Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 5

Day 5 - Conneaut Harbour to Mentor Harbour, OH

It’s 4am and we are throwing off the dock lines and heading out into the darkness. This is our first experience with night sailing and it turns out to be a most tranquil experience. The winds are quite strong and directly in our face once again so we head out on a port tack and sail through the darkness, enjoying the sound of the water splashing on the hull and the wind whistling through the shrouds and rigging. Ana and I enjoy watching the sun rise over the east horizon then check on the kids below who are sleeping soundly. The kids have been incredibly comfortable on the boat and the limited amount of space has certainly not seemed to have limited their fun. They have not yet once complained about any of the long sailing days and seem to quite enjoy being down below playing games and hanging out. Stella likes to be in the cockpit and sit on one of the built in seats which hang off the stern of the boat and watch the wake trailing behind the boat. As soon as the boat stops, Magnus is the first one to be whipping off his clothes and getting into his trunks for a swim. He is a total and complete waterbug and has even learned how to use fins, mask and snorkel.

The kids soon wake up and I decide to anchor the boat and get everybody out for a morning swim and bath. As we are several miles offshore we go the clothing optional route and have a nice skinny dip. It’s hard to explain the feeling of freedom you feel when you swim naked off your own boat in the middle of a lake at 9 am on a Monday morning. Life is definitely good.

We arrive at Mentor Harbour around 2pm to another scorcher - must be 33 degrees or more. There are two marinas available; one which is a member of the inter-lake yacht club that we belong to and offers a free night, and the other which is a paid marina and looks like it has a pool and restaurant. We cruise through a muddy channel that looks much too shallow to pass but manage to make it to the free marina at the end of the channel. We realize in an instant that this was a bad move - the dock was falling apart, there was nobody and nothing around and no electrical outlets in site. We turned her around and headed back to the luxury marina. At $1.75 a foot and the second night free, it was an easy decision. The marina turned out better than we could have hoped, there was a beautiful pool and loads of kids around so we let Magnus and Stella loose in the kiddie pool then went to sit around the big pool and have a couple drinks. There we sat for several hours and eventually we were pretty much the last people there so we went back to Bella Blue, cooked a nice dinner and crashed out.

Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 4

Day 4 - Conneaut Harbour

We wake up relatively early and head up to a local restaurant for a much needed fried breakfast. It is a classic American greasy spoon complete with hash and biscuits on the menu. We then take a walk through the town and find a carnival has set up shop and will be opening at 3 this afternoon. Being a huge fan of carnivals, Ana is simply excited, as are the kids. I am not equally enthusiastic as my memories of the carnival back at the Woolco mall parking lot in Saskatoon are equal measures of fist fights, drug dealing and being hit by vomit spewed from drunken teenagers on the Zipper ride.

We return late in the afternoon and I am pleasantly surprised to find an extra grubby heavy metal cover band crying out the likes of Warrant, GnR, Poison, Kiss and the ultimate…..Faster Pussycat! The rest of the fair is as expected - crowded with teenage moms, tattooed and mustachioed muscle heads and skids of all sizes and colours. The kids and Ana enjoy a few rides, some of which seem to be on the brink of falling apart, then we grab an ice cream and we are out of there, back to the boats to enjoy the nights’ fireworks display. Yes, it is July 4th and we are lucky enough to be in the USA to celebrate with them, so we crack open a bottle of wine, enjoy the show, then escape from the party and sneak off to bed as we have a very early start.s

Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 3

Day 3 - Erie, Pennsylvania to Conneault Harbour, PA

After a leisurely breakfast and a visit to the pristine showers and bathrooms at the marina office (our home marina is starting to look worse and worse by comparison….) we head out on the lake to find beautiful winds of 12 to 15 knots. The only problem is that the winds are coming from the exact direction we need to go so we start tacking as close to the wind as possible making wide tacks of 2 to 3 miles. There seems to be a big regatta going on as there are probably a hundred powerboats out on the lake, all anchored out in deep water. After several hours of wonderful sailing, but limited progress towards our destination, we decide to head closer to shore to anchor and prepare some lunch. At this point, Andrew is calling on the radio and is shocked how little distance we had covered. Of course, power boaters with 700 horsepower of engine have a somewhat different perspective than sailboats with tiny diesel engines and sails that cannot send you directly into the wind no matter how well they are trimmed. In any case, he meets us for lunch and we have a nice barbeque after which Andrew, Stella and I take his dingy into the beach to do some exploring. Poor Magnus fell asleep listening to my ipod so misses the dingy trip and the post lunch swim, which was most refreshing.

