Gidday All

It has been quite a while since I have had access to the internet so I'll try to get caught up.  It is a good time because it is thundering and lightening now and we can't even go for a walk.  We are in Toronto at Marina Quay West, a nice spot on the downtown waterfront.  There are condos all around us, some which we will have to check out when we have time. 

I believe that my last note was from Leamington so I will start with our trip across Lake Erie.  Below is just a sample of the patio at the marina.  They have floating docks and everything seems first rate.  It is, afterall, the town that I was born in.

Put In Bay was a real neat town on an island.  On the weekends they say it is a real party town.  It is full of bars and restaurants and even during mid week it was a busy place.  There are more golf carts on the island than cars and both share the road equally.  There are parking spaces on the roads for the golf carts and much fewer for a car.  The cost to rent one is $10 an hour or $50 for the day.  We easily saw all the sights in town in an hour.  We ran across the couple from Cleveland and they took us for a tour of the whole island and we saw numerous quaint little cottages and B&B's. 

We visited a most unique antique shop that specialized in marine antiques.  Very high end with more pieces being listed in thousands of dollars rather than hundreds.  We also toured the Perry monument.  Gary Benware will be happy to visit here as Admiral Perry defeated the British fleet and took control of Lake Erie during the war of 1812.  I prefer to remember our victory at Crysler Park.  We had two great meals here.  For lunch we ate at the Boardwalk which is supposedly world famous for their lobster bisque.  Linda and I cannot disgree with the claim; it was excellent.  So was the Nova Scotia lobster salad; just superb.  For that evening, we joined our new friends at the Crew's Nest Dining Room.  A great view of the harbour, good food (not exceptional) but very pricey.  The Crew's Nest Marina was pretty good although all the slips were the pier type and one had to tie your lines to the poles.  I haven't quite mastered that yet but I find that a lot of knots seem to keep us in place.  The restrooms were new and were part of the huge pool complex which was a couple of blocks away (that is why you need a golf cart), the staff was most helpful and the dock shop had nothing but expensive clothes.  The oldest bar in town, the Roundhouse, had a live rock band in the afternoon and it was packed with older people like us.  The, supposedly, longest bar, the Beer Barrel Saloon, in the world also had entertainment and had a good crowd.  We never made it to any of them in the evening because we did not finish dinner until 10:30 PM and with the long day we were bushed.  A definite must visit if you are at the west end of Lake Erie.

In the morning we headed over to Cedar Point near Sandusky Ohio.  As kids, Linda and I always wanted to go to Cedar Point but never had the chance.  It was 'THE' park for roller coasters in North America.  It always had the biggest and the best coasters anywhere.  The marina was awesome with wide docks (not wood but a synthetic material which was better for the feet), one hundred 40 ft. transient docks with 50 Amp service at each slip, nice washrooms, a pool and a discount to get into the park.  There must be 400 or 500 seasonal boat slips at the same marina.  Each one has the same dock box at their slip and pump outs were done right at your slip.  We, of course, hit the park right away and I had my first 'real' roller coaster ride.  The Mean Streak was one of the older wooden coasters, one of the best in its hey day.  It was a great ride: long; I lost my stomach at least 4 times and got bounced around quite a bit; a little bumpy but great none the less.  I then got on the Cork Screw.  This was one of the modern type, with 2 loops and 3 twists.  Quite an experience.  Of course Linda never joined me and after the Cork Screw, I needed a rest.  We ate at Famous Daves, a rib house.  It was excellent.  We had a real neat waitress, a big black girl named Genevieve, who insisted that we have our ribs naked, in fact she insisted on ordering for us because it was our first time.  She did and it was excellent.  We went back to the park but unfortunately the best rides had waits that were over 2 hours long. Linda joined me on the Sky Ride, ho hum.  Cedar Point is an absolute must do for at least a couple of days.
We could only stay the one night because they were fully booked for the weekend.

So we headed to Vermillion for a more relaxing night.  An easy cruise from Cedar Point.  We had a nice slip near the mouth of the river.  Man was it busy though.  We subsequently found out that Vermillion is the busiest harbour on the Great Lakes with over 9000 boats on the river and all of the canals that are connected with it.  Not much in the town so if you are looking for a quiet spot where you can watch the world go by, Vermillion is the place.  Next time, we will likely go straight to Cleveland.  That was our next stop and it is a good destination with lots to do.  We stayed at the wrong marina from the perspective of easy access to the city, but I did get cheap fuel and a nice slip.  The place to stay is in the Warehouse or the Flats area further up the river.  We were at the East 55 th Street Marina which was run by the State.  Regardless, we went to the Browns - Giants NFL football game.  Driving in we witnessed the hundreds of cars which were doing the tailgate partying thing.  Some were pretty sophisticated with awnings and tables and chairs.  The only tickets which were available were in the Dawg Pound in the east end zone.  This is were all of the tailgate partygoers seemed to be.  It was pretty wild.  The game just got started then there was a 90 minute delay due to lightening.  The beer vendors in the halls were packed.  It was quite a scene.  After it passed, the teams had to start their full warm up all over again.  We left in the third quarter and we did not get back to the marina until 12:30 AM.  It was worth it however; being in a 70,000 seat stadium is quite something.

