Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 7

Day 7 - Mentor Harbour to Kelly‘s Island, OH

Just heard a “pahn pahn, pahn pahn, pahn pahn” call on the radio from the Coast Guard in Cleveland. At 10:08 pm last night a 12 year old boy went missing and his last know location was in the water at Euclid Beach. They are asking all mariners to be on the lookout for him and to assist if possible. This is the first such call we’ve heard on the radio, certainly reinforces the notion of paying strict attention to safety procedures on the boat. We heard a “Mayday” call a couple days ago from a boat taking on water but didn’t hear if they found the boat or how it ended.

Directly to the north a three masted tall ship just appeared, what a beauty! It is amazing to see such a variety of vessels that appear on the lake. From tall ships to freighters to super yachts to 14 foot fishing boats. I guess that’s why they call it a fresh water ocean.

We had a nice breeze until around 6 am when it turned directly into our face and slowed considerably. Up until then we’d been racing along nicely and actually hit 7.56 knots which is the fastest we’ve done in Bella Blue. Since we’re planning on covering a lot of miles today we decide to motor the rest of the way which allows us to do over 6 knots and make pretty good time.

We stop at around 9am for the morning swim and the lake is clear and much cooler out in the middle - about 26 degrees C. In some of the marinas the water temperature was as high as 33 degrees which renders the boat air conditioning system much less effective since it relies on cool water. Speaking of that, when we bought this boat we had no idea how important an air conditioning system would be. Without it we would have been absolutely melting this week. While we’re underway and have the hatches open we get quite a lot of air coming through which keeps it fairly cool, but as soon as you stop moving it turns into an oven down below.

We make landfall at Kelley’s Island, Ohio around 4:30 in the afternoon and immediately head to the public dock for a swim. As I’m about to drop Magnus in the water one of the other kids there mentions the abundance of water snakes that hang around the dock and swim in the water. Considering Magnus’ morbid fear of snakes we pull the plug on the dip and head back to the boat for cold beer and apple juice.

To end the day we decide to rent a golf cart for an hour and do a tour of the island. Ana gets behind the wheel and the kids and I strap ourselves in tightly. The island is not very big so an hour is plenty of time to tour around and see the interior forest and beaches. We stop for a quick walk on one of the beaches in the public park, just enough time for the kids to get covered in sand. After returning the golf cart we take the kids for an ice cream, walk back to the boat, make bbq pizza for supper, enjoy the live band which is playing dockside at a pub and retire early to cap off our longest sailing day yet - 75 miles and 12 hours on the water.

Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 6

Day 6 - Mentor Harbour

We decide to spend another day in Mentor as the forecasted high is again in the 30’s and we need to pick up a few groceries. I wake up early and spend a couple hours writing and chilling out before the rest of the gang gets up. Once we’ve had breakfast we head down to the pool and spend most of the day there. Ana volunteers to do the shopping so by the end of the day we are fully repositioned and ready for our next leg of the journey, which we will begin at 4am tomorrow morning.

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.