After lunch Andrew powers his way to Conneaut to get us slips and scope out the situation while we slowly make our way there under sail and power. We arrive many hours later to a blistering 32 degrees and a wooden dock so hot it scorches your feet. After docking Ana goes down the office to get us registered and finds out that if we buy $15 tickets to tonight’s steak dinner we don’t have to pay for dockage!

Conneault itself is a working class marina, much like Port Dover but a little worse for wear. The people are rugged and friendly and definitely like to have a good time. The landscape is unique; directly east of the marina is a CN yard with huge piles of gravel and coal and plenty of large machinery parked here and there. South of the marina is the townsite which sports a single giant windmill in stark contrast to the nearby coal mountains.

The marina site is well set up and includes a full bar, a kids tv room, a playground and a huge canopy with grills where everybody congregates to eat. The steak dinner is excellent and partway through one of the club members treats us to a tray full of jello shooters. I am instantly transported back to first year university which is the last time I’ve partaken in vodka mixed with jello. They were as disgusting as I remember but are easily washed down with Miller Lite and frozen daiquiris. As we make new friends around the picnic tables the kids have made friends of their own and one of them, Howie, has even taught Magnus and Stella his own personal version of the Scooby Doo song which starts with the line, “Scooby Dooby Doo took a poo”…and gets even more disgusting after that.

The evening progresses as one might expect and I find myself with Ana sitting on Andrew’s boat in the company of a few friends who are piling through his onboard bottled beverages at an alarming rate. We retire around 2am and I actually remember to drink a gallon of water and eat 3 advils before bedtime which always helps to sooth the next morning’s hangover.

Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 2

Day 2 - Erie, Pennsylvania

We wake up to another beautiful day with temperatures expected to reach 30 degrees. We decide to make this a “shopping” day and hop on the free trolley which takes us downtown where we can connect to another public bus which goes to the shopping malls. Upon reaching downtown we find a nice pub and realize the Netherlands/Brazil world cup match is going down so we settle in for a few rounds of pre-noon $2 pints and enjoy the game. Ana wasn’t too happy with Brazil losing but at least it was to a decent team who we will probably end up cheering for as they looked fantastic on the field. Plus we just love Cloggies and their lovely orange uniforms (and skin, when tanned).

We eventually find a bus stop after walking 8 blocks and after a half hour wait hop on to a bus which must have had a nuclear powered air conditioning system as there were icicles forming on the bars and I swear I could see my breath. After several hours of shopping, walking across giant asphalt parking lots and having a terrible time finding a taxi we are finally back to the boat with a huge load including groceries, clothes and plenty of cheap American beer. We pack everything away then sit down for happy hour and agree that the US public transportation system is just as pathetic as the one in Canada and we take a vow that next time we will rent a car.

Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 1

Day 1 - Port Dover to Erie, Pennsylvania

After spending last night loading and preparing the boat, we are up at 5am and throwing off the dock lines shortly after that. It is quite an exciting feeling knowing we are embarking on our first big journey on our new sailboat - the Bella Blue. We are planning on being away for about 18 days and our currently goal is to travel across Lake Erie to the town of Erie, Pennsylvania then work our way westward up the US coast line to the town of Sandusky and the nearby islands. For the return journey we will either come back along the US side and stop at the harbours we missed on the out journey or we may cross over to the Canadian side via Pelee Island and explore some of the Canadian harbours. This decision will depend on weather conditions and our experiences along the way.

First, a bit of background information. Our family, which includes me, my wife Ana and our two children Magnus, who is 5 and Stella, who is 3, purchased a 2005 Hunter 33 foot sailboat named “Bella Blue” in February of 2010. We had been looking for a sailboat for a couple years and finally the combination of extremely poor economic conditions in the US and a very favorable exchange rate yielded some fantastic bargains on boats and we were able to find a gorgeous sailboat which had been repossessed and was located in Port Annapolis which is in the state of Maryland on the eastern seaboard. Since we live in Paris, Ontario which is a 40 minute drive from the town of Port Dover snuggled away on the shore of Lake Erie, we are in a perfect location to own a boat. We have some previous sailing experience as I owned an older Hunter sailboat for about a year when I lived in Bahamas back in 1998. In fact, this is where Ana and I met so much of the initial time we had together was spent sailing around the Bahamas. It’s so much easier to find the love of your life when you own a boat…

As we power out of the safety and security of our home harbour, I feel a chill of excitement running down my spine. The winds are strong - from 15 to 20 miles per hour and coming from the north, almost directly behind us, which is probably the most difficult point of sail. We pull out the sails, cut the motor and begin our journey…with a nice cup of hot coffee for each of us sloshing around in the drink holders.

