SODA: State Of the Dock Address

   "All this debating goin' 'round..."
                      -Kim Mitchell


   The parking lot is almost empty of boats  and the docks are almost all full, so this is as good a time as any to take a look at how the season is shaping up.

   Good news:  The Dock is full.

   Booked up.

  No empty slips.

  The view from the deck of Whiskeyjack:

   Popularity is a double-edged sword- full slips mean more marina revenue which hopefully translates into steady rates and improved amenities.  But, increased demand also meant that, this year, the "balance -due" date was strictly enforced- if you didn't have your slip bill  paid in full by mid-May, you didn't get a slip.
   That has meant at least one change to this season's starting line-up.

  Dock Six isn't the only full capacity Dock this season.   Every dock in the Marina is fully booked, or near enough to it.

  More good news:  Water level is up.

  A wet May has helped ease some of the concerns sparked by low water earlier this spring.  Depth has increased by about 20 cm. in the last three weeks or so.   The Lake is still down from last year, but we're heading in the right direction.

WEEKLY WATER LEVEL BULLETIN

  For the week ending:  10/06/2013

  SUPERIOR     HURON      ST CLAIR      ERIE     ONTARIO   MONTREAL
                                         PORT
 THUNDER BAY  GODERICH   BELLE RIVER   STANLEY   KINGSTON  JETTY NO.1

 Last daily mean available
    183.25     176.03      174.95       174.19     74.99       6.64

 Latest weekly mean
    183.23     176.05      174.95       174.17     74.99       6.53

 Highest water level during the week
    183.30     176.16      174.99       174.25     75.04       6.67

 Lowest water level during the week
    183.14     175.93      174.90       174.08     74.91       6.35

 Latest weekly mean relative to chart datum
    + 0.03     + 0.05      + 0.55       + 0.67    + 0.79     + 0.97

 Change from previous weekly mean
    + 0.02     + 0.03      + 0.05       + 0.02    + 0.07     - 0.38

 Change from last year's weekly mean
    + 0.08     - 0.05      - 0.03       - 0.08    + 0.12     + 0.62

Dock conveniences can still be captured in a single photo:

    But, there is now a bike rack in the picture.

    We also have a new porta-potty...

 which appears to be a two-storey model, according to the pictograph on the door:

   Men, unfortunately, are confined to the ground floor, apparently.

   Redshirts were busy last week installing solar lights on the Dock, a nice touch.

Got an email earlier this week:

   "Marina Management Services, Inc. has been hired by Norfolk County to develop a Marina Sustainability, Development Strategy and Business Plan for Port Dover Harbour Marina.

Please join representatives from Norfolk County, Port Dover Habour Marina, and Marina Management Services, Inc. on Saturday, June 22nd from 8:30am to 10:30am.  This will be an informal "meet & greet" with the staff and the consultant as well as an opportunity to sign up to participate in the process.  The meeting will be held in the Pavilion at Port Dover Harbour Marina."

   Those of you who have skin in this game, those with boats on the Dock, or any of the lesser docks, please attend this meeting, or email Tim Keough at tim@marinamanagement.com to let him know you are interested in being part of the solution.

   *insert clever segue here*
   *if clever segue fails to appear, revert to default workmanlike style, below*
  Right then, with the business side of things out of the way, who does have skin in the game this year?

  Many of the usual suspects are back for another season:

   Jim and Mariann  have both boats in the water, looking as perfect as ever.

  Gordon and his lovely wife have returned with Quidi Vidi  .

   Rick has docked 20th Hole- rumour has it that his boat has left the Dock more than once so far this season.  This shot is from last year- no one can verify it has actually happened this year...

   Ivan and Rick and Grant and the rest of the serious fishermen are back.
   Jordan has docked  Saphira in the shallows.
   Cholita returns with Len at the helm.
Ralph and Julie are back beside Rick...

 and beside them Mark and Erica have returned.
Hilary is back, and his boat still doesn't have a name.  This may become a contest.  More on that later.
Eric has splashed After School, and Bruce has brought Prolific back for another season, but moved farther down the Dock,

  Other Jim has classed up the joint by slipping his Bluenose, Carpe Diem:

   Brent has slipped Lady Dee,

      Cocobliss and most of the other bowriders and pontoon boats are back and of course Jack is in, with Blew Orphan:

BUT...
   JD and Wheelin' & Dealin' are MIA.
   Bryan and his Siren are not in.
   Will's Tanzer is on the hard.
   Ed decided to trailer sail his Siren this year, looking to get more time on the water in more places.

   For the first time in years, there is not a single Siren on the Dock.

   Marco and Dee have moved back to Sarnia, which opened up a slip, which means we have new neighbours:

   Frank and Lorraine  have moved in next door with their Northern 24,

  Beside them is another new good old boat, a Tanzer 7.5,  in the hands of returning boaters,  Randy and Monique.  Welcome aboard!

                Down toward the end of the dock is another newcomer, another Jordan, and his go-fast boat,
        Boss Nova,

     The sailboat count is higher than in any previous year, Siren absence notwithstanding; Team Tanzer is certainly making up the difference.

