2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 7

Day 7 – Cedar Point

The only twenty minute run you will ever do in a sailboat is either the trip from your slip over to the gas dock to get your holding tank contents pumped out....or to travel from Sandusky to Cedar Point.  It is about a two mile trip and when you have two wide eyed kids, chomping at you to get there, you max that throttle and haul rudder across the bay as fast as you can.  The marina at Cedar Point is massive, over 750 slips, and 80 of those which are reserved for transient boaters.  After getting checked in and buying our passes for the park, we motor over to our slip to find, as usual, that we are one of only a few boats in the transient section.  Of the 80 slips, we've never seen more than eight of them occupied.

Our day at Cedar Point was great, we spent the morning at the amusement park enjoying some rides then the afternoon at the adjoining water park, which is where you want to be with that hot afternoon sun.  Magnus was tall enough this year to go on any of the big boy rides, but one ride on the Sea Dragon with his head buried in my lap was enough proof that he wasn’t quite ready for the roller coasters.  Ana took the kids on the kiddie rides and exploring some of the shops when I went to hit a couple of the big rides.  I went on two roller coasters, one called Raptor and another one, new this year, called Gate Keeper, both of which were pretty good, but nothing compared to the Top Thrill Dragster which I went on the previous year with my brother Marty and nearly filled my shorts.

We returned to the boat at the end of the day to make dinner, wind down and figure out our plans for the following day.  As Ana and I were sitting below in the cabin, talking, we suddenly noticed a painful squeaking noise originating from....somewhere.  We looked inside the boat, but it wasn’t coming from there, so we went out in the cockpit, waited a few minutes, then our ears were again pierced with a ruthless squeak.  I hopped off the boat and onto the dock, inspecting all the metal fittings, connectors, bolts and pins I could find, but the squeak wasn’t happening anymore.  I jumped back on the boat, and seconds later SQUEEEEEEEEEEEK.  “Jesus Christ, what the hell is that?” I shouted.

“It has to be coming from the dock,” Ana said.

“But where?”

“I have no idea, get back on the dock and wiggle it around and I’ll try to see where it’s coming from”

I jumped back on the finger pier and started jumping up and down like a madman, trying to tease out a squeak, but with no luck.  So I hopped back on the side of the boat and rocked it violently, Slipknot style, determined to get a squeak.  Again, nothing.  I even went on the main dock and leaped from side to side, but it didn’t budge.  I just couldn’t get a squeak, until I went back in the cockpit, sat beside Ana and waited for the swaying boat and dock to quit moving.  Then, perfectly on cue, SQUEEEEEEEEEK.

“Arrgggg, make it stop!” I cringed.

“If it does that all night, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep,” Ana said.

We went down below, put the slats up on the door, cranked up the music and enjoyed dinner, squeak free.  After this, we went for a walk down to the pool, listening to the wretched dock cruelly squeak at us as we left.  I was surprised to find a hot tub, which we hadn’t previously noticed, so I slid into there while Ana went down to the office to use their internet connection.  At 8:50, the lifeguard shuffled us out as the pool was closing for the day, so we walked back to the boat, endured a few more squeaks, then locked up Bella Blue for the night, put on some music, and slept right through the racket.