Bringing her home

I show up to get my new boat ready to bring home to Picton, ON. So lets review quickly,
1) I am in Port Dover

Port Dover wind storm with its damage.
picture taken by Brian Jones

2) Home  port is Picton, ON
That's a sail down to the end of lake Erie, down the Welland canal and then all the way to the eastern side of the lake around 350 miles.
3) anti foul needs to be applied
4) provisions to be purchased and loaded
5) gear stowed

you can see my boat in the back line had these fallen the
other way things could have been different.
picture taken by Brian Jones

The actual day I show up is a wicked wind storm, wind blowing 75 plus miles an hour, in the marina along 4 boats have been blown over in their cradles. It was freaking windy and hard  to get supplies, remember that bad wind...... Power failures all over Port Dover, basically without power, possibly for the next 3 days no power.
No problem I have a gen set with me, but the stores don't. Essssh so we are now really working hard to find places open that can supply me some basic food so I can at least eat something on the boat, slim pickings with this going on, so lets clean up the boat, Wash it, wax it, start sanding the bottom and more sanding, then paint on 2 coats of anti fouling, which to get any work done that day. I resolve to tryingtakes 2 days and I am now on food scraps and still no power in Dover.
After 4 days of cleaning painting, sanding, washing and waxing were ready to launch.

Painting the anti fouling
picture taken by Brian Jones

fresh anti fouling washed and waiting for the lift

I get dropped in the water and tied off at the transient dock, where I really start to stow gear and work the logistics of sailing home, the wind is still blowing hard, and the charts that I thought were on board are no longer on board.. Matter of fact NO charts are to be found, cruise guides are no longer on board either seems to be missing them now, I call the PO and no answer, get provisions, half a dozen stores later I have some food again and it looks as if I will be leaving in the morning winds should be down to 10 - 15 knots.

0530 and I rise to the beep beep of the utility truck at the top of the hill repairing the line, no sooner does that poor guy hook it up the transformer down the road at the next pole goes KABOOM, and I'll tell ya what it sounded like a cannon went off and sparks were just flying all over the place. Made for a great light show and coffee time had a different start to it.
Make a few spamwiches and set more ice in the cockpit cooler for the pop and cream.
Cast off and motor down the fairway heading for the entrance, round the light house and hoist the jib, then the main kill the motor, lift it in tilt this time and start setting the sails, 5    4   4.5  3.5 3.2 2.2 what the hells going on wind was supposed to be 10 - 15, well this sucks no wind now

Leaving  Port Dover PO took picture and sent it to me. 

drifting for an hour maybe 1.5 - 2 knots and not much else, so in goes the iron spinnaker were back up to 5 knots and making headway to Port Colburne fast forward  to 4 PM and were just pulling up to Colburne, head in to the marina and it's closed, so I find a slip which was easy as I was one of  boats on a dock field that easily held 300 plus boats so it was spooky to say the least.
BBQ some chops and hit the sack early to do the Welland Canal.
0700 and coffee is brewing to fill the thermos for the day, buddy shows up at the phone booth at lock 1.
We head up and contact seaway control they inform us 15 min wait as biggy is on way to our lock and we can sneak in after he passes.
Sneak in ???? like do we have to gun it and squeak under the bridge after this guy passes by... So this massive laker slips by us and we head towards the drop bridge clear it and then the bells are ringing lights a flashing and then this bridge starts falling a sight to see for a first timer..
We pull up to the marker at lock one and were greeted by a fella tossing brochures at us and yelling all info is in the book and sign and give to lock 3 dock master.   Yelling you ask, well I guess i forgot to mention I was luckily able to test my new west marine foulies today, the rain and thunder was so hard and it was incredible. so I start to fill in the form that the seaway has all do, vessel name, length, destination, blah blah, and have 300 cash  or credit card ready for payment at lock 3.
We cleared the lock 8 just after 4 pm that afternoon where I tied up for the night at the base of lock 1 at lake Ontario side next to the phone booth. Buddy was picked up and I paid him a hundred bucks for riding the canal as my second to meet the requirements of minimum 2 crew.