   In short: Some old friends, some new friends, some old characters, some new, some wild cards, some old favourites, and some gone, but not forgotten.

    There will be new stories told, adventures shared, lies swapped, rum consumed, food eaten,  songs sung and laughter laughed.

Forget the hokey-pokey.  That's  what it's all about.  Come on along.


"Talk the Dock!"

 

OPB Files: If It's Thursday, It Must Be Tanzer Day.

                      "I've been first and last, look at how the time goes past..."
                                                                                 -Neil Young


      

   The downside of my new retail-day-job schedule:  I'm punching the clock on most Saturdays and Sundays.   

   The upside of my new retail-day-job schedule:  I get to sail with folks I wouldn't be able to sail with otherwise.

   This week I was off on Wednesday and Thursday.  I spent Wednesday working on sourcing and installing a new solar panel (review in an upcoming post, )  and with SWMBO working 9-5 Mon-Fri at her day job and then busting hump at a part-time gig at an undisclosed location (which makes her sound like a cross between a superhero and Dick Cheney...  which ain't far off the mark.  Imagine Wonderwoman,  halfway through the second book in the Fifty Shades trilogy.  It may very well take the pathologist several hours to remove the grin from my face.)

((I am in sooooo much trouble.))

(((Sometimes, I'm better off just shutting up, y'know?)))

Anybeating, I finally had the opportunity to finally sail with Len on his Tanzer 7.5, Cholita.  I emphasize "finally," because the skippers of Cholita and Whiskeyjack have shared the dock for five seasons, and we have waved at each other, shared seat-of-the-pants weather forecasts, shot the shi, er crap, but have never sailed together.

That changed this week, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Ed was down, ostensibly to play with the mainsheet rigging on his Siren, but it didn't take much coaxing to get him to join Len, and I was ahead of schedule on the day's maintenance punchlist, so Len had quickly pressed himself a crew.  The wind was sporty, too fresh to stay on the dock. We weren't the only ones who felt that way, The other two Tanzer pilots on the dock were also out on the bay,

Will in his Tanzer 22, a smaller version of Cholita...

and Bruce and guests aboard Prolific.

It wasn't all Tanzers on the Bay, however.  Some were taking advantage of the wind...

  While others were riding it out...

  Cholita  has a unique rig, at least among Tanzer 7.5s- she has a club-footed jib, ie, the foresail has a boom.

  The boom and attendant tackle allow the jib to be tended with a single sheet.  This means that when you tack, you don't have to worry about letting out the sheet on one side of the boat and pulling the sheet in on the opposite side whilst tending to the helm and the mainsheet and maintaining situational awareness and...  in other words, it is a single-hander's dream.

As Len explained to us...

 ...While Ed got some time on the helm and got a crash course in tell-tales and  travelers and sail trim and...

...looking salty, apparently. 

 After sailing with Marco and Dee and Jordan, it's kinda unusual for me to be the youngest person aboard. 

We scooted southeast, then tacked back toward the beach, with Cholita happily sailing on her ear... 

...and spotted Will in his Tanzer, and the chase was on....

...but where was Bruce and Prolific?

  no matter, we were closing ground...  we slid past, and exchanged nods...

between Will and Len and Ed, I felt like I was finishing dead last in an Ernest Hemingway look-alike competition.

After passing Will, and with Prolific nowhere to be seen , and with the wind lessening,  we set off dead downwind back to the Marina.  This is the one point of sail that Cholita's club-footed jib didn't like.  Keeping the jib filled in the lightish wind we were seeing was difficult, but Ed pulled it off.

   We returned to the Dock without incident and discovered the fate of  Prolific.

    It turns out that Bruce had snagged his main halyard, but good, around his steaming light on the fore-side of the mast.  Unable to free the stubborn wire halyard, he was forced to return to the Dock to solve the problem, with the help of his greenhorn guest crew, a young man from Tanzania.

Who had never been on a boat before, let alone a sailboat.

 He acquitted himself admirably, assisting to retrieve the recalcitrant wayward halyard with the help of two duct-tape-bound boat hooks.

    Duct tape and friendship- that's how we roll.
Thanks to all for a great day!



"Talk the dock!"

New Crew Review

     "I haven't yet, but there's still a chance I might..."

                              -The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

     When dirt-folks discover that I am a sailor, I often hear, "Oh, I have always wanted to sail! I'd like to sail sometime!  How do I get started sailing?"

      Huh?

    I mean, nobody ever asks, "How do I get started golfing?"  or "How do I get started jogging?"  You just show up.

    So, in an effort to get more folks like us involved, I'm going to let everyone in on the secret.

    Ready?

    Come on down the Dock.  

    Or any dock where you see masts.

    Bring rum.

   You're in.

   Nobody is more happy to show off their boat or have new crew than sailors. 

   Especially me.  

   See, greenhorns have no idea  how a boat is supposed to sail or look  or what proper sail shape looks like, so they have no idea just what a hack I am.

   (It occasionally drives SWMBO nuts when I press-gang strays without notice, but she is great at rolling with the punches, and finding a way to stretch a half box of crackers and a stick of cheese into snacks for four.)

