Saturday, August 3: A Little Bite Out of Lake Erie

Date:                           August 3, 2013

Day on the Cruise:      110

From:                          Geneva State Park Marina, OH
                                       
To:                               Grand River Marina, Fairport Harbor, OH

Statute Miles:              19.8 SM

Time:                           2.0 Hrs

Cumulative Miles:       2,453.5 SM

On Board:                  Susan, Chuck, Maggie, Trooper, Peanut

We are in Fairport Harbor, OH tonight, about 30 miles East of Cleveland.

A short trip today, only 2 hours and about 20 miles. A little bite out of the Lake! The weather forecast was not that great for today, so we decided to come over here to sort of stage for a better weather day to go to Lorain, OH, West of Cleveland.

We got out into the Lake and found still another sea pattern than the previous two days on the Lake. Today the seas are what I would call "lumpy". They did not have any direction, but rather were just there. It was like looking at a giant bowl of slowly boiling oatmeal or gravy, or whatever. Seas were about 2', which was way less than forecast. As a result, we rolled around quite a bit. It wasn't really rough, but the seas just pushed us around. We finally increased speed about two thirds of the way into the trip and I got the boat on more of a plane and this helped the directional stability of the boat. We got on a plane at about 11.5 mph. Anyway, it was an interesting trip.

View out the front door this morning

We passed a nuclear power plant about half way between Geneva and Fairport. It is the Perry Nuclear Power Plant owned by First Energy Corporation. Perry is one of two nuclear plants in Ohio. Two units were planned, but after infrastructure for both units was built, only one unit was put into operation. This nuclear plant has two tall cooling towers that we could see yesterday on our trip from Erie way East of Geneva. At first I thought it was the tall buildings of downtown Cleveland, but it was not.

Perry Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Erie

Fairport is on a river. It is an industrial town with big sand and gravel loading facilities on the River. We are at a very old marina. The plan is to stay here through tomorrow then pick up a good weather day on Monday and go 50 miles to Lorain. We really need to find a grocery store tomorrow to re-provision. This might require a bike trip.

Abandoned light house on the Jetty at entrance to Grand River and Fairport

Coming into Fairport Harbor, OH

Sailboat entering Fairport Harbor at the Jetty behind us

Thanks for Reading!