The first hour or two are excellent, but we need to pay strict attention to the sails to ensure we don’t jibe accidentally, which could cause damage to the boat with these strong winds. We are making about 5 knots, which is about 6 miles per hour but feels a lot faster on a sailboat with the wind rushing through your hair and the spray coming up on deck. I give Ana a turn at the helm so she can get a feel for the boat. She hasn’t done as much sailing as me so isn’t yet completely comfortable behind the wheel, but happily takes a turn. At this point the winds are strengthening and waves are getting larger. As we near Long Point the wind is really rocking and some of the larger waves are about 5 feet. Ana begins wondering out loud whether we are prepared to continue with such strong winds and chop but I assure her that we will be fine and Bella Blue can easily handle these conditions. As we round Long Point and adjust our heading for Erie, the winds almost immediately die and we are left crawling at about 1.5 knots. After struggling slowly for a couple miles we decide to fire up the motor to give us a bit extra speed and we then enjoy a beautiful motor sail across Lake Erie all the way to buoys marking the harbour entrance to Erie. The kids wake up around 8 and enjoy the ride across, splitting their time between sitting in the cockpit with us watching the other boats and hanging around below in the cabin playing games and watching dvd’s.

Erie has a huge protected harbour and probably a dozen marinas so is a very popular boating destination. We pilot the boat into the harbour and eventually find Perry’s Landing, which is one of the marinas that has a video phone where you can clear US customs. Coincidentally, this is the same marina we had Bella Blue transported to back in April so it is comfortingly familiar, as we spent many hours here putting her back together and preparing her for the initial journey to Port Dover.

After clearing customs we take Bella Blue over to the Bay Harbor marina where we have booked a slip for the night. Our elapsed time since leaving Port Dover is about 9 hours so it feels good to be at our first destination. We arrive to find a beautifully maintained, practically new marina with a lot of very large and very new boats. Upon docking, the marina manager greets us immediately and gives us the low down on all we need to know. This includes telling us that the boat next to us, named “Marlin” is a custom build fishing boat, one of only two that were built. The other one is owned by Jimmy Buffett. I like how this trip is going.

After getting settled, we take the kids for a walk down to a local playground where they burn off a lot of the energy they stored up on the long boat ride across. We stop for a quick pee break at the “Sloppy Duck”, a local bar and restaurant and the kids are thrilled to find a pond in front of it full of catfish and baby ducks which keeps them entertained for half an hour.

We return to Bella Blue just in time for the arrival of our friend Andrew who has a 36 foot Sea Ray Sundancer power boat docked next to us in Dover. He also lives across from us in Paris so we are neighbours in almost every way possible. Thankfully we get along very well and enjoy similar hobbies, mainly restricted to boating and drinking.

We meet a number of people on the dock, mostly Americans, all of which are super friendly and extremely hospitable. Every time we visit the US we are struck by how friendly people are. We are also usually shocked at the level of service you get everywhere. I think this is one big difference between the US and Canada; in the US people are very service oriented and take their jobs seriously. The service is nearly always superb and folks seem genuinely interested in doing a good job.

After a long day, I wind up going to bed quite early (with a pounding headache…think I didn’t drink enough water) and Ana stays up for a while visiting with Andrew, his friend Michelle and a couple other of Andrew’s American friends who live nearby and stopped by for a visit.

Summer is here?

It's the end of March and it feels like summer.  As Easter weekend approaches we are looking forward to highs in the mid 20's, definitely not the norm but the heat will be welcome.  Yes, our winter has been very mild but hey, it's still winter and winter bites the biggie.  To celebrate, we've got our hot tub up and running and have bought a brand new beer fridge for the back deck.  The real initiation of our backyard retreat will be this weekend with the visit of my brother Marty and family.

