Lake Erie-Lake St Clair- Lake Huron July21-28

Well we're motor/sailing right along. We are now in Georgian Bay (Tobermory) and close to the end of this Journey. We have about 100 miles to go and we will be in Midland or Penetanguishene, where we will stay for the balance of the season, as we have some work to do on the hull. It doesn't make much sense taking the mast down and taking Indulgence to Barrie to return to the Midland area in a month.

This being said, I'll pick up where we last left off.
In Port Stanley, on Lake Erie, we finally picked up some NW winds, giving us a beam reach. We made some great speed and covered a lot of miles. From there we entered the Detroit River heading upstream and fighting the 1.5-2 knot current coming down from Lake Huron through the St Clair River and Lake St Clair. The toughest spot was when we were coming under the Ambassador Bridge. We pulled back so we could let 2 Lakers/freighters go under the bridge before us... no way I was going through with these monsters.  For the next 3 miles we fought the waves created by these ships. The river has break walls on both banks so the waves just continued to go from one side of the river to the other. This with the downstream current, we didn't get too far too fast.
There is about 80 miles to travel between Lake Erie an Huron and at speeds of about 3.5- 5 knots this section took about 2 and a half days. There was more Laker/freighter/barge activity on this river than we saw in the St Lawrence when we came down.
One point of interest, is that we have never seen so many swans in one river in our life. Just south of Detroit there must have been around 100 swans..
Another interesting point was when we were entering Lake Huron in Sarnia, the current under the Blue water International Bridge was between 5-6 knots. We had to rev the engine at 2400 RPM and even still there was a section when we were only doing 1.5 speed forward. This section only lasted about 5 minutes,  but here's where I wished I had a "Hunter (ouch)" and its oversized power plant to push us through.
Lake Huron
Lake Huron runs North and South and the current although not significant, the prevailing winds were south west and the water flow runs north to south. Lake Huron is 170 miles to where we are going to pick up Georgian Bay.  There are very few (natural ) anchorage on the east shore of Huron so we've had to rely on Marinas. First we hit Bayfield ( crafts, arts, inns, restaurants), then Kincardine ( Scottish settlement, beaches, sunsets, bagpipes). Nightly in the summer months a bagpiper pipes the sun down from the top of the lighthouse, there is more to this story but suffice to say, it sure draws a crowd. Then we stayed at Port Elgin, the largest town in  Bruce County. In between we passed by the Douglas Point Nuclear Station.'
Lake Huron boasts some of the greatest beaches (water was cold mind you) and according to the locals some of the most beautiful sunsets. As well the east shore of Lake Huron is peppered with hundreds of wind Generating turbines.
We are now in Tobermory, home of the CheCheman, the ferry boat to Manitoulin Island. This is one busy town with scuba and snorkeling tour boats, ship wrecks, Flowerpot island, glass bottom tour boats. A village built around tourism. One thing to note from our experience, it is one of the few locations we docked at, that the food store and LLBO were at the dock area, not 1-2 miles outside of town.
I will note that all the marina fees ranged between $1.00 and $1.80/ft. Most did not charge for pump-outs, but I just got dinged for $17.50 a pump out in Lion's Head. Ouch! and Double OUCH! $1.95/ft without hydro.
A favorable comment in defense of some of these marinas, most of them would drive you to town or get and pay a taxi for you to encourage tourism in their town, this certainly was a nice, unexpected service.
I'd be remiss to tell you that we have been inundated with biting flies and aphids on the water for 3 of the past 4 days.

Bayfield

Port Elgin

Tobermory

Georgian Bay (Cabot Head )

Lion's Head

Tobermory (Che Che Maun in the background)

