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.

From Evenstar
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...

From Evenstar
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.

From Evenstar
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.

From Evenstar
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...

From Evenstar
It was a gorgeous evening.

From Evenstar
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)...

From Evenstar
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...

From Evenstar

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.

From Evenstar
From Evenstar

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