Bridgeview Marina, Sarnia: Welcome Home Party

We had our 15 minutes of fame, Mashoka, from The Sarnia Observer, interviewed us, including video footage.
 

Mashoka's Video and Articel in the Observer

Bridgeview Marina put up a party tent. The BBQ was running all evening, while we went from table to table and told (tall?) stories and answered many questions. It was great to see many old friends, some came despite not having a boat here anymore.

Yes. Lison-Life is off the air. Last Post! Thanks to William for the last two shots, great idea for a definitive end of this blog.

Let the Parties begin: Bridgeview Marina, Sarnia

Feels like home: Lake St Clair Metro Park

The ride up the Detroit River to Lake St Clair was a looooong slog against the current.

These are home waters, for 13 years we went out and back into the shallow entrance of the Lake St Clair Metro Park. But this was with a power boat. Today we inched our way in, dragging a 6ft keel. All went well, we are tied up at the seawall of the Metro Park.

Our house is on one of the canals, we move back in on Sept 1st. Until then, we hope to see a few friends and neighbors here, then we motor up the St Clair River to Sarnia, for a Welcome-Back-Party at Bridgeview Marina.

Put In Bay (Ohio)

Put-In-Bay, on South Bass Island in Lake Erie, has some history, when Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British fleet in a battle during September 1813. The Brig Niagara of today is a replica, still nice to see a tall ship.

These days, Put-In-Bay is a party town, loads of people come by boat, even more by ferries from the mainland.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do

Party!

Like the people need a reason to come here for a party. We timed it right (or wrong ??), this weekend is Christmas in July.

Lorain (Ohio)

We spent a week in Erie (Pennsylvania). When the favorable winds came, the weather was just yuck, rain, cold, etc. Instead, we rented a car, did a bit of provisioning and enjoyed the park and beach for a few extra days.

The sail/motorsail to Fairport Harbor (Ohio) was OK. There we had to spend a weekend with jetskies, Stand-Up-Paddlers, Kayaks and boats pulling watertoys. It was busy, the Midwest is enjoying summer.

Towards Lorain (Ohio) we had a great sail, Northerly winds.

Next stop is probably Put-In-Bay (Party-town) on Middle-Bass_Island, there we will wait for some more rain to pass, before heading North towards Detroit, Lake St Clair, Sarnia.

Presque Isle Bay, Erie, PA

The next few days we will have unsettled weather and decided to wait it out in Presque Isle Bay, a huge, protected lagoon in Lake Erie. 

 

This morning the first strong thunderstorms rumbled thru.

Dunkirk, NY

On Friday the 13th, we motor-sailed against typical Lake Erie 4x4 chop: 4 feet high, 4 feet apart in just 10-15 feet of wind against us. We reached the Dunkirk breakwater and anchored behind it. Then we heard a VHF radio call: "Traveling sailboat anchoring in Dunkirk Harbor, this is the Dunkirk Yacht Club". We answered, and we were offered the guest slip in the Yacht Club (plus showers, etc). We also got invited to the Friday Evening Happy Hour and got together with ~25 other Yacht Club members. 

 

      Dockmaster Ed: Thanks for calling, we had a good time!

Tonawanda, End of the Erie Canal

34 Locks later, at mile 320, we are in Tonawanda, NY.
Today we were busy, in sweltering heat, and put the mast back up. Then the boom, mainsail, etc. A few more things to do, but we are a sailboat again! 

 

Anniversary

Today we own Lison-Life for 5 years. We bought her on 07/07/07. 

 

Erie Canal Lock 09 to 28, mile 235

Enjoying small town USA, that is what we do. Back in September 2008 we brought the boat the other way, in a rush, to get it to Annapolis in 3 weeks, from the Great Lakes. This time around we have the luxury of time, stopping here and there, only motoring for a few hours a day.

4th of July we anchored in "Cross Lake" since we couldn't get a spot at the docks in Baldwinsville. After dusk we had fireworks all around the lake.

Next day we stopped in Lyons. One other sailboat came and docked: "Dilly Dally", after having been in the Caribbean. 

 
 
As in many Erie-Canal towns, the citizens go thru extra efforts to attract boaters/visitors with good docks, showers, pump out, wifi, etc, often in a nice park setting. But this day was special. Lyons has volunteers, meeting the boaters in the evening, sharing stories about the town and history. Next morning, Bob, one of the volunteers, saw us good bye at the lock and took this pic, thanks! 

Erie Canal Lock 01 to 08, Mile 023

After spending two pleasant nights in Waterford, NY, we are now passed Schenectady, stopped at Lock 08 for the day. The original park setting is gone, from the floods of Hurricane Irene last year. Usually there would be benches and grills, but not this year, yet, they are working on it. More importantly, the damns, locks and gates work.



Waterford

Castleton, NY

In Castleton-on-Hudson, New York the Castleton Boat Club has a self-service crane to step, or un-step, masts.

On arrival we picked up a mooring and started with preparations to remove the mast from the boat.

We were done in the afternoon, but with some high wind gusts, we didn't dare to use the crane. Next early morning it was calm and we proceeded to the dock for un-stepping.

Boom removed, added crutch for mast


Within an hour the mast was out, just when an ocean going freighter passed very slowly (No Wakes Please..)
 
It took a few hours to remove "things" of the mast, then we held the mast horizontal, by crane, and moved the boat, to slide the mast under boom gallows and arch. The wind had picked up, we needed some extra lines to hold the mast in place. By lunch everything was settled.

Athens, NY

We got up at three in the morning, to catch the current going up. Before the current turned against us, at 7:30, we reached Athens and stopped at their free visitors dock.