Erie Canal-Niagara River-Lake Erie - July 14-21

Back in Canada... returned July 16 and cleared Customs at Port Colborne... Back to bugs (aphid's, spiders and biting flies) and weeds in the water. Despite this... nice to be home.
Left North Tonawanda, the end of the Erie canal. The canal ends at the Niagara River... turn north and you end up over Niagara Falls, so south it was up the river. Current was running against us at 2 knots and increases to 6-8 as you approach Buffalo/Fort Erie. Current under the Peace Bridge  gets upwards of  35 knots, so no way were going that way. We exited the river and took the Black Rock canal, by-passing all this fast flowing  river.
While in Tonawanda, I neglected to say that we listened to an outdoor concert (free) featuring  the Chicago Authority, a  9 piece tribute band, complete with horns and they sang all the original Chicago songs from the late 70's and 80's. Forgot how good that band was (oops aging myself). The great thing about this, was that concert was on the side of the canal and over 60  boats cruised the river , rafted up and several hundred others sat on the river bank and in the surrounding parks. A great way to  spend one of our last nights in the  US
Well back to the Niagara River. We exited the Black Rock channel in Buffalo and entered  Lake Erie for the 300 plus mile journey upstream to Windsor/Detroit. The lake was kicking up when we entered it and we were fighting the current (2knots) and 3' waves. We had 19 miles to cross over to Port Colburn.
The boat,with the mast still over head on its supports took a pounding going up and down the waves. The waves would often splash up over the bow. I neglected to tighten up all the ropes, holding the mast in place and some loosened off more. The mast was moving , only a bit while in its supports, but I went up deck and re-secured everything. I noticed the forward truss  had split so I needed to lash it together. Fortunately once we got out of the effects of the water  going from the Lake down the Niagara, things settled down and the boat didn't pitch and roll  so bad.
We got to Port Colburn at 1:30pm and we had the mast stepped by 4pm. We were in our slip by 6:30 with sails up and the boat a sailboat again.
We had a slip for 2 days and the next day we had prearranged with Katie and Nadia to visit. They arrived the next day and we had a great relaxing visit. We had a picnic on the boat and watched a wakeboard competition that was taking place in the marina. The girls took us shopping and brought me some charts and books that I needed to go up Lake Erie and Huron. I left these behind as we did not anticipate returning to Barrie, via this route. Thanks girls.
Well, Lake Erie is 300 miles plus  long, with few anchorage.. so we are restricted to existing Ports. We will be facing prevailing SW winds (on the bow) and the current flows west to east. Being the shallowest of our great lakes, this lake can kick up some huge (square) waves. We've had a few days of this, running with SW winds , 20 knots and 3-5' waves. The boat handles this fine but it is a rough go when you are traveling 50 miles a day to make a port. We were usually able to put the main sail up, which helped stabilize the boat .
The water color is turquoise and reminded us of Florida. Another note about Lake Erie is that the main land is covered with power generating windmills, the shoreline is comprised mostly of bluffs , as in Scarborough Bluffs, and the water is covered with oil well heads that stick out of the water about 5', so you must be cautious in these areas.
I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that we  got  caught in the severe T-Storm on Sunday which  Environment Canada announced from Windsor to Hamilton. We were in one of the few anchorage on the lake off of Long Point. We set the anchor and had an hour to watch and observe how it would hold. The storm/squall hit us and the anchor dragged. I hauled it up and again rode out the next 20-25 minutes riding the storm out. We saw it coming so we had our raingear on.  That makes number 4 we've been in . When it was finished we reset the anchor and were on a watch the rest of the night as more storms were anticipated. 
Well after 3 days of SW winds, we finally got a North West wind today, We sailed 75 miles in 15 -20 knot winds (beam reach) 6-7 knots an hour, with little waves. We made distance while we could and went from Port Stanley to Wheatley, where again we are trying to anchor for the night.

That's it for now, another 80 miles to the Detroit River. We are now about 400 miles from Midland.... getting close.

Medina, NY (Erie canal)

Tonawanda, NY

CHICOGO TRIBUTE BAND

Buffalo, NY

Katie & Nadia Port Colborne

Welland Canal bridge

Sunset  Sugar Loaf Marina Port Colborne

Lake Erie Windmills and Bluffs

Port Stanley Fisheries boat

Lashed mast support

Cracked mast support before lashed.

 

NY City to Erie Canal July 5-13

Presently 100 miles from Buffalo, on the Erie Canal. Overall a rather good journey.
We left NYC on the Sunday for the 150 mile trip up the Hudson. Had to contend with the tides, made great time in afternoons, but it was generally a slug fighting the falling tides in the mornings. The further you got north, the tide followed you, so you were either taking advantage of it or fighting it, longer. We stopped at Riverside in the Catskills to de-step our mast. Everything went as expected, except someone stole our mast supports which we had stored there in September. Guess they needed them more than me... go figure. Well we bought some new wood and 2 hours later we cut some new ones and the mast went down.
We left next morning after fueling up and headed to Waterford and start of the 360 mile trip across the Erie Canal to Buffalo, then across Lake Erie.
Again all was reasonably well... a bit of rain. We have 35 locks to go through, and need to be raised over 500 feet to get to Lake Erie.  Surprisingly we have had to deal with some heavy currents due to the heavy rains in June. In fact, about 20 miles of the canal was shut down June 10 - July 10 due to flooding. It opened about 2 days before we got to this section, but the flooded area was interesting to go through to say the least. Remember those "lucky Horseshoes" I mentioned earlier in my blog... well they are still in my back pocket.
With my mast down, I am about 10' above the water line. There are many bridges to go under and the maps chart the lowest clearance as being 15.5'.
One would think that I am have nothing to worry about.
Well, traveling 8 hours a day, on a rather routine, uncomplicated course I became complacent.
I was up deck cleaning some stainless. The Admiral was driving the boat. I happened to look up coming through a small town (Fairport, NY). I happened to look up to see a low lying bridge approaching. It was going to be tight. I told Jo to put the boat in hard reverse and gun it. She responded well but the boat turned sideways a bit. It was enough to avoid the red light that marks the centre of the bridge. With the boat on a bit of an angle slipping under the bridge with about 12" clearance, Jo navigated the boat under the bridge, without hitting anything, in particular without clipping off my wind speed transducer, the highest part of the boat... and incidentally about $500 to replace.... Boy were we lucky.
The Lock operators at the next lock, asked us if we had any damage to report. We said no, as we were close but didn't hit.
When reading the canal stat book after this, I realized this was a lift bridge and we should have requested the bridge operator to lift it to the 17' as the  book says. Boy we were lucky today.. a lesson to be learned, to stay alert and aware of everything.
The New York Canal system is a joy to operate in. They provide free dockage, shower facilities, welcoming committees Wi-Fi, and sometimes hydro and water. They know how to treat boaters. The lockmasters likewise treat you with respect and generally have locks ready for you and work with you when you are locking through.
Well getting close to entering Canada. We are meeting our girls on Saturday at Port Cobourne on the Welland Canal on Saturday, where we will put the mast back up. They will bring us our new set of charts for the Erie and Huron as we didn't anticipate returning this way when we left last August.  We should be in Georgian Bay in 3-4 weeks. Almost home...
That's all for now.

