Day 15. July 7, 2025

I was sleeping good until fireworks booms and fireworks in the sky woke me up at 226 am. Phil continued to sleep. At least it didn’t last long.

We woke at 0715 and got the expect contact from my brother Glenn that they had arrived at the Buffalo Airport and were taking a bus to the M&T Building. Phil and I had cold cereal for breakfast.

WEATHER:

Inside the boat: temp low 78.6°, high 87.6° current 80.2°

Humidity low 54% high 71% current 70%

Outside temperature in Buffalo 78° dewpoint 68°, humidity 72%, winds SSW 11 MPH, sunset 8:56 PM they said that they’re supposed to be a few showers this morning and mostly cloudy in the afternoon. I have 80° wind Southwest 10 to 20 and pH possible stray shower or thunderstorm early this evening low 65° winds NNW 5 to 10 and sunrise 0544 AM

Family visiting: Glenn and his daughters Lauren, Riley and Teagan arrived about 8:30 AM. The girls immediately gave some love to both Casper and Lucy. The girls had gotten up at 4 AM. Teagan said and she was hungry so she had a bowl of granola and all the visitors had a bottle of cold water as they had had a long trip and walking to get to us at the boat. Our plan today was to go down to the Naval Park and go inside the naval World War II ships that are at dock in the Buffalo River. First, we went on naval ship the Sullivan’s named after the five sons who died all at the same time on a naval ship in 1942. they have a tour guide to give you an idea of where to go, but it was a self-guided tour and very interesting. Then we went on the naval destroyer the Little Rock. This is a ship that that has overnights on board for kids so they had mats on the bunks and the mess hall and the galley were set up for people to eat there. They also had museum exhibit on the second and third deck down in the mess hall, they had a video playing about the atomic bombs and the hydrogen bombs which Phil found very interesting.

The girls have been finished with touring the boats way before the adults so they were sitting outside at some tables close to the museum and the restaurant Liberty Hound. the adults were done by 12:30 and Phil and I decided to have lunch at the liberty hound. I had a burger and Phil had the beer better fish and chips. Both were very good, but the fish was thick with the light coating of batter on it and we pretty much ate it all. No picture of the fish was taken.

Glenn had something to drink, then they left to get buffalo hotdogs that he wanted the girls to try. He went to a lot of time and trouble to visit since his car was in the shop to fix his tire. Teagan and Glenn had beef on weck then there was an affordable sub shop close by where the twins had chicken parm sub sandwiches. I got t text message that they arrived home and everyone was tired. I bet! Phil had a nap after we walked back to the boat.

This is the ice cream stand that has very creamy soft serve and good hard serve ice cream. On our way back to the boat I had lemon Chilla ice cream, and Phil had chocolate soft served.

About 230pm, Captain Dave Block came to visit us on Katie O. It was so good to see him and exchange stories. He’s a year older than me, and not quite ready to retire yet. He still has owners of sailboats calling asking him to transport them for him. I had wanted to get a picture of Dave and Phil together but I’m disappointed to say it didn’t happen.

We ate supper at 8pm. I fixed baby back ribs in the pressure cooker. 20 min under pressure with some water and Basic Seasoning (salt, pepper and garlic) and letting it release pressure the natural way gave us very tender ribs. We dipped them in BBQ sauce and had frozen cord and small potatoes.

We had bought unlimited data of Gigsky more than a week ago and haven’t gotten it to work, despite contacting them by email. I’ve been told that I need to purchase more data. My response was that I get 2.5 GB of data daily. Well I haven’t gotten that and no person to talk to. So we contacted Spectrum and for $10more per month, were and to get unlimited talk/text with 10GB of data per month, so we signed up for that. We’ll try to use WiFi as much as possible for posting the blog.

Tomorrow we plan to go to Port Colburne where the Welland Canal starts, though we will stay on Lake Erie. We’ll stay here two nights. It’s only about 19nm to get there so we’ll wake when we do or by 0700..