Zatarra Cruise - Ashtabula to Fairport

Ashtabula Yacht Club is a serious sailboat club with just a small lagoon for powerboats.

There's a pretty good mix of racers and cruisers. These fish and parrot clothes pegs were spotted on a cruiser. As you can see, we had rain.

We stayed in Ashtabula for a couple of days, watching the wildlife

 and walking downtown, which included

a trip to the chocolate/fudge store and

 the ice cream store. We also had a lovely dinner at a friends house.

 
We decided to break the trip to Cleveland (which would have been at least a 10 hour transit) into 2 shorter hops.

Out past the lighthouse

and the flocks of cormorants on the breakwall.

We motor-sailed as we couldn't get enough speed with just the sails.

We watched as this nuclear power plant got closer and then receded.

At another cruisers recommendation we went into Fairport Harbour, using the chart for guidance.

A lighthouse and extension at the entrance looks similar to Ashtabula's entrance.

But the lighthouse is in much better condition and a resident told us that it is being fixed up to become a B&B.

Inside the harbour there is another, old, lighthouse and a museum. We didn't go as we were only there overnight and it was on the other side of the river.

It's a busy, industrial little port with piles of sand, gravel

and salt (mined nearby)

Tugboat and barge

serving this huge dredger, that we had to negotiate, in the middle of the river.

We could hear it working all night.

The herons will use any vantage point to fish from.

We docked at the Grand River Yacht Club (on the recommendation of a fellow sailor)

and friendly members welcomed us and docked us right in front of the clubhouse/washrooms.

There wasn't much to see on this, the West side, of the river, but this restaurant had also been recommended

as opposed to this huge bar/restaurant across the street.

The busy railway line came right down the street and beside the yacht club, with blowing horns and screeching wheels.

Lots of evidence that the shuttered buildings, for sale, had previously been part of a bustling shipbuilding community.

Not sure what to make of this strange coloured Canada Goose.

Supper at Brennan's Fish Restaurant was fabulous. I had perch, crab cake, scallops, shrimp, whitefish, vegetables and coleslaw.

Paul's banana cream pie was a monster and Sharon and I split a Key Lime pie.

We all waddled back to the boat, absolutely stuffed.

Zatarra Cruise - Port Dover to Ashtabula

Paul, Sharon and I were supposed to leave Port Dover on Friday to sail to Erie but bad weather delayed us for a day. Instead I went to dinner in Port Dover at a Clonmel castle.

This lovely old house, on extensive park like grounds, is a Bed and Breakfast.

On Friday nights

they serve dinner (although the setting is quite formal, it is, in fact, quite informal)

and then live music. Also informal, with different people at different times getting up and singing and playing.
We set off Saturday morning. The weather forecast was for winds 8 to 10 knots.

Breakfast while underway.

We started out sailing with a reefed main sail and a full headsail. Before we reached the Point the wind picked up, waves increased and even with a furled headsail it wasn't a comfortable sail so we dropped it all and motored.

I have to take a picture of the lighthouse everytime I pass it.

Comfortable cruisers.

We were very happy to see Erie after 6 ft waves on an angle that kept twisting and tossing us around, tossing the stuff in the boat around too. We saw 22knots a couple of times.

Not sure that the paddlewheeler would be having much fun out there.

We checked in with the U.S. Border Security over a video phone and then got docked right in front of the club house at the Erie Yacht Club. Whew! Amazing how tiring it is to deal with the motion of the boat for the 6 hour crossing. So we ate out at the yacht club for dinner.

A race boat has next to nothing on the stern rail but Zatarra has a crowded stern; from the left: the furler line, propane, BBQ, dinghy davits and various lines that secure the dinghy, pouch that holds the VHF radio, fender to stop the dinghy rubbing ...

radio pouch for dinghy, safety kit for dinghy, miscellaneous ropes and bungee cords, Canadian flag, floating throw line, motor for the dinghy, emergency light and life ring with floating line.

Sunday we walked up the steep hill out of the Erie Yacht Club and found a variety store for the essentials we had forgotten

View near the bottom of the hill.

We had planned to stay another day but checked the weather and found that if we didn't leave on Monday, we would be trapped by thunderstorms for the next 3 days. So we went to bed early, planning to be up before the sun.

We left the dock at 7:30am and motored out the channel past this Laker loading up with sand

and fishermen on the pier.

Out of Presquille Bay we turned West and set the sails. It was a lovely SSW wind 10 to 16 knots.

The chart plotter makes it easy to set and follow a course and for the first couple of hours we were able to sail along at about 6knots, pretty close to our course.

Paul would have happily sailed all the way but as the wind dropped and shifted towards the West we were having to tack further away from the course, taking longer and longer to make any progress to Ashtabula.

Sharon was also happy as she could stand in the galley to make lunch without being knocked all over the place (like on Saturday)

The solar eclipse occurred while we were sailing. We really didn't notice any change in the light but did find that it got cooler for about 20 minutes.
Just as we had determined that we would complete one more tack and then turn on the motor and thus be able to head straight to Ashtabula, I shifted position, on the helm, and knocked a cockpit cushion off the boat. Luckily it floated so we executed a man-over-board exercise to retrieve it.

After a couple of passes, attempting to get it with the boat hook, we had to deploy the dinghy to rescue it.

After spending a week here last year, trapped by thunderstorms, it felt like coming home.

We knew to look for the bald eagles on the gravel piles

and the osprey on the light posts.

We were docked at Ashtabula Yacht Club and having a glass of wine at about 5pm