The Slow Fade

  

"Summer has come and passed....."
                            -Green Day


    But, autumn has been pretty damn awesome.

   Actually, the whole season , from beginning to end, has been great, meteorologically and oceanographically speaking.

   After two reallydamncold winters with 95%+ ice cover on the Lakes, the water level has been high all season.

  At least 2 feet higher than 2012/2013.

   Usually,  the water level is highest in the late spring early summer, as snow melt and spring rains swell tributaries and upper Lakes- this year, weirdly, the water level in July was higher than June:

                                                                          -charts courtesy of  Fisheries and Oceans Canada


  ...  And pretty much stayed there through the middle of September, before gradually starting to fall.
 
 As an added bonus, the summer was relatively dry- enough rain to keep farmers happy, enough sun to keep beachgoers happy, and enough wind to keep sailors happy...mostly.


The  sunsets were absofreakinlutely spectacular.

   As the season slowly faded, I discovered that the sunrises were pretty damn amazing too, even if the fact that I was observing them meant that endofseason was looming:

     In September I FINALLY accomplished a task that had been out of my reach for two seasons.

     (No, it wasn't "writing another blog post", Smartass Reader.)

    When Good Old Boat  slated my account of our acquisition of  Karma, Tim, the Managing Editor, requested some high resolution photos of  Karma under sail.  clicking through the hundreds of pics on my computer, I realized I had NO high res photos of us under full sail.  There were lots of pics of us loafing along with the genny fully bagged out, there were low-res pics of us with both main and genoa looking full, fat and sassy...

     But no magazine-worthy, high-resolution, mainsail-and-foresail-as-Neptune-intended pics of Karma in full double-stitched Dacron splendour.

    So, the only pics in my international magazine debut article... are of Karma sailing half-assed.
   

     Sigh.


    Yeah, shut up-  even I can see the symbolism.

    Anyfail, September saw Jack and Hilary step up and catch some full sail sunset shots.  Thanks, guys!

 

   Speaking of full sails and Hilary, he started flying his assymetrical spinnaker this year, making him easy to spot on the lake:

  "What of Whiskeyjack?"  the faithful hordes ask.  "Have you forsaken the ass which formerly bore you?"

   Nay, my friends, and I report  that Whiskeyjack  is in good hands. 

   

   Phil has been sailing her ass off, on her ear, grinning ear to ear:

  She's still in the water, still on the dock, and due for haul out the same day as Karma, November 5th.

  Frank and Lorraine and Keara are also wringing the last few sailing days out of the season as well:

   By the last half of October the Dock was looking sparse:

     Sunday, SWMBO's boat Ereni came out of the water;

      By Tuesday, there were three-  Karma, Keara, and Whiskeyjack.  

     

     Sigh.

     Hurricane Patricia's walk of shame across North America forced us to move to the relative safety of virtually empty Dock Five to ride out the 50 knot gusts and 2 metre waves.  That's us, below, on the dock closest to shore.    The sunsets suck, but it sure is calm in there.

   The water level is up about 2 feet in 12 hours.

    We seldom see waves rolling deep enough, and strong enough, to make the dinghy dock hump.

      No shame here about leaving the dock- there were four freighters hunkered as deep in the Bay as their draft would allow.

  Tomorrow the three boats  leave the Marina for the season and start a new tradition- we move to the dinghy dock for the night, roll out the jack-o-lanterns and candy for intrepid trick or treaters, and enjoy one last night on the water.  Then it's under the bridge to the yard to wait for haulout.

   Then, six long months on the dirt begin.

  Sigh.

Thanks for checking in, and please remember to "Talk the dock!"

A Break In The Weather. Please.

"Man, what a picture-perfect postcard this would make... "
                                                            -Rodney Atkins



   I am so damn done with this winter.

  More snow has hit the ground  this winter than we have had in the past four winters, total.

  With more on the way.

  As I type this, it is -23 degrees Celsius outside my window.

  I am tired of the gleeful addendum  to the weather report  "... that feels like -1,387 with the windchill!"

   (Ever notice that the cruel, cold-hearted bastard who invented the Wind Chill Factor is anonymous?  Celsius and Fahrenheit and Richter and Geiger and Beaufort all named their various scales and measurements after themselves, but the guy who came up with the answer to "Hey, how can we make a miserable season like winter feel even worse?"  is unknown.  Or In Witness Protection.}

  I have run out of places to pile the snow that I scoop, once again, off Stately Jones Manor's sidewalks.

 The driveway?  Fuhgeddaboutit.  Down to two frozen ruts.

 I could live without that heart-sinking feeling  I get when I slide behind the wheel of Lady Liberty in the morning, turn the key and hear *click*.

  I am tired of the ritual of coming home, stepping inside the front entry, removing my boots and stepping in melted snow.  Every.  Damn.  Day.  


 The novelty of a "good old-fashioned Canadian winter" has well and truly worn off.

  So, it's time for some pretty pictures!

Jack and Melanie captured some great shots of the Wednesday Night fleet:

Shots from the end of the Dock:

  

  
Whiskeyjack at dusk:

Yes, Hilary is attempting to ram us...again.