The next day promised more thunderstorms so we decided to take in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  Again, it is a 'must do'.  It was well laid out with numerous videos and films about the history of rock-n-roll and the groups who were a part of it.  There was a ton of memorabilia but the best was a one hour presentation on the inductees into the hall from 1986 right through to 2005.  We spent over 4 hours there and did not see the top two floors.  The only thing that we did not like was that we could not get a CD of the one hour inductee presentation.  It was the best from the past 20 years.  You have to go to Cleveland.

The next leg was the longest that we had untaken, 104 miles.  We went to Erie, PA in order to get a good launching point to cross the Lake again.  Erie is another place that I would return to.  The Moorings at Wolverine Park is the place that you want to stay if you want to go downtown.  If you want quiet and solitude then the Presqu'lie State Park is the place to go.  The whole area is beautiful with good anchorages and sand beaches that are great.  The downtown starts about 5 blocks from the marina and goes for quite a bit.  We never got close to seeing everything.  There was a mini putt course at the marina park and it was that the best that I have seen.  Great gardens around each hole, fully lit at night and no stupid gimmicks.  Linda was pretty good with a score of 4 over.  With my ace on one hole, I managed to hit even par.  Solari watch out.  ;>)

The crossing of Lake Erie was smooth.  We got to Port Colborne by 1 PM and had no problem clearing customs.  Sugarloaf marina is good and the staff are great but the town is dead.  Many of the businesses have closed along the Promenade.  Really, the only place open was the Winchester Arms and thankfully it was a good place; the food was good and there were numerous beers on tap to try.  Our friend Jean came in from Ottawa, an hour late, but we still had plenty of time to take advantage of the Arms.  We headed out at 8 AM the next morning and by 8:30 we had paid our locking fees by VISA and we were in Lock #8 and had started our journey down the Welland Canal.  Actually, compared to our first trip when we brought the boat back from Toledo, everything seemed to go smoothly and without any delays.  We only came across three ships and got through the canal in just under 8 hours.  We were the only boat in each lock and the staff seemed very OK with that. 

We spent the night at Port Dalhousie on the town dock but DO NOT do that.  The town dock is close to the enterntainment district (and we did take full advantage of that) but the boat bounced all night long due to the waves from the Lake and.... I engaged an intruder at 2 AM.  The boat was bouncing so much that I got up to see what was going on and to check the lines.  I noticed that a man was taking a picture of my helm with a cell phone.  I figured that was odd so I quietly went up to the helm and discovered a second guy in his mid twenties rifling my ice maker.  I am sure that he hoped that it was a bar.  Nonetheless I was pretty insensed and jumped him after giving him a good blow to the side of the head.  I pulled him down then threw him against the radar arch and then tried to throw him down the stairs.  I was pummelling him about the head the whole time.  He kept saying, "i'm going, I'm going" but I did not stop until he was on shore.  I was yelling the whole time and by the time he was off the boat Linda and Jean decided it was safe to lend assistance.  The intruder finally realized that he was bigger than me and much younger than me so he stopped and I am sure was trying to decide whether or not to ask for his shoes (he lost them in the scuffle).  I told Linda to call the cops immediately and then finally Jean appeared and he ran away.  Nothing was missing; I threw his shoes into the park and went back to sleep.  My back up had trouble getting back to sleep??? go figure.  The next morning I did notice a number of bruises and my one arm was pretty sore but all in all I was pretty pleased that I had defended Q's End.

Some storms were coming so we left first thing in the morning to cross the Lake to Toronto.  The start was not too bad with 3-4 footers but as we got near the north shore the waves increased to 5-6'.  It was a good thing that we only had about 30 minutes of the exciting stuff.  We stayed at Marina Quay West and I like it a lot.  We are still here. It is right on the Harbourfront and the facitlites are good.  The cost is reasonable at $1.50 /ft.  There are condos all around and I am now back to the start of this novel.  We are enjoying TO.  Our fridge decided to quit working so I was trying to get a service technician out to the boat but found that it was not an easy task.  I had a guy from Uxbridge (1.5 hours away) agree to come to the boat so I pulled the fridge (no easy task) only to receive a call that there was no point in coming out because the parts (condenser or power supply), the two most likely causes, could not be acquired for at least 5 business days.  The condenser is $1300 and the power supply costs $665.  The tech told me what to look for and it appears that the power supply is shot.  We are going to wait until we return to get it fixed.  We are now pigging out on everything that was in the fridge before it spoils.  We have a couple of coolers (not the drinking type but the storage type) so it really isn't that bad and we are surviving quite well although we have eaten in both the threatre district (King Street) and in Chinatown earlier today. 

The storm from Friday was worse than we thought.  The tornado was east of us but the downpour caused a lot of problems around town.  It was not until today that we experienced some inconvience because the harbour is full of flotsam from all of the storm sewers and overflowing rivers.  They have closed off the marina with a boom to keep the stuff out of the marina but we had to move because we were too close to the entrance and in the path of the mess.  Oh well, we have a couple of days to have this cleared out.  We are heading home.  We hope to get to Cobourg on Monday, Kingston by Tuesday and CPM on Wednesday. 
See you soon.
Tom and Linda and Jean