Friday June 21:Ten Years!

After ten years, Linda has decided to turn the blog over to me, Steve, her husband. Here are some of the beginning blogs she posted almost ten years ago. Time really does fly when we're having fun!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Retirement is Near!

I have one more cabinet to clean out, 1 more student to meet and graduation to go to and then it's that great feeling of "Free at Last" !! The boat is not quite ready to leave yet - and we will be going to Boise to cheer Matt on as he runs his 70.3 Ironman. Return on June 14th and then will be leaving Cleveland for the west end of Lake Erie.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Fireworks - Ready to Go :-)

The thought was to ride down to the mouth of the Cuyhoga River to watch the fireworks from the lake but after spending most of the day preparing to leave tomorrow morning, I don't think that is going to happen! The bikes are put away - dingy motor has a new home on the aft deck (lazerette storage idea was thrown out) and all is ready.

So the adventure at long last begins. We will head directly for Kelly's Island - about an 8 hour run (remember we only travel at 8 miles per hour!).

Friday, July 10, 2009

Friday 7/10: 38th Anniversary

After traveling from Leamington to the Detroit River, we celebrated our 38th anniversary a day early by having a lobster dinner! Steve managed to find and backpack them to the boat. Anchoring in Crystal Bay (the water is as clear as the name implies) was great. We are learning how often the generator has to run to keep the freezer stuff frozen.

The first use of the dingy (for breakfast across the river) was very successful - we continue to learn how this living aboard is going to work. And of course there is the 'job of the day' - in this case the work continues in recaulking the walkaround deck. Progress is measured by the foot in this case!

And even though all you see is Steve working, trust that I have a part in all of this as well. What a way to spend an anniversary -- but then who would have thought 38 years ago that this is what we would be doing!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Wed August 19th: Tonawanda, NY

WE MADE IT AND DIDN'T GO OVER THE FALLS!!! My recurring nightmare lately has been that we miss the opening to the canal that runs alongside the Niagara River - and over the Falls we go :( The current in the Niagara River runs 15-17 mph flowing north. Our boat goes a max speed of 10 mph so if we missed the turn and had to turn around and go against the current to get where we needed to be ....... do the math :-) The Peace Bridge is the one we usually took when going into Canada. It was very strange to be going under it instead.

Once around Buffalo (so we are going North - the direction the Niagara River flows) we found the Tonawanda Creek and the entrance to the Erie Canal. Only problem was that we still had the mast up and couldn't fit under either of the two bridges that we had to go under! Not the plan but we ended up quickly dropping the mast as we sat in the middle of a small open area outside the Creek. Quickly is relative of course as dropping the mast means removing the boom, undoing two of the four cables holding it up, pulling the pin that holds the mast to the deck and finally laying it down (Steve slowly lowering it down by holding the ropes and me holding the end until we can move it to the flybridge deck). Once we were docked, Steve packed it up and it is now cozily laying on the flybridge and out of the way.

We found a carrousel museum in town. Very fun - learned all about the making of the figures as well as the music that is played and how it all works. Amazing technology for the 1920's. Adults were warned not to waste their $.02 on the ride and besides it was "evil" to ride on these things!

The price of admission included a ride on the #1 carrousel made by this company in 1916! (My horse won by the way :-) )

I'll try to measure up to the great job Linda did. I'm starting out slowly by just copying her work. A new post is under construction and will be completed soon.