The time has come to part ways with Lake Erie and take on a
new Great Lake. This weekend I will be joined by my two brothers and dad and together
we will sail Bella Blue from Port Dover all the way to Sarnia, which is at the south
end of the mighty Lake Huron. It is a
260 mile passage and we are hoping to make it in five days. Actually, we have to make it in five days as
that’s when the boys fly out!
Lake Erie has been an
incredible sailing ground for us and we have covered many parts of this fine
body of water. Though our favourite
boating companion is now living in Kingston, Andrew and his awesome power boat “Endeavour”
joined us on several of our epic summer boating vacations. And trust me, we caused a fair bit of head
turning and double-takes when people we met realized that a power boat and
sailboat were travel partners. It just
doesn’t happen. But it suited our
contrarian nature just fine and we had a lovely system – the Olson family would
glide out of guest marina at 4am and start our slow, steady course for the next
destination, usually 30 or 40 miles, sometimes more, sometimes less. At around 10am Andrew would come racing up
behind us at top speed, then slow down just at the right time and pull up
beside us so we could enjoy a coffee (okay, beer.) and a swim. Then he would power on to the destination,
get our slips organized and paid for, meet the locals, arrange dinner plans,
but most importantly, get the AC pumping on his boat until there were icicles
hanging off the ceiling. We would arrive
several hours later all hot, sweaty and exhausted, and he would be there to
catch our lines and help us tie up.
After that, sweet AC and a couple of nice cold beers (okay, more like
10). What a routine!
This season we will be taking on a whole new challenge in
the form of Lake Huron. Now this lake is
massive, and much, much deeper and colder than Lake Erie so I expect we will
miss the feeling of leaping off the cockpit arch of Bella Blue into gorgeous 30
degree water on those hot July days.
Yes, we will still be leaping off the boat into Lake Huron, but I expect
there will be more icy screams of pain and less elapsed swim times.
The past couple weeks have been all about boat
maintenance. Since we didn’t put her in
the water last year because of our big backpacking trip, she needed some extra
TLC. Cleaning, scrubbing, sanding,
painting, waxing, buffing, repairing, restaining, refinishing, recalibrating
are all words we have been using frequently.
We actually put her in the water last weekend and spent two nights there
and it was awesome. This boat looks even
better than it did the day we bought it five years ago. We take good care of her.
My dad arrives today and Marty and Curtis both arrive
tomorrow and we plan to cast off around 8pm tomorrow night. We have a few small jobs left to do tomorrow,
such as putting up a radar reflector and new windex, which involves climbing
the mast, something we have never done.
But I think my uncle Mark may be coming down to see us off so I’m going
to pump him full of wine and see if he will do it – he becomes more susceptible
to the power of suggestion under the influence.
But if he won’t do it I’m sure my dad will, he has even less regard for
safety than Mark does.
During this trip we will also be celebrating my brother
Marty’s 40th birthday, which was actually in February, but he’s so lame
he didn’t get around to planning a party.
So I gave him supreme crapola and vowed to do a proper birthday pageant
for him during the sailing trip. We’re
planning on giving him the birthday bumps on the boat after ten shots of Akavit
then tossing him into the lake, then maybe hanging him upside down from one of
the spreaders and whacking him piñata style with colourful yet deadly pool
noodles. Don’t tell him, I want it to be
a surprise.
This will be the first time the four of us have had a
significant amount of time to hang out together for, I dunno, maybe ten
years? The last time was probably a
spring fishing trip in Saskatchewan, which also involves boats, lakes, copious
amounts of alcohol and danger at every turn.
It’s what men like to do.
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