 

Light on the Hudson

Mast de-stepped

Bannerman's Arsenal on the Hudson

Waterford start of the Erie Canal

Herkimer NY

Flooding on the Canal

 

Spencerport NY

Dock at Spencerport

 

 

 

Independence Day July 2-4 New York City

We pulled out of  the W79th Street Boat basin at 7:15 this morning after 2 busy days in NYC. We were fortunate to be here during their July 4 celebrations. We kept busy touring the Manhattan downtown , including Time's Square, the theatre district, Herald Square, Grant Park. We also spent the afternoon at Coney Island and took in the celebration there. We were there for the Nathan's Hotdog eating competition but couldn't get close enough to the stage. The subway ride was just over an hour, but worth it.
We also picked up a Yankee game on the Friday night. We were in the centre field bleachers but for $20 tickets we lived with it. We left after the 6th ... glad we did because it ends up going to the 12th inning and A-Rod brought the winner home. It was cap night so managed to pick up a couple of baseball hats.
A great weekend, huge crowds downtown and at Coney Island. Although about 5 miles from the min firework display (East River), we did manage to see them .

Manhattan

Central Staiion

Mrs Uncle Sam?

What happens in NY stays in NY... gotta a love it

Besides Jo posed with Morgan Freeman on the way down

Times Square

fireworks

Fireworks

Yankee Stadium

 

Tidal Current at W79th Street

Boardwalk Coney Island

Coney Island

 

Baltimore New York City June 25-July 2

Pulled into NYC, West 79th Street Boat basin last night about 7pm. Day was cloudy with some showers (light) on and off all day.
This last week was the least miles traveled (180), having made stops in Baltimore, Chesapeake City(weather) and Barnegat Inlet, NJ due to repairs.

Baltimore was a nice city, but the water is dirtiest and polluted we have ever seen. We took 2 days at an inner harbor marina, to stock up. With free transit, it was easy to get around. We provisioned and did laundry the first day. Took a walk up Federal Hill and could see the Raven's Football Stadium and Camden Yards where the Orioles play, no games while we are in port. Went to Fort McHenry (Civil war) and Fells Point, the old historic waterfront. Inner harbor is a tourism mecca, with restaurants, attractions, science centres, aquariums, boats, submarines and other historical stuff. Feet were sore after all the walking.

Finished up the Chesapeake and stopped in Chesapeake City, drizzle of rain in afternoon, cool and we were in sweaters. We got up the C & D Canal to Chesapeake City, where we stayed 2 nights, due to a small craft warning. We waited out the weather before tackling the 56 miles down the Delaware River. We departed at the end of a rising tide and the outgoing tide pushed us through the canal and down the Bay to Cape May, NJ.

Next day a great trip on the Atlantic to Barnegat Inlet, north of Ocean City and Atlantic City. Another good day and having anchored here on the way down, we were comfortable with the anchorage. We hit the inlet on a rising tide, so we surfed in at about 8 knots. Once past the breaking rollers, the ride wasn't too bad.

Next morning when heading out, the boat engine quit in the channel. Fortunately we were not in the Inlet yet, so we sailed back to the anchorage to sort things out. The main engine circuit breaker popped and shut engine down, Somewhere there was a short in the system. We took the dingy over to the main land to find a mechanic. Regrettably all the service locations were on the mainland, so Boat US towed us over. We were at the marina by noon and mechanic suspected fuel pump , so they ordered one in for next morning. Fortunately again it wasn't the pump but a short that he was able to find. After a couple of hours we headed beck to Barnagat Inlet. Being late in the day we decide to stay the night and next morning make the trip to NYC or Sandy Hook, dependent on weather.

Well, weather wasn't too bad as we ended up in NYC after 12 hour run. This is  one beautiful City with amazing architecture from the water side. Past Coney Island, under Verrazano Bridge, Statten Island, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Manhattan, East River, tour boats, water taxis, barges, freighters, ....everything. The Hudson River where we are has a strong current and 5' tide, so things can get rocky. 
Going to Yankee game tonight, 4th of July celebrations tomorrow, then heading up the Hudson on Sunday. Should be a good few days in the City that doesn't sleep... me however, I'll take the sleep anytime.

Fort McHenry

Baltimore

Chesapeake City

 

Sand Dunes NJ

                                                                   New Jersey Beaches

Chesapeake City

Barnagat Light , New Jersey

Chesapeake City