Raisin River and beyond

 July 30, 2022

       I left off with us traveling from the Raisin River up the Detroit River to Gibraltar, MI.  We still had guests on board - Paul Deering and Nicole Kerr - and they were concerned about an Uncle back in Cleveland that was not doing well.  We arranged with the Gibraltar Boat Yard to dock and leave the boat with them while we headed to Florida for my Dad’s memorial luncheon.  We arrived after hours in Gibraltar and docked in the haulout slip as we had been instructed.  Because of its construction, this put us about 2 feet off the bulkhead.  Not an easy step for a 5’4” woman.  The other boaters near by were very nice and helped us tie up and even gave us a key to the bathrooms.   

Our”dock” on the Raisin River

Our neighbor across the Raisin River - 2nd most polluting coal fired plant in the US

       This was July 3rd and everyone in the marina was gearing up for celebrating the holiday.  The beer was flowing, the music was way too loud and it looked like it would be a long night.  Paul and Nicole decided they needed to try and get back to Cleveland before their uncle expired so they began calling to rent a car -🤣🤣🤣That was not happening.  It was cheaper to hire an Uber to drive them from Detroit to Cleveland than to rent a car for one day….if they could find one.  They put in for an Uber then we’re told it would be to the boat in 15 minutes!!!  It was hard to say goodbye after living at close quarters for 5 days but we did.

Goodbye until our return to New Bern!

    Bob and I settled down to enjoy the festivities.  We didn’t have to wait long.   Just before dark the first set of fireworks began and each town piled on after the other.  We watched about 5 different shows from our flybridge.  It was awesome and when they were all done, so we’re all the parties.  The marina got quite and we had a restful night in preparation for the real celebration on the 4th.

      The 4th we spent riding bikes around the town and doing boat chores.  I had quite a bit of laundry to do and Bob had a list of maintenance items that needed attention.   We still had to put our dinghy crane back up and rewire it.  We spent the day doing these things then settled in with out evening adult beverages to watch the second round of fireworks.  The town of Gibraltar put their show on, on Monday the 4th.  It was wonderful with fireworks of colors I’ve not seen before.  The town went all out since they had cancelled the fireworks the past two years due to COVID.  It was an awesome show.

     On Tuesday we talked to Tim, the dockhand, about using their gin pole to put our dinghy crane back in place.  They were using it to take a mast down and we’re more than happy to help us with the crane.  Talk about slick- total it took about 3 minutes to put her back.  Now the hard work began for Bob- rewiring without any manuals.  That never stopped Bob.  Within an hour the crane was up and running!!

Bob attaching gin pole cable to crane

Going up

Crane back in place

     We came to this marina to have the crane reinstalled and decided to leave the boat in their care while we flew to Florida for a family gathering to honor the memory of my father.  Dad was 99years old when he passed away on March 16, 2020.   We have been unable to memorialize him due to COVID.  We decided to have a luncheon in his honor on what would have been his 102 birthday - July 9.  Bob and I battened down the boat, asked Tim, the dockhand, to keep an eye on her and called an Uber for the airport.

    We had a wonderful visit in Florida with 2 of our children and their spouses and children.  My sisters were both there as well as my niece from Singapore and her husband.  We celebrated Dad’s birthday in style at the yacht club on Bird Key and later that week Bill’s birthday at their new condo overlooking Sarasota Bay.

     The kids went to Siesta Beach twice and swam in the pool at our Air B&B daily.  We visited Mote Marine and all the grandkids got to touch a sting ray.  We also played putt-putt golf one morning .  I think fun was had by all.

Jay, Maggie, Teddy, Ellie, Ben, Finn, and Amanda

     After a raucous week of late nights and early mornings, we were glad to be heading back to Carolina.  Our flight was on time and all our luggage made it back!! That’s a win-win in my book.  We were back on the boat by 6pm the night of the 14th….our 43rd wedding anniversary.   We still had a few items to take care of on Carolina Like provisioning, filling the water tanks and topping off the Deisel tanks and we needed a good weather window to cross Lake St. Clair.  So we sat in Gibraltar until July 19th.  During this time we managed to do all our boat chores plus attend a concert in the park and make friends with our boat neighbors, Jenny and Rob.  They took us across the river to a waterfront restaurant for dinner one night.  Nice people.  Just started to think about cruising further than their neighborhood.

Bob, Clare, Jenni, and Rob

 

     The day before we planned on departing, Bob and I walked down to the fuel dock to find out hours and see if they could pump our waste tanks.  We were met by two lovely young ladies, Alyssa and Carly.  They told us they would be at the pumps at 9a.m. The next morning and they’d be glad to sell us some fuel.  Bob was enamored with them both and couldn’t wait to visit with them again.  They were true to their word and were waiting to catch lines when we pulled up.  This is the first time we’d stopped for fuel since last year.  If all the fuel stops in Michigan are like this, we may stay.  The girls asked permission to board then immediately took charge.  Alyssa pumped fuel - two hoses - one for each saddle tank and Carly pumped out our holding tank.  We didn’t have to lift a finger.  Alyssa also pumped gas into the dinghy tank.  They filled the holding tank with gallons of water to rinse it out .  We’ve never had such wonderful service.  Needless to say, those girls got great tips.

