Chilling in Put-In-Bay Ohio

During the first week back in Sarnia, my uncle Mike and aunt Lani came for a visit.  We took them for a dinghy ride to see the tall ships.

While in Sarnia we also installed our new Nature's Head composting toilet. No more holding tank for us! We found that we were spending more money getting our holding tank pumped out than putting fuel in our tank. This would give us a better option for longer stays in anchorages.

Brian and I also spent time with Elayna and her new kitten Kiara.  We help her with organizing her new apartment.  Kiara is cute and full of energy.  I didn't realize how much fun it is to play with a kitten and a laser pointer.  Teasing a cat is so much fun!

We also met with some friends at a brewery in London.  It was so nice spending time with them.

Our friends in Sarnia had a get together the night before we left. Chuck and Gail once again overdid it with a wonderful Porkchop meal and toasted us with Champagne. The hardest part about this journey is leaving our friends and family behind.

We left Sarnia with Terry on August 17th to start our nautical adventures.  Terry is a fellow sailor from Sarnia who has a wonderful Nonsuch 36 called Toy Chest. He will be travelling with us until we reach the Annapolis boat show.

Since there was not much wind, we ended up motoring all the way to Lasalle Mariners where we were greeted by swans. The Club is a private sailing club with about 60 members. They allowed us to stay for free and gave us the use of their clubhouse for the night. We left them with an SYC Burgee (previously we had left them an FYC one).

The next morning we sailed to Put-in-Bay Ohio and dodged a good rainstorm...we arrived approximately one hour before it started.  That evening we met Peter and Dorothy who sailed all the way from Germany. They had us over on their catamaran for beer and we exchanged ICW books for North Channel books as that was their next adventure.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to take a group picture as mother nature had a good storm brewing again.  The winds clocked at 18 knots and she hosted a great light show with moderate rain.  During the storm, we lost a fender that was hung to fend off the water taxi.  Here's a picture of Peter and Dorothy's boat with the Perry's Monument behind.

The next morning the 3 of us visited Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial and Visitors Center.  We sat through a 10-minute film of the Battle of Lake Erie 1812 war.

When Elayna was young, we would always take a picture of her on the dolphin in the park.  Since she was not with us, I decided to take her place.

We toured the island with the Put-In-Bay tour train and were dropped off at several points of interest.  Such as Perry's Cave, Antique Car Museum, and the Heineman Winery and Crystal Cave.  While Brian and I tasted wine, Terry took the Crystal Cave tour.

We ended the day with Lobster Bisque at the boardwalk. Tomorrow we leave for Loraine Ohio.