July 23, 2022
When last I wrote, we were in Tonawanda, NY waiting for weather to transit to Buffalo. We left Tonawanda on June 23 rd for Buffalo. There is one lock to pass through or you can brave the Niagara River and be swept toward certain doom. We chose to transit one more lock. This was the Black Rock Lock (say that 3 times fast). It was a large lock for big boats and had terrible poly lines to hang on to. We were not amused. We stopped for the night at Erie Basin Marina. This is a large marina but poorly maintained and staffed. We found half of our cleats were lose and a couple unusable. We had tied at the fuel dock(waiting for a slip assignment) with 72 foot yacht . They kindly helped us tie up since there were NO dockhands. Bob struck up a conversation and the crew offered to help us raise our arch!!! I really wanted radar and AIS working on Lake Erie.
We left early the next morning hoping to have decent weather on our second Great Lake crossing. We did not enjoy Buffalo but I’m sure part of that was the marina.
We left on the 24th for Erie, PA . We anchored that night in Presque Isle Bay. Early in the evening there was a lot of traffic and we were circled and purposely waked by a boat full of Erie Yacht Club’s finest. Not a very friendly gesture. We had a quite night because we knew we had to leave a daybreak the following day to make Cleveland, OH where we were meeting friends from home, Paul and Nicole.
We had our anchor up and we’re underway by 5:30 a.m. the sun was not yet up but there was enough light to see where we were going. We had anchored in the far back of the bay and had about a 15 minute sail to the entrance to the lake. The closer we got toward the channel the more boats we encountered. By the time we were 1/4 mile away we were surrounded by 30-40 sailing vessels all heading out to the lake. We may have sailed into a regatta. There was a bagpiper on the shore playing and people cheering everyone on. We were as respectful as we could be and finally a managed to clear the channel and leave them all behind.
The sail to Cleveland was uneventful and we enjoyed being out on the open water again for the first time in a year. We had made reservations in Cleveland at a marina downtown. It had once been called Doc and Rock Marina because it was near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Near” was and understatement, “at” describes it better. A great marina with an A+ for safety. Tony, the dock master, was awesome and we were super pleased with our view.
Our first night in Cleveland we hung out on board getting ready for our guests. We walked up the the R&R Hall to check hours and did a quick survey of the neighborhood. We planned on being here till the 29th so no rush. We would have to provision here and try to see the sights. We also had a party to attend at Pat’s house (brother to Paul). Neither of us had ever been to Cleveland to tour, so we were looking forward to this stop.
We headed over to Patrick’s house for the big party on Sunday afternoon/night. All of Paul’s brothers and his sister Molly would be there. What a great group of siblings and lots of friends too. There was more food than I’ve seen in months and coolers with every kind of beverage. We laughed and talked till the sunset. A great time was had by all.
Our third day in Cleveland was spent between the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Guardians’ baseball game. We got tickets for mid- morning at the museum and were overwhelmed by the amount of information and exhibits to see. We were exhausted by mid-afternoon and had to stop and get lunch. We walked back to the boat and napped until game time. We walked about a mile up to the stadium and met Paul, Nicole,Frank , and Leslie there to watch the Guardians get trounced by the Twins. It was fun evening even if the home team lost.
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