2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 12

Day 12 – Cleveland

As it was to be another scorcher, we decided to spend a second day in Cleveland, taking advantage of the free second night the marina offered.  I used the car to do some beer shopping and fill up the boat’s propane tanks, then returned the car, got a ride back to the marina and spent the rest of the day in the pool with the kids.  This is the third time we have stayed at this marina, and every time it has been well over 30 degrees outside.

In the afternoon, we gave the boat a huge scrub down, which took two hours and cost me about two gallons of sweat, but after that Bella Blue was shining and beautiful once again.  This was the first time on the trip we had cleaned her so she was well overdue.

In the evening we sat out in the cockpit, watched all the racing boats going out for the weekly regatta, then retired to the air conditioned comfort of the cabin, watched a movie, then called it a night.

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 11

Day 11 – Vermillion to Rocky River and Cleveland

The previous day I had calculated the trip to Rocky River to be about 50 miles.  Not sure what fumes I was snorting, but the actual distance was less than half of that, which I realized around 5 am after already sailing for an hour.  Oh well, early bird catches the worm they say, which is very fitting because just around that time I was joined in the cockpit by an actual early bird who coasted in and perched himself on the steering wheel, looking right as me as I was typing on the laptop.  Hmm, that’s odd, birds don’t usually do that, I thought to myself.  Then he did something else birds don’t often do and flew right into the sailboat cabin below where everybody was sleeping.  I screwed on my courage, went below and found the bird up in the kids’ cabin fluttering around trying to get out through the glass hatch, which was firmly locked shut.  I was just hoping the kids didn’t wake up with the fluttering of wings, and they didn’t, but Ana sure did when the bird went into the main cabin where she was sleeping and tried getting out the locked hatch there.  I was basically standing there like an idiot, trying to point him the way out, when  Ana’s eyes popped open to discover our little visitor.  Fortunately, he found the companion way hatch right away and flew off.  That was only visitor of the morning.

We arrived at the Cleveland yacht club in Rocky River, and after a bunch of horsing around with the fuel dock hands, found out that our yacht club didn’t have a proper reciprocal agreement with them, meaning we couldn’t stay there.  In fact, they wouldn’t even do a pump out for us, which we were in desperate need of.  The kids had notice the big pool and waterslide located there so were a little disappointed when we told them we had to keep on going.

We continued along the way to the Edgewater Yacht club, which is right in downtown Cleveland, as that was the next place we knew of that had a pool, and the forecast was for 33 degrees with no wind so it was going to be a scorcher.  As we approached the fuel dock, we encountered a gigantic debris pile floating in and amongst the docks, surely the result of the storm the previous day, though it was hard to imagine how all that junk ended up in the far corner of this well sheltered marina.  After finding the fuel dock closed and the marina practically deserted (it was Monday, not much happens in marina on Mondays), we met a couple from our marina, who were just getting ready to leave as they had been there for several days.

As it was only noon and with a full day ahead of us we decided to rent a car, and within 30 minutes Enterprise car rental showed up, picked us up, took us to their office where they had a car ready to go.  We decided to split up so Ana dropped the kids and I off at the science centre and she took off for some retail therapy and to pick up groceries.  Right next door to the science centre is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame so we went inside there and had a look around, as there’s quite a bit that you can see for free without buying a ticket for admission.  One of these was Alex Van Halen’s drum kit from the Women and Children First tour, it was massive and awesome!  We also browsed through the gift shop which had a huge selection of music, including an enormous collection of vinyl.  I could not resist the temptation of having the kids hold up two Primus albums so I could grab a photo.  No, I did not buy them, as they were almost sixty bucks each and I do not own a record player, and I'm pretty sure they don't even call them "record players" anymore so I don't know what the hell I'd do with them.

