Iceman Cruising
| Vessel Name: | Iceman46 |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Sea Ray Sundancer 400 |
| Hailing Port: | Ecarte Marime , Port Lambton , Ontario, Canada |
| Crew: | Wayne Franklin and Lori Tratnjek |
| About: | yearly cruising of between 1000 & 2000 kt miles thru Lakes Huron & Georgian Bay and/or Lake Erie and/or the Eire Canal , Hudson River , Lake Champlain, St. Lawrence River , Ottawa River, Rideau , and/or Trent-Severn Canal systems |
07 January 2021
October 21st & forward
I returned to the boat on the October 21st and with Gerald's help the batteries were removed and I cleaned under the battery cases and applied a layer of gel coat. I also looked for a way to run power from the new to be installed inverter to the power panel in the boat cabin. It took quite a while but [...]
31 December 2020
September 14th to September 21st
We left at sunrise for Kincardine and had good seas and were able to cut straight south instead of following the shore line for protection as we had done last year. We visited with Rick and Cheryl and left before sun up in order to miss an early afternoon wind direction change that never happened !! You've got to love weather forecasts !! We were in Sarnia before noon and stayed for a week. I rented a car and we drove to Ingersoll for Lori's car and visited friends a bit before heading to Ecarte Marine for winter storage.
29 December 2020
August 27th to September 13th
We got an early start crossing Rice Lake and up the Otonabee River to Peterborough by 1pm. We plan to stay a week as we enjoyed our stay before and were always on the move. Shopping , walking , dinghy rides and of course wings at Riley's on Tuesday night. The local boaters were always on the dock in [...]
26 December 2020
August 23 to August 27th
On the 23rd we headed for Napanee for a couple of nights and hoped to see boaters we met last year. Not much going on here , few boats and the town was not busy . We walked a bit both days.
26 December 2020
August 19th to August 22nd
We up early and left for Kingston Mills Locks in order to arrive for the first lock . We had to wait about an hour and then locked down through the 4 locks and into Lake Ontario basin at Kingston and we headed for Picton arriving at 2pm and Marianne picked us up and took us to their place. We were there [...]
September 22nd to September 14th
On September 22nd I took the boat via the St Clair River and the Ecarte Channel to Ecarte Marine where I store the boat for the winter and Lori drove her car and met me there. We spent the best part of eight days getting to boat ready for storage cleaning as much as we can and I did some checking and repair work mostly in the motor compartment and trying to figure out how to manage the dinghy better so we would use it more as we enjoy exploring places along our travels. Cleaning included washing fenders, carpets, the deck area inside the boat and as much of the outside of the boats that we could reach.
We drove to Ingersoll on the 29th and were home for 8 days catching up on things that were left over the summer months. On the October 8th we drove back to the boat to continue storage preparations.
I had planned to change the oil in the motors and generator but a switch would not work so a new one was ordered.
On the 12th we drove home and I returned on the 13th with a new switch and changed the oil and filters.
The boat went into storage on the 14th. This was the end of a very different boating season where there were fewer boaters and everyone kept their distance ( except the Quebecers who didn't seem to care about covid and most refused to respect social distancing ). We enjoyed ourselves but were not able entertain with docktails as we were used to doing. We are looking forward to a better next year.
I am looking at installing a 6kw lithium battery in the boat so we will have power when we are not plugged into power or running the generator. New toy !!!!
