7/20/17: We have arrived at Buffalo, NY. Since our change of plans, this now marks the official end of our Lake Erie crossing. Over the next few days, we will partially decommissioning the boat and getting her ready for transiting the Erie Canal. Next week we will be heading home for a short visit. If all goes well, we will be back here in early to middle August to head into the unknown.
Continue Reading
Archive | July 2017
Change of Plans
We have decided to change our plans for the remainder of our sailing adventure. We are heading home for a couple weeks to be with family for medical reasons. When we return, it will be difficult to sail the remaining 2,000 miles before fall arrives. Therefore, we have made the decision to alter our plans and go down The Erie Canal to The Hudson River, then on to New York City and south to warmer waters. We plan to spend the winter in the southern states and also with family. Next spring, we hope to head back to New York City, up The Hudson River, through the Erie and Oswego Canals to Lake Ontario and pick up our journey where we left off. As it stands, we have no planned stops along our new route because we are now making this up as we go along. However, we still intend to keep up our posts, as well as our online map, as our new journey unfolds. We won’t be posting during the time we are at home, but will resume once our journey is again under way. If all goes well, this will be sometime in August.
As we write this, we are in Port Colborne, but are planning to head to Buffalo, NY, in a couple days. There we will go through US Customs and prepare the boat for a couple weeks of downtime. Transiting the Erie Canal will require us to take our mast down, so we will also be preparing for that when we return (taking down sails, etc…). We are excited to see where this new journey takes us!
Stay tuned…
Niagara Falls
7/16/17: While at Port Colborne, we took a day and played tourist at The Canadian Niagara Falls. We can think of only one word that can describe this wonder of the natural world: spectacular!
Continue Reading
Port Colborne
7/13/17 – 7/19/17: Port Colborne! Lake Erie is now complete! Getting here marks the end of Great Lake #3 on our journey. And we can both honestly say we are very happy to be here.
Continue Reading
Port Dover
7/11/17 – 7/12/17: We had a big day ahead of us, and had to decide between anchoring off of Long Point, or going to the Port Dover Harbor Marina. Long Point was a 50 mile run, and Port Dover was 75. It all depended on the wind.
Continue Reading
Port Stanley
7/8/17 – 7/10/17: After 2 days in Erieau with high wind warning and severe thunderstorms, we saw a small weather window to make a break for Port Stanley. It was 10 to 20 knot winds the entire way, with the highest winds closest to Port Stanley. We arrived at the marina and were delighted by the charm and eclectic quaintness it had.
Continue Reading
Erieau
7/6/17 – 7/7/17: Our next stop across Lake Erie was at Erieau (pronounced ear-ee-oh, rhymes with Cheerio). It didn’t look like much on the chart, however we had heard really good things about it from people along the way. From the moment we tied up, we understood why everyone felt that way.
Continue Reading
Leamington
7/5/17: Our leg from Windsor to Leamington was uneventful. We passed a couple lakers, saw a bunch more fisher-people, some power boats, and a couple sailboats. We really don’t have much to say about Leamington because of our short stay, but the marina itself is worth mentioning, and we went to our first Canadian Tire store!
Continue Reading
Windsor
7/4/17: We got an early start on our 60 mile trip to Windsor. Today was July 4th, and we thought the boat traffic on the St. Clair and the Detroit Rivers, as well as on Lake St. Clair, would be extremely busy. To our surprise we only passed two lakers, and instead of intense boat traffic, we played ‘dodge the fishing boats’.
Continue Reading
Sarnia
7/3/17: It was a beautiful day to make the trip from Grand Bend to Sarnia. We left early in the morning, and winds were light, so we motored the entire way. We had heard that the marina we were going to catered to large motor boats, but we chose it because of it’s ease in maneuvering. Or so we thought…
Continue Reading
Grand Bend
7/2/17: We made the decision to stop at Grand Bend rather than go straight from Goderich to Sarnia. Storms were predicted in the afternoon, and we didn’t want to chance being on the open lake due to how quickly it can get rough. Stopping at Grand Bend also broke the trip in half, saving about 20 miles to Sarnia. When we first arrived at Grand Bend, the first thing we thought was “What a freakin’ zoo!!”
Continue Reading