Evenstar: 2010

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Trip to Vermilion

On a Friday afternoon in late August the three Catalina 25s at our marina set out for a weekend trip to Vermilion, Ohio. We have membership in ILYA as members of the St. Mary's Boat Club so we were able to get docks and use the facilities at the Vermilion Boat Club. Plus, this particular weekend the VBC was holding their Jimmy Buffet pool side party.

We started out motor sailing as there wasn't too much wind. By the time we had reached Marblehead there was at least enough to try with sails alone. This gave us a nice photo op (along with the tourists on shore) to get the Lane's 65 Roses passing by the lighthouse.

Eventually the winds picked up to the point we had a great sail for the last half of the 25 mile trip and we ducked behind the break water and headed up the river into Vermilion.

Motoring up the river is quite an experience as there are channels heading off like streets that are lined with houses with boats parked outside.

Mary Lou remarked that it looked like it would cost a 'Vermilion' dollars to live here. On the way up river we passed the French restaurant Chez Francois.

Our itinerary included dining here (well at least upstairs at the Touche Wine/Martini Bar as formal dress is required in the actual restaurant). We were not disappointed!

The VBC (and their docks) is situated right on the river. We docked Evenstar and put up the pop-top and bimini as we would be staying for a couple of nights and rain was in the forecast.

Here the Lane's, Reddick's, and Clark's pose at the VBC club house before the party - yes that is my 'Jimmy Buffet' shirt.

Of course our trip to Vermilion would include a visit to the Inland Seas Maritime Museum. When they asked 'Would you take her out, Mr. Reddick?' I answered "Sure!".

Vermilion is a cute river/lake side town with flower lined bridges and streets housing little shops and restaurants. (Oh, and lots and lots of trains running at high speed through town, blaring their horns at all hours!)

On Sunday we headed out into what would be some rough motor sailing in 4-6 ft. waves.

Here 65 Roses passes Cedar Point amusement park in the background.

This was another great mini-vacation and we will definitely plan to head back to Vermilion next year.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

NOW it's a vacation

Mary Lou has this thing where it's not a vacation until she takes a picture of her bare feet in some relaxing location. So here we are at anchor for the night in a bay on the north side of Kelley's island reading a Patrick O'Brian novel and sipping on a margarita...

We had sailed over during the afternoon on August 7th and dropped anchor about half way up the bay. As evening settled in all we could see were a myriad of stars and the anchor lights of the other boats spending the night.

Mary Lou always sleeps like a baby with the (hopefully) slight rocking of the boat while we are at anchor. I, on the other hand, never get a good nights sleep - up every couple of hours checking the GPS and popping my head out to be sure the anchor is holding. This particular night we didn't drag at all, though by morning what had been our neighbor in a power boat had drifted almost into another boat about 75 yards behind us.

The next day it was another sail to Put-In-Bay and a night on one of their mooring balls. See us out there? Look for the shortest mast!

Here is Mary Lou, still relaxing...

...and this is a water taxi delivering boaters to and from their boats - unlimited service running until midnight included with the price of the mooring.

We sailed back to the mainland on Monday afternoon, it was another great, extended weekend.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Port wine and funnel clouds

Friday August 6th and all three of the Catalina 25s in our group went out for a vigorous evening sail - about 7 miles round trip. The winds were strong enough that we all reefed the mainsails. Waves were up to 4 feet. In the picture below it looks like the Clark's Leprechaun is about swamped...but they were sailing in a trough between waves. Evenstar is in the background...

We returned to the marina and boarded the Lane's boat, 65 Roses, for some port wine and chocolate (while the clouds started to build behind us).

Shortly after this we noticed that a funnel cloud was forming and heading our way. The tail never got lower than this but we were keeping a close eye on it!

The cloud soon reached our area, we had a brief shower, and a few minutes later the sun was shining again.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Moon over Put-In-Bay

Our plan for the weekend was to sail over to Put-In-Bay on Sunday afternoon and spend the night. We got a late start Sunday waiting for the weather to clear up a bit. As usual it was a bit rough just outside the West Harbor channel but once we got the sails up things smoothed out. We made good time to the SW corner of South Bass island. Below is a pic of one of the ferrys heading over...the first of many we would see.

Once we turned the corner and tacked north it seemed we would see another ferry about every 5-10 minutes and we always seemed to be on a course that might put us in the way.

Moving up the SW side we passed the famous home built from the front end of a freighter...

See more info on this house here.

When we entered the mooring field we found plenty of room - one of the advantages of a Sunday. Since the wind was supposed to be out of the NE over night we tucked back in to the west as far as possible.

Yeah, and we were probably about the smallest sail boat there.

Using the water taxi is very handy, just give them a shout on the radio and they come out and pick you up. They dropped us off at The Boardwalk where we each had a whole lobster dinner. I don't think Mary Lou and I have had lobster this way since before we were married. We took a walk around the down town area...doing a little window shopping and peeking into the plethora of bars. Here is a new place that was pretty cool - complete with sand between your toes.

We hadn't walked around this town for over 30 years and pretty much nothing seemed familiar now. There wasn't nearly this much here back in the 70's.

We ended up at Axel and Harry's High Tide Waterfront Bar for a couple of frozen drinks (great Rum Runner), stopped back at The Boardwalk for one for the road, and had the taxi run us back out to Evenstar so we could watch the full moon come up over the whole scene...

It was a gorgeous evening.

We had a bit of breakfast and lunch aboard the boat and left shortly after noon, motoring over to Middle Bass Island to check out the nice state docks, then inspecting the area a little further up the shore where we could do some anchoring in the future, then we sailed back south to wrap up the weekend.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Move to Lake Erie

The past three years we have trailered Evenstar from Grand Lake St. Marys to the Traverse Bay Michigan area for two week vacations, cruising the area while living aboard. This year our plan was to take the boat to Lake Erie late in the summer and spend extended weekends there. These plans changed with the blue-green algae infestation that has hit our home lake Grand Lake Saint Marys.

Below is a picture of our GLSM dock the weekend before we pulled our boat out. This was probably the worst that it looked in our channel when the algae was blooming. I hope that the condition of the lake isn't the 'canary in the coal mine' for the future of this and other waters in the area. A number of lakes have reported the blue-green algae problem (and the toxins it produces)...

We decided to move the boat to Erie in early July and will dock at a marina in West Harbor until October. Here is our temporary home...

Our first weekend we headed over to Put-In-Bay to meet up with friends for the afternoon, mooring in the harbor, catching the water taxi to The Boardwalk for a late lunch, and taking a golf cart ride around the town for a tour.

We are hoping to head back to the island in the next few weeks for an overnight stay.

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