Alyssa, Gary, and Carly

     Next stop for us will be on the far side of St. Clair Lake at Algonac Harbor Club in Algonac, MI, the birthplace of the Chris Craft boat.  There is a marked channel to follow through the lake.  Large freighters come through from Lake Huron this way.  The lake itself is quite shallow so caution must be taken.  A little wind will go a long way in shallow water.   We chose a perfect day for this crossing and had a comfortable ride across then up the St.Clair River to Algonac.

    The Harbor Club was quite nice - pool, nice bathrooms, restaurant and bar on site and a Kroger an easy bike ride up the rode.  We could only stay till Friday because our space was promised to a large group coming in for a party weekend.  We were good with this.  The weather was great and we didn’t need any longer than two days to see Algonac.

    Our first stop would be the Algonac Clay Historical Museum.   Imagine our disappointment when the sign said they would not be open till Friday at noon!   But we believe signs are just suggestions so of course we had to test the door.   Low and behold, it opened.   Bob stuck his head in and asked if they were open.   George, the docent dujour, said “not really, but come on in”.  That should have been our tip off to run(🤣🤣).   George was a wonderful guide and toured us through the whole museum, regaling us with personal stories and local tales to go with each boat and motor.  We learned more about Algonac and the Chris Craft Boatworks than mere mortals should know.  It was a truly enjoyable 2 1/2 hours well spent.  

Algonac Clay Historical Museum

Bob with his trusty bike

    We also took this opportunity to ride our bikes along the river and enjoy the views.  We stopped by the Algonac Flaming Grill for breakfast.   Someone should have warned us.  The meals were immense and I took half mine back to the boat for another morning.

Way more than either of us could eat!

An absolutely delicious spinach and feta omelette

      We’ll, we’ve done Algonac and are itching to get moving again.  Our next port of call will be Port Huron, gateway to Lake Huron.  Come back and read some more of our adventures when you have a chance.

Shuffle Off to Buffalo!

 July 23, 2022

Buffalo here we come!

Black Rock Lock

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.

Piper piping us out to the lake

Sunrise with sailboats

   

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.

Beautiful sunset from Patrick and CJ house on Lake Erie

Prepping for the Christmas Tree burning( see hose🤣)

The tree went up like a torch!

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.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Clare

PinkFloyd - The Wall

Guardians game- Leslie, Frank, Paul,Nicole, Clare, and Bob

Great seats!

    On Tuesday, Paul took us on a tour of his old neighborhood.  We got to see the Deering homestead and schools that Paul had attended….sometimes.  We also got to meet and old employer of Paul’s at the restaurant he worked at while in high school.  We had a great lunch and loved seeing Little Italy in Cleveland.

Little Italy

We also stopped at a grocery to provision then headed back to the boat for last minute preparations.   

Wednesday morning dawned bright and beautiful and we were ready to depart by 8:30a.m.  We were heading for Put-In Bay on South Bass Island in Lake Erie.  The famous naval battle (Battle of Lake Erie) during the War of 1812 was fought here and won by Perry.  We planned on visiting the monument and riding bikes around the island for a couple of days then heading on towards Detroit.

Paul and Bob sunbathing

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry Monument

Nicole testing the water

Arrrrgh!  Pirates!!!

Where to next, Nicole?

We spent two days at a dock then moved to a mooring ball for day three.  Luckily they had a launch and it came out on demand .  We had a marvelous time at Put-In Bay but we needed to move on toward Detroit and our flight to Sarasota.   Bob determined that we should try the Raisin River as our next port of call.

     I have no pictures of the Raisin River “marina”.  It was the worst marina we have ever stopped at.  If there had been another marina, we would have moved.  When we pulled into our barely standing wooden dock a snake swam out to greet us.  There was another snake hiding under the dock….turns out he was dead.   I never set foot off the boat and we left real early the next morning for Gibraltar,MI - just south of Detroit.

I’ll stop here and continue the story with our stay in Gibralter. 

And So a New Adventure Begins!! Summer2022

June 10, 2022 

         We have begun a new summer adventure on M/V Carolina. Bob and I left our home in New Bern, NC on June 8 for Brewerton, NY where we had stored Carolina for the winter. We had planned on being back on board by the 2nd of June but I had to have an RFA treatment on my neck which could not be scheduled till the 7th. Bob drove straight through to Cicero, NY. we arrived early enough to go and unload most of our clothes and gear onto Carolina that night. The weatherman was forecasting rain the following day and we didnt want to unpack the truck in the rain. 