The science centre was the best I’ve ever been to.  They had a big space exhibit, including a small shuttle the kids could sit in, a replica of Martian landscape they could climb on and a model airplane with controls they could fly.  There was an entire floor filled with science experiments, all of which worked and all of which were accompanied by a display explaining what law of physics or theory the experiment displayed.  These ranged from a hang glider simulator, a shadow room, a static electricity machine that makes your hair stand up, electronic drums and keyboard, oscillator machines, plasma balls, all interactive and fun to use.

We returned to the boat, unloaded all the supplies, then hit the pool and relaxed there for a couple hours, returned to the boat for dinner, then went back downtown to the East 4^th Street district and had drinks and some fancy poutine and chicken wings.  We were approached by several homeless people asking for money so had to explain to the kids how it’s possible that some people do not have a home.  Living in small town Canada does not offer much of a glimpse into street life so this was a good experience for them, as it was for us, makes you appreciate your situation in life a little more.

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 10

Day 10 – Second day in Vermillion

Our original plan had been to travel to Lorain, but every single person we had spoken with the previous day advised against it, assuring us that it is grimy and there’s nothing to see.  Normally, I would jump at the chance to explore a new, unknown grimy location, but in this case, considering our lovely surroundings, we decided to stay and enjoy a down day in the beautiful town of Vermillion.  We had a nice long, slow breakfast on the boat, then spent the day wandering around town, drinking coffee, sitting on the beach, lounging at the pool, eating good food and enjoying having nothing to do and nowhere to go.  Oh yes, and I caught up on about six days worth of blogs!

Addendum

The week before we left on our trip I was at the supermarket with the kids picking up groceries.  Magnus found the coconuts and asked if we could get one.  I said no way, but he persisted, saying “But Daddy, you always say to try new things.  Well, I’ve never tried coconut so we should get one.”  I finally relented and bought a coconut, but reminded him that he usually only followed that particular piece of advice when it did not involve vegetables.  The plan was to crack it open when we got home and let the kids sample it but we got busy and the coconut made it as a stowaway on our boat, where it bounced around the whole first week.

In the afternoon I finally decided it was time for the nut to be cracked, so I got out a hammer and smashed up the coconut then used a knife to cut out as much as the white flesh as I could and put it into a bowl for everyone to try out.  The kids tried it and thought it was okay and I thought that was the end of it.  But Magnus piped up a little while later and said, “Daddy, why don’t we take the leftover coconut and sell samples to the people here at the yacht club?”  Ana and I then gave him a battery of reasons why this was not a good idea.  These people are on vacation and they don’t want kids trying to sell stuff to them.  People have their own food on their boats and probably don’t like coconut anyway.  This isn’t our club and they might not appreciate transient guests hawking fruit.  But he persisted and suggested asking the manager if it would be okay.  I finally stopped and actually listened to myself discouraging him from acting on his own idea, then realized that I was wrong.  So we told him that if him and Stella went and got permission from the club manager then it would be okay.  So the two of them raced down the dock and were back in five minutes proudly reporting that they could indeed sell coconut to the members.  This set off a flurry of activity in the boat – sign making, product packaging, getting a float together, location planning, sales pitch and so forth.  It was decided they would set up shop on one of the picnic tables outside the pool area.  Stella’s job would be to hand out the product and Magnus would be on sales and cash collection.  Ana and I reconfirmed with them that this was entirely their operation, wished them good luck and watched them race off anxiously on their first business venture.

Twenty minutes later Stella returned asking for more coconut and reported that sales were brisk and they were down to three packs, which they were selling for a quarter each.  I gave her the sad news that there was no more coconut, unless I was to dig the broken shells out of the garbage and try to scrape more out of them, but that wasn’t a safe business practice.  So she returned to her shop and shortly after that I did sneak over there and take a photo of them – Stella was holding the bowl of ice with three remaining plastic baggies of coconut, and Magnus was holding up a sign which said, “Fresh, delicious coconut samples – 25 cents”.  It was quite an operation and at that moment I was a very proud father.  I thought to myself if there’s any country in the world that appreciates a couple of young entrepreneurs, it’s the USA, and today these kids have learned more about the world than they did the whole month of June in school.

