Thursday, August 4, 2022 - Friday, August 5
Left North Tonawanda, NY, this morning and headed on down to Buffalo, NY, where we had reserved a slip at the Erie Basin Marina for a couple of nights in the hope of collecting a number of Amazon deliveries. The trip “up” the river to Buffalo involved going through a lock which bypasses the Niagara River, on which we’d be traveling against the current and in really rough waters. The lock only operates on the hour (down bound) and half hour (up bound). We were there about 5 til the hour so had a bit of a wait…but transiting the lock was easy. On to Erie Basin Marina….
Checked in and had a few pieces of orders waiting on us. As that day and the next passed we had one more little order, but the things we really wanted to arrive…didn’t. Everyone seemed to have trouble finding the place. Usually things are delivered to the marina office. In this case, the marina office was so far away from the entrance that it couldn’t be seen. We tried to have delivery services (we had ‘em all…UPS, USPS and Amazon) meet us at the entrance gate…but that never happened. We had to cancel about 8 items and reorder them to be delivered on down the way. Bummer!
We did fill our need for a beef on Weck, which is said to have originated in Buffalo. “A Weck or Wecken in this dish is short for Kummelweck which is like a kaiser roll topped with salt and Caraway seeds. Then the sandwich is piled high with roast that is not overcooked. The top bun’s dipped in a bit of beef au jus before you top this marvel. Serve it with some french fries a side of hot horseradish, a cup of au jus for dipping, and a dill pickle spear.” ’Twas delicious!
Saturday, August 6, 2022 -
Traveled today from Buffalo to Dunkirk Yacht Club, Dunkirk, NY. Friendly little club sitting right on the edge of Lake Erie. We’re still using the iPad to show routes and manage changing course to the “auto pilot.” Ah! but soon we’ll have the replacement chip in our hands….sigh.
Sunday, August 7, 2022 -
Traveled to the Wolverine State Park Marina n Erie, PA. The waves were a problem today. They were at least 2 feet and coming from the West so they were right on “our nose.” Wayne and I both took a Bonine for assurance that we would not become incapacitated. We questioned giving Maggie part of one…but decided to talk with the vet first. Turns out, she had no problem with these conditions…
This marina turns out to be right next to the town’s conference center and in the company of
a couple of hotels, convention center, etc. Oh. And there’s a huge reworking of roads right here. We're dodging all sorts of equipment just to get out of the driveway.
Took a look at the weather outlook for near shore cruising on Monday when we planned to leave for Geneva-on-the-Lake, OH. Wasn’t looking too good, but we’ll check on Monday morning.
Monday, August 8, 2022 -
Yep, Small Craft Warning today for near coast marine travel. Ah, we’ll have “stuff” that needs to be done anyway. Staying here another night and rearranged plans for tomorrow. One of those things to do was order groceries for delivery…which we did. As I took Maggie for a mid-day walk, though, I remembered that the whole marina parking lot was being torn up and there seemed no way for a delivery person/vehicle to make it through. I mentioned this to the lady construction worker and she assured me they’d get ‘em through. This seems to be a pattern for us and deliveries!!!
Our other project for today was to clean out the water strainers on the boat. There's a lot of “growth” in the waters up here and the systems that use water (air conditioning, for instance) can gather pieces of plants, etc., in the strainers and cause a problem. The strainers are in the engine room…which is under the salon floor. We removed all three sections of the floor to access the strainers…but could only actually get to one. These had just been cleaned at Ess-Kay Marina when we had the oil changed and the strainer we could reach didn’t have much in it. We decided to put the floor back down and wait a while to clean the other, as of now unreachable, strainers. We started putting the floor down with the slimmest piece which fits under the unmovable couch. It wouldn’t go. We were both dripping with sweat and effort and thought we were going to have to “call someone.” Then we decided to at least put down the other two pieces. Having that done, we realized we could sit on those pieces and push on the little one with our feet and got it in!! Ah, the small victories…
Tuesday, August 9, 2022-
Same song, second verse: no going today because of wind and waves. Tomorrow really looks good for now. Needless to say, we’ll check it out tomorrow morning for the “real” data…