   (objects in rear view mirror may appear closer than they actually are.)

  Speaking of Hilary, he and Deb often visit offspring who reside in the Bahamas, and they find it necessary to torture me with pictures upon their return:

   Look at that water!  It's ....blue!  All of the water here right now is white.  And solid.

     Eight and a half more weeks until the Dock reopens for the season.  We might even have clear water by then.

Until then, keep the faith, and continue to ...


"Talk the Dock!"

A Blast from the Past on The Bay

       "And it's a fair wind, blowin' warm...."
                           Crosby, Stills and Nash

         This summer has been a bit of a bust, weather-wise, down here on the Dock.  Either cold and wet, or hot and humid, no wind or too much wind, often all on the same day.

        The Labour Day weekend was no exception.

         Thanks to some strategic vacation day planning, SWMBO and I extended our Labour Day weekend through to Wednesday.

        We were glad we did.

         Friday was overcast, but that didn't stop Mark and Kathy from taking their Corvette, Meisje, out for a sail.   The Dock's short fingers didn't prevent them from stopping in for a cocktail.  Yes, a 30 footer will fit on the Dock:

   More on this great example of a classic plastic design in an upcoming OPB post.

       Saturday and Sunday SWMBO and I were both engaged in gainful employment, leaving time for little besides breakfast research for an upcoming Behind The Beach post....  and watching boats heading out for the yacht club Christmas(?!?) Boat Parade.

       Monday, we both did nothing but enjoy the fact that we were not working.

       Tuesday was a lounge day- a day to get caught up on boat projects, curl up in the cockpit with a book and just enjoy the solitude of a near-deserted marina.

        Mid-afternoon, I climbed onto Whiskeyjack's cabin to get a picture of the overcast and our new skyline for...

     ... Yes,  you guessed it...

    .... An upcoming blog post .

   

     
        Panning south to see what I could see, contemplating whether to finish another chapter in my read or whether to give SWMBO a nudge, light up the chugger,  drop the docklines and get on the water, something low on the horizon caught my eye:

     I pushed the zoom, steadied myself against the mast, and got hit smack in the eyeballs by an image from another century:

      You don't see a whole lot of square rigged ships on Lake Erie any more.   Throughout the afternoon, the ghost ship drew closer, becoming less ghostly:

    You know that this is gonna require a closer look-see, don't you?  Besides, the house battery was getting low, thanks to heavy use and a couple of low-sunlight days hampering solar panel performance,  so a good hour- long run under power was needed.

      As we clear the Marina breakwall and round buoy ED6, I start snapping shots:

    I realize,
    a)  She's big.
    b)  Because she's  big, she is also farther out than she looks.
    c)  Our house battery is REALLY drawn down, and is apparently  really due for replacement.

        With chartplotter, VHF radio and depthfinder  all pulling power, the house battery was quickly depleted below half and dropping like a stone.
      Huh.
     "Okay,"  thinks I, " it doesn't affect the drivetrain, so it's non-critical, figure it out back at the Dock , but in the meantime we're gonna need running lights soon, so it might be a good idea to conserve the juice we've got.     Turn off fixed mount VHF, turn on handheld, kill chartplotter and depthsounder, and hey! now we're navigating out to a big ol' square-rigger just like big ol' square riggers used to, via compass and charts and Human Eyeball, Mk I."

    Yar-HARRRRR!!!

Self-image:

       Reality:

 
     As the sun started to set, our goal became clearer:

   Besides Hilary scooting about in his C&C, this was the only other boat within view:

    Just as the sun dropped below the horizon, we got our close-up...

 and could finally get a name:   Sørlandet

    Here's some sense of  Sorlandet's size, measured in Whiskeyjacks*.

    She is 9 Whiskeyjacks long.

    She is 1.25 Whiskeyjacks wide.

    Her bowsprit is a Whiskeyjack...  including davits.

   She displaces 50 Whiskeyjacks.

   Her draft is 5 times Whiskeyjack's 3.5' draft.

   She has 13.5 Whiskeyjacks  worth of sails- 27 flappy things in total.

   With 13 304 square feet of sail area, Sorlandet is rocking about 53 Whiskeyjacks  of canvas.

  *A Whiskeyjack = 23 feet.

    Yeah.  She's big.  We're not.

     (* IN your best Jeremy Clarkson voice*) In fact, Sorlandet  is the largest and oldest Tall Ship...

...  in the world.

    And, she is Norwegian.

      This fact excited half-Norwegian SWMBO, who emailed the details to her wholly Norwegian mother, thus enabling bestemor  to share in our serendipitous discovery.

     Sorlandet was on the way downLake, returning from the last stop on the Tall Ships Challenge which was commemorating the War of 1812 this year, with stops at various historic locations throughout the Great Lakes,  on both sides of the border.

        Wednesday, she remained anchored, providing for some beautiful photo ops,

and a great backdrop to the Wednesday evening race.

    Thursday, like a faint memory of better times,  she was gone.


     We were privileged to have seen her.


   "Talk the Dock!"