Magnus asked me, “Daddy, what other fruit do we have on the boat that we could sell?”

“Nothing,” I replied.

“What about those bananas?” he questioned.

“We need those, and besides nobody is going to buy bananas, they are not really as exotic as coconut”

“How about some meat, what about that chicken in the freezer?” he pitched.

“Magnus, you are not selling raw chicken to the yacht club members, that will get us kicked out.  In fact, we have absolutely no spare food of any kind that you can sell.”

”OK Daddy, then I’m going to rip some pages out of my colouring book and sell those for a quarter each.”

“Magnus, you guys have done very well here, look at all the money in the bowl, great job!  But just sell the remaining coconut then you guys come back to the boat.”

I high-tailed it back to the boat, not wanting to stick around for the rest of the argument.  I had this sneaking suspicion that we had created a monster, and may return to the boat one of these afternoons to find the two of them have flogged our lines, sails, fenders, pots and pans, cushions, spare parts and all boat electronics.  I only hoped they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to uninstall the compass and sell that too.

In the end, after donating the two dollars of float money and the coconut to their cause they made a total of about three bucks each.  I’m not sure if they will ever let us back into the Vermilion Boat Club, but it was very exciting to see the entrepreneurial enthusiasm our kids displayed, and even more exciting to see Ana and I overcome our crusty adult sensibilities and allow our kids to act on an idea.

Before bed, I did notice Magnus, who I now like to call “De Coconut Mon”, doing a mental inventory of all boat contents, looking for product to sell at the next stop.

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 9

Day 9 – Vermillion

We awoke to a boat basin which must have been cleaned up overnight by an army of volunteers, as the only remnants of the previous night's party were a few dozen floating beer cans and cups and a whole lot of boats which were eerily silent.  I also suspect that the hordes of hormone filled, skinny, ambitious 17 year olds just may have left some pockets of misfired seed scattered on the grass throughout the long evening, so I was careful to watch where I stepped when Magnus and I went for a morning walk to try and find abandoned carnival prizes.  The most common prize were these stuffed bananas that had dreadlocks and Rastafarian hats and since I wouldn’t let him waste any money on the games, he negotiated me into joining him for a scavenger hunt.  He actually did find one, but I checked it thoroughly for foreign substances before letting him have it.

We took off early headed for Vermillion which is, without a doubt, the nicest town on Lake Erie.  The wind was directly in our face so we motored the whole way and made it in less than two hours.  Vermillion is the only port on Lake Erie which has built lagoons and has hundreds of canal front houses, which you pass by while coming in the harbour.

We wanted to get into the Vermillion Boat Club marina as it is located right downtown and the only one with a pool, but we motored by it and didn’t see a single empty slip.  We circled back one more time to see if we somehow we missed one, and one of the sailboat members flagged us over and told us we could have his slip if we could wait ten minutes, as he was on his way out for the weekend.  When he left we grabbed his slip, got registered, then went for a walk around town.  There happened to be a Corvette show in town so while Ana and Magnus went to dig around in the consignment store, Stella and I checked out the cool cars.  There were some fine specimens there, to be sure, but I wonder who is buying Corvettes these days?  Every time I see one, it’s being driven by sixty plus, grey hair dude, and you just know that he has wanted a Corvette since he was old enough to drive, but couldn’t afford one until about four decades later.  Hey, at least he finally realize his dream, but it’s just too damn bad that you can’t live in reverse and have those slick wheels when you can really use them to impress your buddies and pull chicks.  By the time you’re sixty, you don’t really care about impressing anybody anymore and you’re either happily married or been divorced so many times it doesn’t really matter anymore.

After the car show, we went to the farmers market which, surprisingly, had hardly any food and was instead full of knick-knack vendors, so we walked to the supermarket instead and did a grocery run.  By this time the pool was calling so we returned to the marina and went poolside for a couple hours, soaking up the hot rays.

