Pennsylvania to New York

Presque Isle was everything the guide books said, and a lot more. The bay in the middle of the State park was peaceful and well protected. The park includes the entire peninsula and has dozens of trails for bikes, roller bladers and hikers as well as a road to traverses the entire peninsula by car. There are 11 different beaches along the Erie shore line and bays and lagoons where you can kayak from the bay side. There is also a lot of history. Commodore Perry had defeated the British in the War of 1812 at Put in Bay, but he had built his ships and prepared his men in Misery Bay on Presque Isle. After the war, his ship the USS Niagra was sunk, along with some of the other war ships, to "preserve" them. They resurrected what was left of it in 1913 for the 100th anniversary of the victory and then wound up building a replica that now travels around the great lakes and the world. What the guide books didn't talk about, was the wonderful people we met there. On the first day, a local sailor gave us the keys to his truck so we could get supplies and see part of the city. We became friends with Bob and his wife Ruth and wound up inviting them to our boat,going out to dinner and even watching the fireworks on the 4th on his boat. Bob was a great help and showed us all around the park and part of the city. A storm came through on the 3rd of July that left us stranded downtown. The ferry had quit running due to the storm. We had joked around with Bob about "boat sitting" while we explored the city, but he did even more than that. When he heard our delima, he immediately offered to come pick us up. It was then he took us on a tour of the park and later met his wife for dinner. A highlight of the tour was the Maritime Museum. The Niagra had been up in Canada and was supposed to return at four o'clock, but never made it. (Bad forecast?) Below is a picture of Misery Bay where Perry built his ships. Many of his crew were buried in the snow, only to find out that it was actually over the water in the bay when they sank to a watery grave in the spring.

The Perry Monument at Misery Bay is similar to the one in Put in Bay, only smaller.

We also met two couples from Canada that gave us a wealth of information about the Erie Canal and maintaining our batteries. We had cocktails on Mark and Julies boat along with Phillip and his wife who were their cruising friends on another boat. We had a great time and good conversation. If this is an example of the kind of people we will meet along the way, that alone would make our trip a great success. Of course, keeping everybodies names and boats straight is difficult to do without boat cards, so we are trying to make it a point to trade boat cards with every cruiser we meet. One of the reasons we stayed through the 4th in Erie was to try to get more information about the Erie Canal, wash clothes and take care of a few maintenance items. We did get some information about the canal and we got a few small projects done, but just could not find a place to do the laundry. We wanted to get a little closer to the Erie Canal, in hopes of getting more local information. Besides that, there seemed to be one storm after another coming down from Michigan that was either hitting us or going just to the West and South of Erie. We felt it would be a little more stable weather further East on Lake Erie. Next stop, someplace in New York! We snapped this picture of the Niagra sitting in her slip in front of the Maritime Museum.

We got up early on the 5th and were greeted to severe lightening and thunderstorm watches for the area on the weather reports. After getting our shower and studying the radar and storm tracks, we decided it was another day of near misses to our West and South. We hauled up the Kayak, dingy and outboard and were on our way by 10:30. There are few deep water ports on Lake Erie's South Shore, so our next stop would be Dunkirk, New York. Of course, the wind was on our nose and less than 10 knots, so, once again, we were motoring. I had gone below to make some lunch and Denise was talking to her mother on the phone. The next thing I know Denise was calling for me to come up to the cockpit because we were being boarded! I came through the companionway to see an official looking aluminum boat chasing us! I slowed down and the boat came alongside with several armed agents on board. It was a Homeland Security Boat! They asked us where we were coming from, where we lived and where we were going. They asked us if we had been in Canadian waters and I told them we had cut across some Canadian waters but had not stopped or talked to anyone. They continued to cruise along side us as they checked a few things and then told us to have a great trip! That was it! I think Denise was disappointed we didn't get boarded. As we got within 5 or 6 miles of Dunkirk, I noticed there was a decent wind on our stern, so we threw out the genoa to give us a boost. The wind kept building and by the time we doused the genoa and headed into the channel for the marina, it was hitting close to 20 knots. We had planned to go to the gas dock and top off the fuel before going to our slip but I was already wondering how the wind would affect the docking. When we finally got into the marina, there was a boat sitting in front of the gas dock, taking up what little space there was for docking. We slowed down and waited but decided I needed to turn around before the wind turned us on it's own. We made a circle and decided to tie up to a municpal pier. The wind had a different idea as it kept blowing us off before we could get close. Luckily two people on the pier saw our predicament and helped us get tied up. We waited and waited while the power boat seemed to be settling in for the afternoon. I finally got off the boat and walked down to the marina office. After seeing the tiny space available to turn and dock, I told him we would just go to our slip and get fuel before we left. He showed me the slips and I told him we would appreciate help with docking in the wind. He said he would come down with another person and help. We sat on the wall and waited for the power boat to leave so the dock master could come help us, but it still didn't look like they were leaving soon, so we made our way over to the slip, hoping we wouldn't need the help. We were doing pretty good until, after committing to turning into the wind and the slip, we realized the slip was about 10 feet shorter than our boat! There was a little bit of excitement, but we finally got tied up with about 10 to 12 feet of our stern sticking out in the channel. When we complained, we were told that was the biggest slip they had. As a compromize, we offered to pay for the length of the slip rather than the length of our boat. He agreed. It seems that Dunkirk has a festival every Thursday night with lot of food and drink booths and a live band on the municipal pier. We wound up having a nice evening listening to the music and having dinner at a Greek restaurant on the lake. The next stop will be Buffalo. We are hoping to find more options for taking our mast down and making arrangements to leave the boat for a little while for Denise to go to a reunion and for me to get back to take care of a few things at the office.