Part 1 "The Adventure Begins"

While we were in Leamington, we took the opportunity to clean up Tropical Horizons (Paradise Island) and become familiar with her systems.  We also recruited a good friend of ours, who was a naval officer in the past, to help me with the passage.   While keeping an eye on weather patterns we started to plan the big trip to move the boat from Leamington to Turkey Point over a weekend.  We purchased our friend a plane ticket from Ottawa to Windsor and he managed to get a day off work to give us some extra time. While we spent the better part of the Thursday before our trip listening to the weather radio for wave heights and wind strength I transferred all of the way points that I had plotted on our paper charts into the GPS plotter. The plan was to split the trip up into two legs.  The first leg would have us make the passage from Leamington to Erieau Bay, where we would anchor for the night. The second leg would have us continue from Erieau Bay onwards to Turkey Point.  

On the Friday we kept in touch with our friend who was travelling down from Ottawa. I headed out to the Windsor airport and picked him up. The entire day the winds kept blowing and it was not looking good for our departure. Once we arrived at the boat, we kept listening to the forecast it was looking like we would be in for a bumpy ride.  Then there seemed to be a window of opportunity where the forecast waves were to be less than a meter in height and winds at 10-12 knots.  We made the decision to head out towards Erieau Bay as conditions would not be improving throughout the weekend.  

With our fuel tanks full and the newly installed flow meters on each engine registering our fuel consumption, we headed out of Leamington Marina.  We had planned to run at displacement speeds (slow) in an effort to conserve fuel, but soon enough this would change.  As we headed out of the harbor the conditions were as expected and the boat handled the sea state well.  Then we made it past the breakwater and the reality of the sea state sunk in.  For the most part if you encounter weather that comes from a given direction you can alter course and adjust for the wave direction and height in an effort to increase the comfort level of passengers and crew; in this case the seas were confused with waves coming from all directions.  It was like being in a wash tub, we were being tossed in all directions.  Being up on the fly bridge only amplified the movement with the ships bell ringing on its own and both of us sitting securely in our helm chairs.  At this point we decided to increase our speed in order to maintain comfort.  The ride improved, but we were still being tossed around like a toy in a washtub, this was truly a moment where as captain you understand just how small you are in this world. You can view our departure from Leamington here.

Planned 1st Leg of passage.

We plowed on making our way around Point Pelee, the most southern part of the Canadian mainland.  In fact, Pelee Island would technically be the most southern part of Canada.  Rounding the point can be tricky as there are some shoals that you need to watch out for and with the weather being what as it was, we gave Point Pelee a wide berth.  As soon as we rounded the point, we set our course for Erieau Bay and settled in.  From time to time I would hand the helm to my friend and head down into the engine room to check things over and make sure we would not have any problems.  We had a routine worked out that we would follow for the next 40 nautical miles that lay between us and our anchorage.  Bobbing along we were running at about 10 knots and as the sun began to set and the overcast sky turned from grey to black we turned on our navigation lights.  

Remember when I mentioned that the previous owner installed some missing lights?

As the lights came on, all of our instrumentation went dark!  Many carefully chosen words were uttered. Almost immediately, we noted the course on the compass and continued to steer using the magnetic course.  It was at the same time that we noticed the engine temperature gauges were showing an overheating condition, this was more of a concern.  I immediately went into the engine room and checked over the engines which seemed to be running normally.  I kept troubleshooting while my shipmate kept us moving in the right direction. I also noticed that the fuel gauges showed empty, the charge gauge showed that the alternators were not charging the batteries, the temperature gauge was still showing hot and the oil pressure was high as well?  At this point I had confirmed that the engines were running well so the plan was to keep running on the compass bearing and check on the engines at regular intervals to ensure that we were not overheating.  

We continued on towards our destination, Erieau Bay, following the compass and scanning the horizon for the entrance to Erieau Bay. At some point I noticed that there was an “Accessory” switch at the helm station that was in the “Off” position, I flipped it “On” and presto the electronics came back online.  The only thing we could figure was that when the gauges went haywire, the switch got hit by accident.

 As the electronics came back online, we spotted the lights marking the entrance into Erieau Bay.  We were relieved to see the lights marking the breakwater and the entrance to the bay as well as being happy to have our depth sounder back.  Once we made it into the bay, we set the anchor, took a few land bearings, set the anchor alarm and shut down the engines and oddly enough, the gauges had not changed.  I flipped the switch from “Navigation Lights” to “Anchor Light” and all of a sudden the engine gauges all returned to their normal “off” positions (all low).  I fired up the engines again and the gauges were working?  It turned out that the previous owner had shorted out the gauges with the lights when he wired the illumination on the instruments and attempted to tie in the newly installed masthead light.  We had a couple of beers and a sandwich and hit the racks for the night; the next day would be just as challenging as this one.

Next up, finding fuel and avoiding fishing gear.