After grilling up and enjoying a delicious pork roast on the club grills, we walked down to the beach to experience a famous Vermillion sunset.  You see, as far as I can tell Vermillion is located exactly between where the sun sets and Detroit and you know that the most beautiful sunsets in the world are found where pollution is the most terrible.  We weren’t alone, there must have been fifty other people there to enjoy a sundowner.  While waiting, we all skipped rocks, looked for driftwood, had rock throwing contests and searched for sea shells.  When the sunset came, it was just as nice as expected.

We head back to the marina and the kids did some fire fly catching along the way, proving that Ohio must be the firefly capital of the world.  We settled in around the campfire with some of the local boaters and had a lovely time, enjoying some good, old fashioned American hospitality.

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 8

Day 8 – Huron

I woke up early, made a coffee, removed the door slats and was struck face first with a beautiful, sunny day and an enormous SQUEEEEEEEEK!!

“Wake up kids, we are out of here!” I ordered.

Our destination was Huron, Ohio, just 15 miles or so away so I asked Ana to pilot the boat today.  Ana truly loves everything about sailing...except the sailing parts.  I shouldn’t say she doesn’t love it, it’s probably more accurate to say she just hasn’t done a lot of it as I’m almost always the one at the helm, navigating on the chart plotter (this is the device that shows you the map of the lake, depths, marinas, wind speed, boat speed, boat heading, water temperature and is your main navigational aid), trimming the sails, watching the wind, reading the water and looking out for boats.  I guess you could say I happily hog the boat.  But the last couple days I`ve been showing her how the chart plotter works and have been trying to get her piloting the boat more, just in case I fall off the boat one day with the autopilot activated and the rest of the fam finds themselves an hour further into their journey with no father figure on board.  So this morning she agrees to take control, and does an excellent job from start to finish like I knew she would.  To make it fair, I tried to replicate her standard passenger duties, so I first had a nice long shower, using up all the water on board, shaving my legs, washing and conditioning my hair, then dried off using six towels and applied grapefruit pre-moisturizer, plum moisturizer and just a dab of melon post-moisturizer.  I then put on her pink moo moo, wrapped a fresh towel around my head, then went through the standard routine of plucking my eyebrows, picking zits, applying make-up, de-hairifying my upper lip (which didn`t take long), trying on a few different sets of clothes and finally selecting an outfit, then doing my hair up nice and pretty.  After that was all done, I was ready for duty and presented myself in the cockpit.  But wait, I forgot the nails.  I grabbed two bags of nail accessories from the cabin below and cleaned all the herbies from betwixt my toes, scraped off the cuticles, dug out all the dirt from beneath the nails, then removed all traces of nail polish and reapplied new stuff, laying down a beautiful French manicure style jobbie on all ten fingers and toes.  Every time we hit a big wave I smudged the job, so had to start from the beginning about eight times.  With fresh nails, hair, and body, I was finally ready and fit for duty, so I grabbed one of Ana’s saucy novels, laid down on the sunny side of the cockpit, told the captain to watch the bloody spray and caught up on my reading.

In the end I decided that whole complicated, never-ending routine was infinitely more painful and exhausting than simply driving the boat, so as we approached Huron, we changed places and I was much happier.  But I did look and smell a whole lot better than usual and man, you should see my nails.

The recent storm had obviously caused a lot of damage as there was junk floating in the water which must have come down the Huron River and was now causing a real menace.  Much of it was twigs, bark and leaves, but there were also many full logs and trees bobbing around.  Slow moving sailboats and their big keels can usually just push the flotsam out of the way of the propeller, but a big, fast moving powerboat on plane can easily have its props ripped off by hitting a log.  We manoeuvred through the junk and up the river and soon arrived at the Huron Boat Basin, which is the municipal marina.  We were assigned one of the last two slips and docked into a completely packed marina.  We were immediately welcomed by one of the boaters there who informed us this was the River Fest weekend, the biggest boating event of the year in Huron and were extremely fortunate to get a slip.  The marina was very cool, as it was shaped as a huge semi-circle, bordered by a wide, concrete walking path, and directly behind it was an amphitheatre where bands played every weekend.  The kids eyes lit up as they noticed the carnival rides which were being set up in the park beside the marina, but after dropping a small fortune on the Cedar Point tickets, I gave them the stink eye and said, ”Don`t even think about it. ”