I'm sad to report that we have not been away on a holiday since January when we cruised down to Annapolis to buy a delicious sailboat.  Our life since then has been overcome by administration, tax returns, property maintenance, tenant wars and paperwork of all varieties.  We have been working hard to get as much of this stuff out of the way before our boat arrives so that we can devote as much time as possible this summer to sailing.  We have also decided to liquidate two of our investment properties.  We've done as much as we can do with these buildings - the units have all been renovated, tenants are great, the rents are high and the buildings are safe.  From here on it's just a management game and we've decided we can better invest that money in other areas and save ourselves a lot of time and stress in the process.  We are trying to sell the buildings privately, at least to begin with, but will list them if that doesn't work out.  There has been a substantial amount of interest so far so with luck we will find the right buyer who is willing to pay the right price.  They will be a great investment for somebody as all the hard work has already been done...and my back still hurts from it.

We are looking forward to some downtime this summer.  With our jobs, properties and projects we're probably putting in 60 hour weeks and we've realized that is too much.  When we work that much the kids suffer, our relationship suffers and everybody is basically cranky all the time.  We always struggle to find the balance between work and play, but it's been tougher lately.  The problem is completely our own fault, we tend to take on too much, and once we take something on we like to do it well (sometimes too well...) so the length of time it takes to do tasks is always more than expected.  We are hoping that having the sailboat will give us a good excuse to spend more time on "non work activities".

Magnus and Stella have been diligently attending swimming lessons and have turned into quite the little fishies, perfectly timed for the upcoming sailing season!  We plan on spending a lot of time in the waters of Lake Erie and while we're not actually in the water, you can be sure we'll be hovering over the water with a fishing rod.  My personal goal is to consume 100 kilos of fresh pickerel and perch this summer.

What else can I report?  Ana and I have been working on a master plan for our http://www.lifeisgrand.org/ and http://www.grandventures.ca/ websites and are planning a major overhaul.  We will start chipping away at that this summer, but expect to see more of a focus on marketing digital products, similar to the book I just wrote on importing sailboats.  We see a great future in ebooks so would like to explore the possibilities.  We are also going to return lifeisgrand to a purely travel website....with a likely focus on sailing as we expect many of our future travel adventures will be on a sailboat.

That's it for now..

Great start to the year

After our 2009 Olson family review and 2010 goal setting, I printed out all our major family goals and posted them in a conspicuous location in the home office. What is "in sight" is definitely in mind for me so this was a great way to keep us focused on what we are trying to accomplish this year.

Our number one goal was to buy a sailboat...and we did! It's a beautiful Hunter sailboat that we found down in Maryland, US. We happened to be in the right place at the right time and got exactly the boat we've been looking for....actually, far more than what we were looking for, and for only slightly more than we were looking to spend (okay, maybe quite a bit more...but trust me, it will be worth it!)

In the process, I somehow managed to write an ebook on how to import boats from the US to Canada. After doing my own intensive research, I realized there was no quality resource out there to help people through this process so I used our experience, web resources, written sources and the experience of industry professionals to write the "definitive" manual on importing boats from the US to Canada. The final version is ready to go and can be found at www.importingusboats.com. Please buy a copy and help me pay for my dockage this year!

We're now revving up the marketing machine and doing a lot of learning in the process. It's incredible how much technology has changed in the past few years...and how easy it is to get left behind. Ana and I having fun figuring out all these new marketing mediums which didn't even exist only a few years ago.

We took a trip down to Maryland to inspect the boat and made a vacation of it. We were gone for a week and visited some great places - Annapolis, Washington, Atlantic City and New York City. Of course the kids were along for the adventure as well as Ana's folks and we really had a fun time, probably because it was such an unexpected trip; the original plan had been to go to Florida for a sun holiday but when the boat opportunity arose we speedily adjusted plans. The highlight was definitely Annapolis and Washington, D.C. - in particular the Smithsonian museums which we visited in the capital. The natural history and airplane museums were truly a wonder and something we're very happy to have seen. It seems that the best planned vacations are sometimes the vacations where you have no plans. Try it and see!

We also just returned from a Family Day long weekend trip to Saskatoon to catch up with the Olsons.  It was a weekend of visiting, eating, drinking and staying warm indoors.  Nothing too strenuous or adventurous, just a great visit with the family.  Visiting Saskatchewan in the middle of February is reserved for the suicidal, mentally insane, or lonesome ex-Saskies.  In case you weren't sure, I'm in the last group.

An excellent start to what promises to be a wonderful year.