From Athen's website:

The Village of Athens sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, four miles north of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in Greene County. First settled in the late 17th century, the village, a port on the Hudson-Athens Ferry, became a thriving hub for shipbuilding, brick making and ice harvesting.

After the bridge went up in 1935, the need for the ferry was eliminated and it closed in 1947. Athens’ layout and architecture have remained essentially the same since its heyday in the late 19th century. It has more than 300 buildings on national and state historic registers and has the feel of a living museum of American architecture, with examples of many of the predominant styles of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Stick, Second Empire, Folk Victorian and Queen Anne.

We found a sleepy town on an early Monday morning. Couldn't get a breakfast, besides a sandwich from the fuel station. Several restaurants and cafes are closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

We had a couple of thunderstorms roll thru.

They do have a brewery and pub, which we want to try tonight. Tomorrow we have another early start, and should make it to Castleton-On-Hudson. There we un-step the mast for the trip thru the Erie Canal.

Poughkeepsie Yacht Club

While we had some bad luck with our transmission, we broke down in just the right spot. The 10 days at the PYC were great. First day we arrived, 84 year old Joe greeted us and gave us an idea about the facilities of the Club. Ali & Rudy came shortly after, heard about our dilemma, changed their plans, and first took us out for lunch. During lunch we discussed options, parts, tools, people needed to get us going again.

While we were working to get the transmission out and apart, Jeanne & Chuck hosted the monthly PYC party. Some 60+ members we saw, didn't meet every single one, and probably remember even less names...

We brought our blow-up globe, with our route drawn on it, and we answered many questions. 

Joe and Marty

Chris, Rudy, Dirk, Guenther

Mary and Mark

Next day, Mary & Mark took Rudy, Ali and us for a ride on their powerboat, to Kingston for dinner. 

Need for speed

These were just some of the highlights. The PYC crowd is very welcoming, friendly and helpful, we hope we left as friends. Thanks!

Test drive

Transmission is back together, we went for a seven mile test drive, all good!

Cleaning up, laundry, shopping, and preparing to un-step the mast is next.

Transmission Disassembly

We got lucky, we stopped at the right place. The PYC is very welcoming, Joe greeted us as soon as we stepped off the dinghy. Richie, the YC-Steward, signed us in and we are free to use the PYC facilities. To remove the transmission, we needed a few extra tools, Rudy & Ali drove us to a hardware store and then to lunch.

First, it wasn't clear if we can remove the transmission without hauling the boat. The space is tight, and we almost had to pull the shaft coupling and shaft, but after removing a few engine accessories, we got the transmission out.

We do have the service manual for the transmission, we ordered the bearings, standard industrial stuff. But to get the transmission apart, we needed one special socket, huge, with 4 prongs, to take off the nut for the drive shaft coupling. One older PYC fellow, Loyd, has a lathe, mill and a welder, he made this tool for us. (BTW: Yanmar doesn't want 'normal' people to work on their transmissions, they sell this special tool for $800).
We also needed a bearing splitter to get the inner race of the damaged tapered bearing off the shaft. Ernie another member, works on Land-Rovers and Tractors, had just the right tool, for the right diameter.

Bad bearing

All this was possible, because Rudy and Ali know the members and are driving us to all these people's houses, barns, workshops.

We now have a rental car, diverse hardware stores and car part stores are around, so we think we can get this done. Cruising = ....fixing boats in odd places

NYC and Hudson River

6/11 we sailed by NYC. Traffic was busy/crazy, as usual. Good to see the gap left from 9/11 is being filled.

Motoring upriver, we heard a new "whining" noise, from engine or transmission. The noise got louder under load. So we motored very, very slowly, and only when the tidal current of the river was with us. When the current turned against us, we anchored and waited for the tide to turn.

This made for slow going, we took two days for 60 miles. In that time we changed oils, and found an unusual amount of fine metal shavings in the transmission oil, not good.... We looked at options to stop, investigate, and repair. Marinas around New York charge $3/ft/day, this would be just too expensive for a 2-3 week stay!

When we came up to the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club, we saw a mooring field with reasonable protection from Esopus Island. Here we can leave the boat for $20/day, and have access to shore facilities via the Yachtclub.

On a mooring at the PYC

The trip up the Hudson river will be another 60 miles, then we have 360 miles of Erie Canal, all motoring, no sailing. We better get this transmission fixed.

Up the Chesapeake Bay, down the Delaware Bay, on to NYC

With no wind to play with, we motor with the tide. The first night we stopped at the Bohemia River, just a few miles before the entrance to the C & D Canal. The next day we had few hours of current with us to get through the canal.

We decided to continue down the Delaware Bay. For 4 hours we were fighting current against us, which later turned to out favor again.

"Sparrow", another sailboat had misjudged the little wind and ended without fuel trying to sail against the current, with no progress, and no marina to go to. They called for help/fuel, several other boats answered, but found themselves too far away. We were within 1-1/2 miles of their position, within minutes we arrived at their position and transferred 2 jerry cans of diesel to them. More Karma points....

With light westerly winds we anchored in front of Lewes / Cape Henlopen for the night.

Next day and night we sailed North, along the New Jersey shore, and anchored behind "Sandy Hook" 

Miami - NYC

Payback time

Mike & Jenny have given us their slip in the marina for a month, plus driven us to and from the airport, plus we were able to do laundry in their house, plus we were able to ship mail to them, plus many things.....

They are getting their boat "Abake" ready to launch on Friday, this includes cleaning and waxing.

  

Perfect opportunity to earn some Karma points.

Back on the boat

Chesapeake Bay Special