Hot In Cleveland

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:
Characters from Pink Floyd's The Wall

We've elected to stay another two days at the Riverside Yacht Club in Cleveland. It's more a marina than yacht club and it's not ideal - lots of noise from the nearby road and airport - cars whistling along not far from the boats and planes coming in overhead. The pool is picturesquely situated next a power station and the associated transformers and there is no shade - but the winds are rising and the prediction is for a break in the heat tomorrow as thunderstorms pass through. We plan to leave on Sunday when the temperature is supposed to drop from the current high 90s F and fair conditions are predicted.

Yesterday afternoon Karen, Warren, Bob and I spent the afternoon at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We'd been told that it would take about two hours to see. What were we thinking? We arrived at 3:30 and at 5:00 we were still on the first level enjoying the collection of memorabilia, interactive displays and best of all, the old video footage of Rock and Roll's most influential and popular singers. The Hall closed at 5:30! so there was lots left to see. Bob, Warren and I went back today and spent another another four hours. I could easily go back and enjoy another day but we'll look for other entertainment tomorrow. One of these days we'll get back to sailing!

Cruising the South Side of Lake Erie

Since leaving Port Colborne, we’ve been cruising the south side of Lake Erie. We were wary of winds that might whip up the waters of this easily roiled shallow lake but so far we’ve had flat seas. That’s the good news but we’ve also had light to moderate winds on the nose so there’s been little or no sailing. That does seem to happen a little too often on a sailboat!  Since at this time of year winds are predominantly westerly on Erie, winds “on the nose” can be expected but one can always hope for something out of the ordinary!

We’ve also had sunny and reasonably comfortable weather until a couple of days ago when temps and humidity rose.  All cool breezes have vanished and we are melting. Yes we’re hot here like many of you are in Markham, Toronto and even Vermont (so our emails tell us).
 

At the Mentor Yacht Club, they raised a Canadian Flag
shortly after we arrived.

We’ve had a variety of overnight experiences.  There was our night on the municipal docks in Port Colborne – no services and no charge, two nights anchoring in the bay at Presquil Isle Park near Erie, one night at the small and friendly yacht club in Ashtabula (reciprocal and so free for us as members of the Interlake Yachting Association), and two nights at the ritzy Mentor-on-the-Lake Yachting Club (not free but worth paying for) – beautiful setting and a pool where we sat in the shade and swam to cool off. We’ve just arrived in Cleveland where we’ll stay at the Riverside Yacht Club for a night or two – we haven’t decided yet. Warren wants to tour the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and we’ll likely cab it there this afternoon.

Getting out of the heat: dinner 
in the Mentor Yachting Club Dining Room

So far this has been a bit like cruising on Lake on Ontario except that when we stop for the night, it’s all new -  and I guess that’s one of the reasons why we’re taking our boats to Georgian Bay.  It’s not just the destination that’s important but the “newness” of experiences and sights that we're looking for.

The Welland Canal

We're off again - this time we're on our way to Georgian Bay and we're traveling with our friends Karen and Warren Goodyear on their sailboat, Sandcastle.

They call the doors in this lock "The King Kong Doors"

On Thursday morning we left the club and headed across the lake to Port Weller. We’d been instructed to tie up for the night on the wall just outside the first lock in the Welland canal.  Since pleasure craft are required to have three persons for the ascent through the Welland, Bob had arranged for two “helpers” to meet us there on Friday morning, one to accompany us on Sea Change and one for the Goodyears on Sandcastle.  We were up at 4:45 am to be ready for a 5:30 start but a slow moving commercial vessel going through the locks backed up our departure and we didn’t start through the first lock until 6:30. And so began a long slow day.  Having experienced hands aboard made the whole process seem almost easy.  In spite of the turbulent water in the rapidly filling gargantuan locks, as long as we followed instructions and did our bit, the boats stayed more or less in place, near the lock wall but not grinding into it. 

Our relief at the ease of our passage was replaced by boredom as we sat and waited for commercial traffic ahead of or behind us. We were pulled out of the procession twice and asked to tie up and let freighters lock through.  These huge ginormous vessels could barely fit into the locks and from our vantage point, tied up just outside the locks, there appeared to be a hair’s breadth between ship and lock walls.  They were slow to enter and slow to exit.  Each time we paused to tie up at the side of the canal, we sat for close to 2 hours – and so, in spite of our early start, it was 7:30 that evening when we pulled out of lock 8 and rounded the corner to tie up at the municipal locks in Port Colbourne on Lake Erie.  It turns out that we were fortunate not to have had an even longer day.  Yesterday, we were talking to another sailor who started early in the morning on his way through the Welland and didn’t finish until 1 a.m. the next morning!