Hit the water early today as they were calling for the obligatory showers and thundershowers late in the day schtick. We covered close to 50 miles in 7 hours and arrived at the Ashtabula Yacht Club in the town by the same name in Ohio. Now, in order to get to the club we had to navigate through a working harbour, down a river, under an elevated conveyor belt and under a lift railway bridge.

The converyor belt was a concern because nowhere was there any indication on charts, GPS or signage, of the clearance When you're looking up your mast and trying to determine if you're gonna clear it or not, with a wind pushing you along, it's a bit of a pucker moment, if you know what I mean! Anyway, we made it and got to the club and scored the 2nd last spot they had. We were greeted b y 2 very nice members who helped us tie up, gave us the layout of the club and even offered to drive us into town to get whatever we needed. They also invited us to the Friday night Sailor pot luck dinner.

We got squared away, took Finn for his celebratory bladder evacuation and headed into town to get the groceries we didn't grab the previous day in our haste to extend our lifespan. The store was a bit of hike and ended up being the same chain as the one in Cleveland, sans the gun toting security guard. Got back to the club and had dinner with the local sailing fraternity and met some great people who could not have been more hospitable.

Now, throughout this trip on this blog I've been telling you how we almost always seem to miss out on the local events as we either get to a town too early or too late for the big summer events (Peterborough being the exception!) As luck would have it, we even landed here on the kick off evening of the Wine and Walleye Weekend! (Honest to God!) I'm not sure what all that entails but there was a classic car show on the main street tonight which was pretty cool. We saw a parade float with a giant walleye with neon lights on it too so maybe there's gonna be a parade as well.There's a fishing derby on this weekend so I'm thinking the promoters threw in the wine part for the wives so the guys could partake. Genius, pure genius! I'm not sure if we'll have time to stick around for some walleye tomorrow but we'll see what happens. If you're in this area in your boat, it's worth coming here as they couldn't be more accommodating!

Oh yeah, the photo today is off a logo on a local boat of Spaceman Spiff, an alter ego of my favourite comic strip character Calvin of the Calvin and Hobbs strip. He's everywhere!