Wet cold and tired I got the genny running and set to drying out for the night, heater running dinner cooking and my cloths hanging on a makeshift line by 9 things were getting dried out and getting some sleep was well deserved.
0600 rise and starting on a good breakfast the course is north east  to clear the line and not cut across the USA Border, I didn't have the boat in my name to be legal yet just a bill of sale and was not looking to test the waters with the USCG. So north east we go it's raining steady but not hard so with the dodger and the tiller pilot an autohelm AH800. A dodger or spray hood as they are called is like a windshield in a car and helps to keep the water spray and wind and rain from hitting you.  It also gives some cover where as you can sit under it and also store items on the cabin top and keep them dry. The tiller pilot is a unit that is attached to the cockpit seat and the tiller is attached to the unit. Then once under way with sails trimmed you turn the pilot on and set it's bearing with small adjustments of degrees till you are sailing the heading you want then engage the autopilot and it will keep a course based on what ever bearing you are heading on.


So with the boat basically sailing itself I was able to start to do a few other things, I was able to go forward and really watch the rig as we were moving along at 3.5-4.1 knots minimal wave off and on wind so this was nice to see and get to really investigate the boat and rigging.

My original proposed course

The fog had totally lifted by 830ish and the wind was maybe 8-10 knots coming out of the west so we were beam reaching our way towards the Toronto area for a while, around noonish I gybed her and started heading more easterly and we were making about 3.5 - 3.8 a slow but steady pace. At this speed it would take me around 36 hours non stop to reach my home port. At 5 + knots it would only take 22 - 26 hours which is what I was aiming for as I had commitments the day after which meant I had to be home tomorrow.
This means that I will have to hit landfall tonight then and hop along the shoreline and call in for a pickup and leave her for a night or two and then continue to bring her home. So I find myself at bluffers park for the night, there were a few boats in the water most were the liveaboards as seasonal had not launched as of yet.

New adjusted route due to lack of wind

I wandered up to the office and paid for my night, got the codes for the door and then walked up the road to the store for some more fresh food, last time I had been to s grocery store was 3 days ago and I provisioned light so a treat to go walk about and see Scarborough from a different angle.
Found a great Chinese shop on top of the hill and got some nice tea and spices with fresh fruits and some veggies, then headed over to C Tire to see what deals if any could be had, found some wrenches and screwdrivers on sale so the boat now had it's own tools which is a good thing.

Headed back to the boat and thought to myself I should get a small hand cart to haul this stuff, I was a good 2 - 3 klicks from the marina and I had a few bags which were loaded, I never found a cart while window shopping to the marina and walked the way back down that big hill which I forgot to mention on the way out.
Dinner was some BBQ chops with roasted corn and a hot toddy (Rum coffee).
After cleaning up I fired up my laptop and dropped in Black Hawk Down and another hot toddy in hand settled in for the evening. 1130 and I was hitting the sack. Around 0400 it started raining so I layed in bed listening to the sound and grabbed a few more hours with an early rise and some coffee and oatmeal with maple syrup for breakfast and I was ready to head out and get going.


Casting off alone in the rain has it's quirks to say the least but I managed and I was getting used to how the boat handled so the learning curve was quicker then expected.  Motored out and again light winds so I hoist the Jib, hoist the Main, start to trim the sails and I begin to feel that groove when she's talking to you. I scuttle closer to the dodger and leaning against the cabin next to the hatch I grabbed a book and did some reading. At first I was popping up and looking around every 30 mins or so and after a few hours stopped as it was very clear I was the only boat I could see on the lake. This was a an exciting feeling I had nobody around for as far as I can see with my binocs, very cool indeed. The rain stayed all day and we never got over 4.5 knots so I opted for Frenchmen s Bay for the night where I would have my wife pick me up as I had to be at work in the morning. I settled with the office for 3 days and would be back Friday night after work spend the night and early Saturday morning begin to finish the sail home.
 Saturday morning I headed out and with slightly better winds made for Coburg to spend the night there and hit the Farmers market Sunday morning. Sunday evening around 1am I was at Prince Edward Point where I anchored for the night and after breakfast and coffee finished the last leg to Prinyers Cove with my arrival at 1530 the gang was there to catch my lines. The kids did an inspection and told me they liked the boat, tidied up and closed her up for the night and we left for home and a nice BBQ.