take a little more time to get comfortable with a larger boat, but he assured us we would love the bigger boat. I am sure he is right, but I still think a 36' boat was just a little too much boat for us. We decide to drive back to Bayfield and I fell in love with that area again. It is such a beautiful and calming place for me. After another quick look around, it was homeward bound for us, we needed time, time to think, time to "feel" if this is really what we wanted. . .Hell Yes!!!

We were given a name by JR to contact for half day lessons. So when we got home we emailed him first thing. We explained, again, what we wanted; GM has agreed to take us on board for my first sailing lesson tomorrow. Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to it, and I must admit, a bit nervous as well. I know it will be fine, I want it to go well. . .so that we can pursue our new dream.