Day 13 Saturday, July 5

We woke at 6am after Casper was a pest walking on and around my head twice last night. Why can’t he just lay next to me??

Weather:

In boat Temp Low 64.8°, high 77.2° current 0.9°

Humidity low 45%, high 70% current 70%

Outside: per weather app. Temp 65°, dewpoint is 60° humidity 83% wind south Southwest 3 mph sunny outside. Sunset 857 PM. 

Instruments on the boat at the dock: TWS 7-8KTS, TWA102°, boat heading 273W, TWG 243°, depth not showing due to seaweed, but was told that it’s 9 feet.

We started casting off lines with Vicky holding a line wrapped around a cleat but not tied to the cleat. Phil started the engine at 6:40 AM and we cast off at 6:42 AM. SV Tryst a Catalina 270 left before us trying to get home and make it to the next port of Erie PA. She had the head sail out and I’m sure trying to sail as much as they can, though the winds are light.

After he got into the harbor he reversed to get the seaweed off the prop. I put the center board down in the harbor and raise the main sail at 7:55 AM. Phil wasn’t directly upwind like he thought he was. The wind was filling the sail and Phil kept telling us to raise the sail and I told him to steer left as we couldn’t raise the sail. There was too much pressure on the sail from the wind. Finally, we got it up. Next time we will use the marriage savers head sets so that he can hear me and hopefully it will go better.

Immediately after we cleared the channel to turned towards the Buffalo river channel waypoint. BTW, 042° true, COG 041° true SOG 6.0 KTS, DTW 28.97 and ETA 11:59 AM.

7:12 AM we started to let out the head sail but the sheet lines were not through the blocks and both sides had to figure i8 knot in them so we had to correct that. TWS 11.4 KTS, TWA 140° Phil lowered the engine RPMs to see if we could sail. 7:18 AM Phil turned off the engine. This was the first sail of the trip SOG 4.5 KTS, DTW 27.01 nautical miles. 8:13 AM the wind was too light to sail by. We rolled up to head sail and in a minute later turned on the engine. Phil was thrilled that we were able to sail. The whole trip the water was flat and by 915 we rolled out the head sail and turned off the engine and was sailing again slowly starting at 3.3 KTS to 4.2 KTS but by 10:45 the winds were 7.8 KTS, but the boat speed only 2.8 KTS and we rolled up the head sail and started the engine again. We motored sailed the rest of the trip. I could see Buffalo in the distance with the high rise buildings and white dome in the distance and could see Canada on the North Shore and the skies are now clear. ETA is now 12:44 PM. We started having biting flies at 12:05 PM even down below but could have been much worse.

12:45 PM we lowered the main sail before the channel and passed the first red and green markers for the channel a couple minutes later. By 105 PM we docked starboard at the gas dock at Erie basin Marina. We got 40 gallons of diesel for $197.46 and we had a pump out for $10 which was very effective in a short period of time for 15-16 gal of black water. Hopefully the smell will be better as when flushing the smell was bad. The closest West Marine is 3 miles away so not able to get KO for killing odors and CP for cleaning the head.

We docked at 155 PM at dock F 53. We hade to go around a big power boat docked on the T end of the dock before us, but didn’t really have to turn. We could tell that it was somebody else’s doock because the fenders and line set up for when they returned. We called the office and found out that it’s gonna be a couple weeks before they come back. We met the dock mates Michele and Pete Stevens on a C&C 35 SV Net Sumi (in Japan it means Beautiful Summer). They live 10 min away. My brother Glenn gave us some tickets to see Psychedelic Furs play terminal B Saturday night about 1-2 miles away, but we weren’t interested in seeing them. Michele and the boat next to us was interested in seeing them because she knew the Psychedelic Furs, so I forwarded the tickets to her by email. I talked to Glenn later and he was OK with this. He was glad that the tickets were not going to go to waste. They were very kind and asked if we needed anything at the grocery store and webrequested three bottles of the fair life milk and a new oven thermometer. They said they would get that and bring it to us tomorrow. They also recommended going to the. Miinor restaurant on the Canal side before the locks in Port Colburn, Ontario Canada. as they have good pike and perch to eat. They also recommended on the canal side going to the Long house for an Erie canal history, which is just beyond the canal boats at the beginning of the Erie Canal. They recommended going to the Liberty Hound Restaurant. We took them up on the last option, which is required walking along a path along the waterfront. They have a really nice water front here in Buffalo and we had to go past a naval park, where there was a destroyer, a submarine, a cruiser and another Navy boat there. They had a memorial for the black Navy men and a beautiful flower garden. Delivery hound had air conditioning, which was really up a lot and we actually got chilled inside there. The food was good. Phil had a burger and a salad, I had a rice bowl with grilled shrimp and Vicki had two chicken tacos and a salad. we had to wait for 30 min but was able to get in sooner as some people didn’t show up for the reservation made. On the way home I stopped at the ice cream stand along the way and had a chocolate vanilla twist. Soft serve in a cup.

 There was a beautiful sunset where the sun was really red, but which I missed. We arrived at the end of dusk. We just hung out at the boat. tomorrow Vicky leaves us to fly home and we will miss her. I did connect with Captain Dave Block. He said he was coming to Buffalo tomorrow afternoon and hopefully he will get in contact with us after he’s done and visit us.