Part 3 "Squalls on the horizon and arrival at Turkey Point!"

We kept our distance from the shores as we made our way up and around Long Point.  The seas soon started to come from the stern, following seas. We would climb up a given wave crest over the top and surf down the face. I had increased the speed enough so that we were comfortable and able to maintain control of the boat while it surfed.  Then, as we rounded Long Point, we saw it in the distance and there was no way to outrun it….a squall line was headed straight for us.  I turned on the radar at this time (now I know that I am required to have the radar active at all times when moving) and we closed up the windows as the storm approached.  We kept an eye on our position in order to keep from running aground.  The squall arrived and the sky turned black with heavy winds, thunder, lightning and blinding rain; to our surprise the force of the storm had flattened the seas completely.  Unfortunately, we also discovered that the canvas top was not quite waterproof.  We must have looked silly with our foul weather gear on under the canvas, but the alternative of being dripped on was not terribly appealing.  Visibility had been reduced to about 60 feet, if you think about that, the boat measures 41 feet, the helm position is roughly in the center of the boat so, that gave us 40 feet ahead.  The squall passed and as I looked over to the port side I saw the Long Point light house, we had drifted far too close to Long Point for comfort, but with a quick correction we were back into safe waters again making our way around the point and towards MacDonald Turkey Point Marina.  The ride on the Eastern edge of Long Point was uneventful and quite comfortable until we made our way into the marina.  

Entering the marina at Turkey Point, you are faced with many channels and one wrong turn will have you turning around in shallow weedy waters.  The first wrong turn had us heading down a channel that was a dead end, so turn around the first time.  We finally found the correct channel and as we approached our slip I attempted to back in.  The wind was not being terribly co-operative, and after a few attempts I decided to head into the slip bow first.  There were a few people who saw that we were having problems and came out to the dock to assist us, but our neighbors just sat there, drinking, laughing and commenting as armchair captains, this was a sign of things to come.  After we were tied up, I shut down the engines and noticed that the opening of the slip allowed for 6 inches to either side, I didn't feel so bad.  We had arrived!

In hindsight there were some good lessons we learned from this trip.

The first lesson was never to assume that a task has been carried out properly. Always check your systems with engines running (navigation lights and all running systems).  

The second lesson was, make sure that bits and pieces don’t go missing from the boat after work has been carried out.  For some unknown reason the previous owner removed the hot water tank, when I approached him about this, he claimed it was leaking so he removed it as a favor to me.  Gee….thanks!  

Third, be flexible on your departure date and time.   Although the boat did handle the seas well enough, as crew we were uncomfortable and upon our arrival we were tired.  

Fourth, take an inventory of all the systems on the boat.  Measure hose diameters, know where all of the through hulls are, make a spares inventory list and check it.  We were lucky that we didn’t have a mechanical failure, broken hose, broken fan belt, etc.

I’ve also learned to keep more detailed logs that I can refer back to if needed.  The small amount of time it takes to log details of a passage is well worth the effort.  If you ask most people I do have a pretty good memory, but for applying to the coastguard for my captains license, my memory doesn't really help. I’ve also put together an engine log book to keep track of maintenance and engine room checks.  Every day I learn something new and future blogs will also highlight other lessons learned.  

This trip also set us on a search for a bow thruster to help with manoeuvring in challenging conditions.

May the winds be in your favor and the seas carry you gently to your Tropical Horizons!

Part 2 "Finding fuel and avoiding fishing gear"

