Journey to Florida 2014: Erie Canal-Niagara River-Lake Erie

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.