Turkey Point, our first summer!

We had finally arrived in Turkey Point.  Although the trip did have it's challenges, we were here.  My daughter was ecstatic when she first saw the boat, she was literally bouncing (at that time she was a gymnast).  Our dog, on the other hand, was not so happy.  Yes he was happy to see us and be around us, but he was also a Rottweiler who was afraid of anything new.  His ramp did not allow him to easily board and disembark.  The docks at the marina were fixed docks, and depending on the level of Lake Erie, his ramp would either be manageable or quite steep.  We needed a solution to this because poor old Mayday (he was a rescue, and we really didn't fully think that name through) would end up hurting himself sooner rather than later.  The solution, a polyethylene set of molded dock steps, we chose the 3 step unit. 

We spent the rest of the summer trying to sort out the lights on the boat and really discovering various little secrets that the boat held for us.  As the summer passed we would make the trip down to Turkey Point from Ottawa every other weekend (this was a 7 hour trek) and as we waited for calmer days to get the boat out on the lake.  We would take my daughter to her gymnastics training on Saturday mornings, and then return to the boat to spend the rest of the weekend together.  As it turned out, the first summer in Turkey Point would be a wet and windy summer. 

The summer was spent playing games in the boat cabin, heading out to the beach when we could, feeding fish in the marina, and doing all sorts of tumbling on the marina grounds.  At one point during that summer after we picked up my daughter from her mom's house and heading towards the boat our Ford Explorer started acting strangely.  The battery charge warning light came on and to add to all of this, the skies opened up and we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.  I had turned off all non-essential systems and hoped that we would be able to make it to the marina.  This was not to be our lucky day, we just coasted into the village of Turkey Point about 3 Km away from the Marina.  We were stranded on the side of the road, there was a passing car who stopped and gave me a boost, but without a fully charged battery we would be going nowhere.  This same person knew of a towing service and gave us the number to call.  The tow truck showed up about an hour later and after towing us up to our slip at the marina he took pretty much all the cash we had on hand.  We unloaded the Explorer and settled into the boat staying out of the rain.  We had not packed any food as the planned stopover at the boat would be to spend the night there in order to get back on the road the next morning to head back to Ottawa where we would spend Canada Day with friends and neighbors.  I looked up the local pizzeria and they were closed. (we soon found out they would often be closed)  When we finally found a pizzeria that was open and would deliver to the marina, we were told they only accepted cash.  I explained our problem and the owner of the pizzeria told me not to worry, they would not let us go hungry and delivered a pizza to us free of charge telling us to pay whenever we could.  A special thank you goes out here to Surf Side Pizza in Simcoe (unfortunately they are no longer around, which is really sad because they made excellent pizza).  The next day people started to arrive in the Marina and I got to work on the truck.  I removed the battery and brought it into the engine room with a set of jumper cables I set the battery to re-charge while I had a look at all the connections on the alternator.  I was hoping that I would find a loose ground or cable somewhere that became wet and needed to dry out, this wasn't the case.  Once the battery was charged, I put it back into the Explorer and started it up.  With a multi-meter, I checked to see if the alternator was charging.....14.4 volts, great.  I decided to just drive around the marina grounds and before I got too far, the charge warning came back.  I checked the voltage again and we were heading down to 12.8 volts....not good.  I parked the Explorer by the boat again, removed the battery, and headed to the marina office.  The folks there were great, they called up UAP/NAPPA and ordered an alternator on their account, sadly it would only arrive 3 days later.

There were plenty of good folks arriving for the long weekend at the marina, some were in boats and others were in campers.  One of those campers came to my aid, Al Barnum.  Al was an older gentlemen with bad knees and a big heart.  He overheard me talking to the marina staff while I was ordering the new alternator and asked me if he could help us out.  He took me into town with his truck, we found a cash machine, then we stopped at the grocery store where I picked up a few supplies to hold us over for the next few days.  I found out that Al once owned a small tire repair center which he grew into a major tire distribution business.  He often would have people come into his shop needing a patch or a new tire for their campers or vehicles.  Sometimes after the shop was closed he still helped out stranded motorists.  He told me, "It's never fun to be broken down on your vacation, so I would help out where I could and never take advantage of people.  After all, you never know when some of these people will become your customers."  Al was a true gentleman, when I offered to pay him for his troubles, he simply looked at me and said, " Son, you've made my day, I am happy to help, but I won't take your money".  I'll never forget Al, and every year when he arrived, I always made it a point to go and say hello and see how he was doing.

On Canada Day, we spent time together, tumbling mostly as my daughter was trying to perfect her back tuck (back flip).  That evening came and I called Surf Side Pizza, they were open so I placed a rather large order, when they delivered (his wife did the deliveries) I repaid our debt, and added a $20 tip for their kindness.  That evening we watched the fireworks from the fly bridge where we could see three different shows.

The alternator arrived the following day, I installed and tested it, satisfied that everything was working properly, we started our trip back up to Ottawa.  Most of that summer we spent tied up to the dock because of the weather.  It seemed that every time we were down there it was either too windy or just raining.  We were a little uncomfortable bringing the boat into the Marina on our own in any kind of cross winds.  We also were reluctant to anchor overnight anywhere as I still had not figured out the problem with the lights. 

It was during our first summer at Turkey Point that we discovered we did not have a hot water tank, so when we needed hot water we would have to boil it on the stove top.  I had a list of things I wanted for the boat but most importantly on that list was the installation of a bow thruster, sorting out the lights, and installing a hot water heater.  In spite of the weather that we had, we still enjoyed most of our summer weekends.  We were thankful that the air-conditioning on the boat worked simply because our dock neighbors were quite loud, normally drunk, always obnoxious, generally crude and for the most part quite unpleasant to be around.  I'm not sure what I expected, he was an ex-football player who must have taken a few too many hits to his head. 

Up next bow thrusters, which one to choose?