Day 39, Saturday, August, 2, 2025

I’m getting caught up on my blog posts, but wanted to talk about yesterday first.

We woke to the alarm at 0500 and to darkness.

Weather inside: temperature low 64.2° high 73.8° current 65.3°. Humidity below 46% high 76% current 72%.

Outside weather: temperature 57° partly cloudy dewpoint 50° humidity 79%, wind, West 1 MPH sunrise 6:20 AM.

Marine forecast per ndbc.noaa.gov site: E5 to 10 KTS clocking and E, chance of water spouts in the morning, waves 2 feet or less

Very Dewey outside the windows at the dodger are covered with condensation. We got ice for cold drinks in the future and we’re ready to leave.

0551 engine started 0556 cast off from dock. We noticed a large log a couple docks down river but we easily avoided it. We can now see in the twilight. It’s partly cloudy and the water in the river is glassy 0605TWS3.5 KTS from 180° in the river. 0614 we raised the main sail, which is reefed.

0623 we left the harbor BTW third 316° true, COG315° true boat speed 5.5 KTS, SOG 6kts. The lake is glassy except for wind ripple and as well starting to get bigger. TWS 3.2 KTS, TWA 139°.

We saw a beautiful sunrise with the pairing nuclear power plant a.k.a. the tea kettle in the distance.. It’s a pink sunrise, so not sure what bad weather is predicted because it isn’t in the weather forecast.

Lorraine’s stomach seems more sensitive to getting seasick. it would be nice if we can this calm of waters the whole way over. The waves are predicted to change from E to NE as we get closer to Canada and the winds are predicted to drop to less than 5 kts.

0626 running lights turned off. 0636DTW 38.92NM, ETA 1:02 PM. After we’ve been out an hour, Lorraine decides to lay down on the port settee in the cockpit. There is too much side to side motion for me to tolerate going down below. We also made thousands of midges resting on any available surface. We had put our lightweight foul weather pants on this more due to the cold, and kept them on to protect our jeans from having dead midges all over them. I also put the companionway screen hatches in to keep as many of the insects out of the boat. Peeking down below Casper is sitting on his perch on top of the folding stool in the V birth. Lucy was in her hidey hole under the chart table.

I woke up at 7:40 AM to the mainsail flapping. Phil saying we need to drop the main which we did at 0742. It’s times like this that I really love having our tides track on the mainsail. It has really prevented us from having to go up to the mast when the boat is moving a lot.

The motion of the boat was terrible. The waves were coming from northeast with 2 foot swells. (I felt like they were two to 3 foot swells) with chop on top. We were also going up the waves so the combination of the boat going side to side and then going up hitting the waves was really uncomfortable. TWS was anywhere from 3.5 KTS to 8 to 9 KTS but wind direction was 155° so coming from the back of the boat it was not filling the sails. We had not let out the jib earlier, but was just motorsailing across. I looked at the distance on the charting on my iPad and saw that we were about 9.7.NM into our trip and we had five more hours of this to go. Phil said that this was going to get better but I was just not up for it. I asked Phil if we can turned around and he immediately said yes. So at 0800 turned around and 0808 we raised the mainsail. Immediately we were going down the waves which did not seem as big this direction. The main was filled with some wind and it was much more comfortable. At this point, we were < 10 nm away from the harbor entrance which at our current boat speed was < 2 hours ETA. I texted Kathy at Erieau Marina that we had turned around and sent a quick message to Emily L. who was considering going today, telling them that we turned around and not to come. I also texted Betty M, 2 boats down from us to let her know that we were coming back. Last we let Phil’s daughter know and spoke with her after we got back.

Once we hit the five nautical mile, mark the water, calm down again and became more glassy. By 0920 we were avoiding fishermen and we could see the Fairport Harbor lighthouse. 0948 we entered Fairport Harbor, 0953 we dropped the mainsail. Using our marriage savers ear walkie-talkies they docked the boat at 10:14 AM with Chuck and Betty catching the lines, without any difficulty and the engine was off.

The cats did not tolerate the motion of of the boat very well either. There was two throw up episodes down below from we don’t know which cat. Casper had moved during the passage to the pilot berth and was just laying there in one position looking like he didn’t feel very good. Lucy had moved to the starboard side in the V berth and she wasn’t moving much either but looked better than Casper. I feel bad for them and was glad that we decided to turn around.

Log 23 nautical miles

After the boat was taken care of, we visited briefly with yacht club members and then went to Sammy‘s for breakfast. I had a protein bar to start the day and then some cottage cheese, but Phil had not eaten anything except 3 cookies. After a good breakfast we came back to the boat and Phil went down to take a nap in the V-berth. The cats were in their same position as when we had gone to breakfast. I gave both of them love and attention and after a while, they joined Phil in the V berth sleeping while he slept. I sat with others around Chuck and Betty‘s table talking about our adventures until Chuck and Betty went sailing. I checked on Phil and he will briefly but quickly went back to sleep again. We have been invited to a spaghetti dinner this evening and after discussion with Nancy and Betty decided to bring some Irish butter we had for the bread.

I was knitting my ecru/blue Quill top and had temporarily stopped working on the body of the sweater and started working on the sleeves. I worked on the decreases at the underarm and then started getting the sleeves set up for working two at a time in the round.

At 3 PM I went to my Uncle Dale‘s house to help my sister load an automatic pill dispenser she just got to make it easier to take his medicine on time and not take too much.

I returned after 4 o’clock and Phil was awake and we visited at the yacht club numbers down at Ross and Emily’s dock. Then we went to the delicious spaghetti dinner with salad and Italian bread. Thanks you to Ken and Marcia H! and all those that helped them.

After supper, we talked with yacht club members and went down below after sunset about 840pm. Phil got out his Bluetooth speaker and we listened to his playlist for a few hours. Our 20th wedding anniversary is coming up Wednesday, Aug 6 and we heard Bruce Springsteen’s so Jersey Girls that we had our first dance to at our wedding. good memories.

It’s to get in the low 50’s tonight, so closed up the boat and out a towel over the companionway hatch screens instead of getting out the solid ones. We have many midges on the roof tonight. I hope they leave tomorrow morning.