  The month started off with an afternoon aboard with SWMBO's bosses, Lyn and Leigh.  This is the first time I had spent any time with them...

.... and the first time they had spent any time with me.

I admire my wife for having the courage to throw her career prospects to the winds.

(Hey, it's that or wonder WTF she was thinking.)

It was a rough day, rougher than we'd like for sailing with newbies, so we simply soaked up the atmosphere on the Dock, and  talked about boats and sailing and life in general and met some of the other characters, and generally proselytized like boat missionaries.

Gavin and Sylvia made a guest appearance and added a couple of hallelujahs and amens.

  It worked.  Lyn and Leigh spent the next few days scouring the classified ads looking for boats, and the next weekend they inspected a Bayfield 25 for sale here in the Marina...  and brought dinner.  And rum.
And we brought Jack and Melanie to further sink the hook.

  Lyn and Leigh will be hull-wet by the beginning of next season.

A couple of weeks later Leigh came out for a sail, and we shanghai'd Ed into joining us.  The wind wasn't heavy but the Bay was choppy.  So choppy that we managed to break some of our high quality polycarbonate  dinnerware.  Yes, Virginia, you can break stuff at 3 knots.

A  couple of weeks ago I bought a solar shower to test and review.  Basically it is a black 5 gallon bag of water with a hose.  To use, you fill the bag with water, leave it in direct sunlight and a few hours later, you have warmish water.  The best only place on Whiskeyjack  to lay a solar shower is atop the cabin.  

What does this have to do with newbies?

Last weekend Marco and Dee came aboard.  Neither had sailed before, but both were enthusiastic.  The wind was optimal, so we  set out.   With detailed instruction, the newbs hoisted main and unfurled the genoa and trimmed the sails and we were moving!

As we heeled to 30 degrees, I realized that the forgotten solar shower  had been neither stowed nor secured. It walked across the cabin top like a water-filled slinky, flip, flip, flip, and then FLOP! jumped over the side.

Retrieval was a non-starter as it was quickly lost to sight in our wake.

That was the only mishap of the afternoon and we had a great sail.  Marco enjoyed himself and really "got it."...

   ...but Dee is well and truly HOOKED.  Marco and Dee are apparently going to be sailboat shopping soon.

  So, how do you start sailing?  Go where the masts are.  Bring rum.  Soon you'll be grinning too.

And "Talk the Dock!"

Tying Up Loose Ends, Volume Five: Freedom's Flight

     "You're right where I wanna be..."
                        -Michael McDonald


    
  Way back, I introduced you to Ed and Chris, about to embark on the cruising life aboard their Endeavour, Freedom.
http://docksixchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/07/shameless-plug-for-some-cool-vids.html

      I was expecting to see them stop by at some point this season on their way south, but Mother Nature had other plans.

     Remember Hurricane Irene?  Y'know, the storm that was sorta anti-climactic for the NY/NJ coast?  Turns out, it wasn't so benign upstate.
 
    From a geographical, if not meteorological standpoint, the outcome was triple weird, folks.  Check this out:

    Irene generated  a stalled front over upstate New York and Vermont, causing bucketloads of rain to fall for hours, leading to widespread catastrophic flooding, so while NYC was largely spared, the  landlocked state of Vermont declared a state of emergency, and upstate New York, specifically the Erie Canal, got seriously whacked with the catastrophe stick.


                                                               Image  thanks to Columbiamissourian.com


                                                                                                         Image thanks to glcclub.com


   Game over for the Erie Canal this season, and unless some fundage becomes available to repair the damaged locks, next season looks in doubt also.
 
  "Yeah, so?"  some of you snort, "How does a closed canal in New York affect us up here?"

   Like this- the Erie Canal is the nautical pleasurecraft superhighway to the ICW.  The Great Lakes connect to the Canal, the Canal connects to the Hudson, the Hudson connects to Long Island Sound, Long Island Sound  is like a cloverleaf- turn left, you head to New England and points north, turn right and you're travelling south with the snowbirds on the IntraCoastal Waterway, all the way to Miami.

    No canal, no Miami.  or Bahamas.  Or whatever.
 
     Some cruisers decided to truck their boats south,  some decided to hope for the best, (rumour has it the canal will open on a limited basis on American Thanksgiving, but that is getting really late in the season for the month+ trip south to the Bahamas), and others, including Ed and Chris, decided to go west to go south.

     Freedom simply headed north, up the St. Clair River  through Lake Huron, down Lake Michigan to Chicago where her mast was pulled and dropped on a truck, then Freedom became a powerboat, cruising down the canals, eventually to the Mississippi.

Okay, maybe "simply" is slightly inaccurate.

   Anyadjective, the crew of Freedom has been blogging their adventures, and it has been a great read.  I encourage you to check it out.  I get the feeling it is going to be a great lifeline during the long cold winter ahead.

    http://freedom-sailing.blogspot.com/

    (Hey, if I keep kissing ass like this, you think they'll invite me aboard when they hit the Bahamas?)


     Thanks for taking the time to check us out.  Please feel free to "Talk the Dock!"  Link us, follow us, or just tell your friends.