The next morning I woke up to the sound of the commercial fishing crews readying their boats for a day of fishing on Lake Erie.  To be honest, I really didn't sleep all that well as I was often waking up to check the position of the boat relative to the shore.  As we did not have any electricity besides battery power, coffee was not an option.  We had a few more sandwiches with water for breakfast, carried out the engine checks, and went over the charts.  I was looking for a port to pull into that might have some fuel and would make a good halfway break to our day.  Port Stanley seemed to be a large commercial port….”they should have fuel” I thought to myself, so I entered the way points into the GPS/Chart plotter.  We fired up the engines; while they were warming up we finished our breakfast and opened up all of the windows on the bridge.  It was still cold in the morning and we both had a foul weather coats on as we weighed anchor and slowly made it out of Erieau Bay.  The winds had died down a bit but the lake was still throwing up waves in the 1.5 to 2 meter range.  For the most part, when I sailed I would have loved this weather, but the confused seas had the waves arriving in all directions still, which made it challenging to steer.  One thing I did learn from the previous day was what speed we would be most comfortable at, knowing that, we set the throttles and settled into the helm seats and followed the course set for Port Stanley.  As the morning moved on, it became clear that we would be on high alert looking out for fishing gear.  Neither one of us knew that there was such an active fishery on Lake Erie. The charts have notes on them about commercial fishing, but we really didn’t know what to expect.  As it turned out, the fishermen of Lake Erie use nets, so we would keep scanning the horizon for black poles which marked the floats that were attached to the nets.  Our biggest fear was snaring a net in our props, not only would we have to deal with some angry fishermen (and you can’t blame them, this is their livelihood) but we would also be disabled.  We kept plenty of distance between our boat and their nets opting to make a detour in order to keep safe.  The lake did seem to calm down as the sun started to warm us up (either that or we were just growing accustomed to the motion). 

Once we spotted the entrance to Port Stanley we made our way into the outer harbor and tied up to a commercial dock, this would be my first time docking.  We asked some people who were out for a late morning stroll if they knew where the fuel dock was, lucky for us they did and they also knew what channel the bridge operator monitored (this was a good thing as they were on 16, which made no sense to us normally bridge operations are on 14).  We called on the draw bridge requesting a bridge opening. After traffic and pedestrians were clear he opened up and we passed, he cautioned us to keep to our starboard side in the channel as this is where the deeper water was.  As we slowly made our way down the river into town, we finally spotted the fuel dock and the approach would be a little tricky with a crosswind and current working against us.  I approached the dock and as luck would have it my first attempt had to be aborted.  I then continued past the dock asking the dock hands if there was deep enough water for me to turn around, there was, and so I turned the boat to face into the wind.  There comes a time when your first approach doesn't quite go to plan you are better off aborting and starting a new approach at a better angle. The second approach was much better and we were able to tie off. This would not be the last time I abort a docking attempt. I shut down the engines and we started taking on fuel.  As it turned out, I made the fuel dock owners day as we emptied his tanks filling ours, a quick calculation confirmed that the fuel flow meters were working properly and we headed back out to the lake for the final leg of our trip.  We waited for the draw bridge to open up again in the middle of the channel holding the boat in position using the shifters.  I guess it was good practice, a bit stressful but good practice.  Once we passed through the bridge opening, we headed back out onto the lake. We continued our voyage dodging fishing nets along the way.

Next, squalls on the horizon and arrival at Turkey Point! 

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.

A New Home for Tropical Horizons! (Paradise Island)

Tropical Horizons at Turkey Point

We now had the boat, which at that time still carried the name “Paradise Island”, so what was the plan? When we purchased the boat, our intention was to find a marina in the area of Port Dover, Ontario to keep the boat. The main reason for this was to be close to my daughter, who lived not far from Port Dover with her mother. She was getting older and we knew that soon, she would not want to be too far from her friends.  We thought that if we had the boat there, it might make visits a little easier and more enjoyable than staying in a hotel room. The choices of marinas were limited because of the size of our boat at 41 feet, there was Port Dover or MacDonald Turkey Point Marina that were close enough to my daughter and could accommodate us. The choice was made easier since Port Dover had no slips available. We were moving the boat to Turkey Point! The slip at Turkey Point was more of a well than a slip, with unlimited power and water provided. When I first had a look at it, I wasn't overly impressed as there was lots of work that needed to be done before we could arrive. The dock needed decking, there was garbage all around the grounds and it really didn't look like it was worth the money I was paying for it. As you can see from the photo, the dock was decked and the area cleaned up, they even brought in river rock to cover the bare ground just forward of the well.  There was one advantage, however; you were allowed to park your vehicle at your slip, this would make arriving at the boat and unloading supplies much easier.  We stayed at MacDonald Turkey Point Marina for 3 years.  The staff there was always friendly and helpful and although it can be a bit noisy, we could still feel as though we were getting away from the hustle and bustle of our daily grind when we arrived there. Next up, the journey to Turkey Point!