We went for a walk around town and didn`t find much of interest, besides the Harbor North marina which was a big Hunter sailboat dealer with lots of nice big sailboats for sale.  We had the manager show us 38` and 41` Hunters which were very nice, especially the 41`, but considering how much more money we would need to put into it, we decide we are much better off saving our cash for a future catamaran purchase.

There was a huge line of food vendors setting up beside the carnival so we walked down the strip, scoping out the food we`d be sampling later.  As we were walking, Magnus said, “Daddy, what`s Wisconsin cheese crud?“

”I have no idea, where on earth did you see that?”

”It`s on a sign over there,” he said pointing.  I looked over to see a vendor with a sign in front saying Wisconsin Cheese Curd.

”It`s actually called cheese curd,” I replied, ”but I like it better your way.”

We wandered around for a while, then I finally relented and bought the kids some tickets to go on the super duper pirate ship bouncy castle, which they loved, until the tattooed carnie dude reached in and started yanking kids out at random telling them their time was up.  I didn’t get mad at him, if he’s working the carnival circuit at 40 he’s had enough shit in his life.

The people started to pile in and by evening it was jammed and the Alien Blues Band was rocking the amphitheatre with jacked up, rocking blues tunes.  All the boaters were on their boats and docks getting pleasantly, albeit slowly pissed on all the Bud Light and Coors Light they were drinking.  We went back up to the food vendors and ordered up some philly cheese steak sandwiches, whatever the hell that is, and gobbled them down.  We listened to the band for a while - the guitarist/lead vocalist was an absolute shredder, which made me wonder why I’d never heard of him.  He was probably wondering the same thing about me, so I guess that made us even.

We returned to the boat for a drink and waited for the fireworks, which started shortly after 10pm and were shot off a short distance away across the river.  I must say, they were amazing!  They went on for a very long time and were explosively loud, bright, varied and very colorful.

We went to bed shortly after that, thinking about how you never really know what to expect on boat vacation.

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.

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 6

Day 6 – Middle Bass Island to Sandusky

We head out early as the forecast was calling for heavy winds later in the day.  We sailed to Sandusky, which took a little over two hours, and got a slip at one of our favourite marinas – the Sandusky Yacht Club.  It felt very strange being in a slip without Andrew’s boat Endeavour beside us as we’d jointly discovered this lovely location and had many a fun evening here.

The Sandusky Yacht Club has the best restaurant in the city and we happened to arrive on buffet Wednesdays so tied into a delicious, gigantic lunch which was followed up with a giant helping of their signature dessert dish – bread pudding.  You have never experienced bread pudding until you have tried the SYC version.

Once again, we had great timing as we noticed the skies outside darkening, wind whipping up and weather warnings appearing on the television.  We decided to do a quick run to the grocery store before it got really nasty, as we were running low on non meat consumables.  We got soaked running there, and a minute after we arrived to the store we heard warning sirens going off and a weather warning on the radio advising that a tornado warning had been issued for the Sandusky region.  The staff told us we better get back to shelter quickly so we did a ten minute speed shop, then bolted back through the streets, keeping our eyes peeled for funnel clouds.  All the talk of tornados had Stella terrified so she was bawling as we ran across the parking lot and finally into the safety of the yacht club.  We ordered some drinks and watched the weather channel which showed the tornado touching down east of Sandusky and causing all sorts of damage.  The winds had picked up to 80 mph so it was a very nasty, though fortunately, short lived storm.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on the boat with Ana taking full advantage of the laundry facilities and doing laundry runs back and forth while the rest of us spent the time relaxing, reading and playing games.   Evening was equally slow, we cooked a great dinner, watched a movie then crashed out hard for another uninterrupted boat sleep.