Waiting to take the arch down.

       For once, the weatherman was right. We woke to pouring rain on Thursday morning and it was COLD! It was 87 in NC the day we left....it was 53 when we got up to Brewerton. Luckily we had brought jeans and sweatshirts for just this possibility. The first order of business was to test all our repaired/new gear. Rapheal showed up shortly after we climbed on board and introduced us to our new heat pump in the salon. That heat was gonna come in handy! Amazing what money can buy. Next we needed to test the serviced stabilizers and thrusters. Unfortunately all this work entailed techs climbing all through the boat. Theyre very respectful of our space but the dust looked like a light coating of snow on every horizontal surface. I started cleaning while Bob dealt with the technicians. 

      During one of our trips to the restrooms, we met Scott and his wife Kathy. They are loopers from Myrtle Beach, SC. We planned to get together but we all we so busy trying to-get our boats ship shape that we missed their departure. We also ran into Melony and Rick from Atlanta. We spent a couple of days in St. Johnsville, NY with them last year. We had happy hour with them tonight and caught up on our adventures since then. We also made some new friends - Dana and Mike and Tom and Tina. I’m sure we’ll run into them all again sometime this summer. Our departure is on hold now till Monday, June 13. We have to take down our arch and dinghy crane to meet the restricted height requirements of a couple of bridges west of here. The first available time for this work is Monday.

Melanie took this picture for us.

The arch comes down

Topless Carolina

      We are planning on visiting my sister in Rochester on Sunday and collecting our flybridge surround which we stored with them for the winter. (It will not go up until we put the arch back up someplace near Buffalo.)it’s always a treat to visit.

       We continue to clean-the decks have all been scrubbed and the floors have all been cleaned. I washed all the port lights and installed  all the sun screens.  I have yet to put up our sun screens on the “back porch” but we don’t need them quite yet since the weather is still cool. As I am writing this , Bob is putting up our new grill.

We finally dropped our dock lines on June15th.  We left early hoping to get to Lake Cayuga and south to Ithaca.  Unfortunately the weather was not with us.  We started down the lake but decided that we didn’t want to be pinned in a slip for 2 days in Ithaca so we turned back and headed to Seneca Falls.  Tomorrow is another day.

     Seneca Falls was a real treat, I never realized how much industry there was in this one small town - besides it’s fame as the town in “It’s a Wonderful Life”.   We had  lunch at the Parker Grill and Pub then enjoyed the very complete museum in the visitors center.

    The wind was no better the following day so we packed up and left for Palmyra- further along the canal.   Palmyra has a very tiny harbor that can hold 3-4 boats.  Of course the only space left was all the way in the back.  The new thrusters proved their worth.  Bob docked Carolina like a pro and wowed all the onlookers.   We walked through Palmyra and discovered a few interesting architectural features and enjoyed a nice lunch at Muddy Waters, a sandwich shop beside the harbor wall.  The following day was still too windy to attempt leaving so we took the bikes off the boat and went riding.  We rode to the Richmond  Aqueduct then down the canal to the previous lock.  Always nice to get a chance to stretch our legs.  

Beautiful old homes in Palmyra, NY

Church with a stone steeple

Cobblestone building

Close up of that stone steeple

Another beautiful home

      When the wind finally calmed, Bob was able to back us out of the tiny harbor and back into the canal.  We had a date with my sister and brother-in-law in Pittsford.  They were bringing us provisions and coming for a quick visit.

Silo Reastaurant in Pittsford

Carolina on the Pittsford wall

    Our next stop would be Medina.  There was a nice wall with bollards to tie to and restrooms for our use.  The town itself was pretty dead.  Most restaurants and stores were closed - some permanently!  It was a quiet night.  We walked through town but didn’t find too much of interest.  We did learn that Medina once produced Medina Sandstone for use in buildings.  Some had been used in Buckingham Palace.  We rode our bikes again.  This time to Medina Falls.  

Medina, NY wall with Carolina

Medina Falls

    We left the following morning for Tonawanda, carrousel capital of the world.  We’ve visited Tonawanda by car in the past.  This time we were tied to the wall in North Tonawanda beside a very popular bar call Dockside.  Tuesday night the restaurant was closed and it was very quiet but come Wednesday boats and people started arriving in the early afternoon.   A stage was set up, food carts moved in and then we realized we were in the middle of ground zero for the concert in the park!  Boats rafted 4 deep, all playing their stereo systems at full volume.  Even with the hatches all closed, it was too loud to talk.  We decided to sit on our “back porch” and enjoy the people watching.  Our weather window opened on Friday morning so we decided to move down to Buffalo just inside the breakwater and stage for an early departure for Erie, PA.

These are the last two locks on the Erie Canal!

Tonawanda was a happening place.  

This fellow was quite good.

We spent two days in Tonawanda then left for Buffalo, NY.  I’ll  tell you that adventure next time.