Friday July 16, 2021.
Temp: 78 /71, Humidity: 73/98%, Top Wind: SW6 mph, Precip: rain afternoon & evening, Miles Traveled: 55
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It’s always about the forecast, right? I remember how bored I was after we finished our first loop. It was a real let down kind of depression to decompress and not be on duty all the time! There was no intensive weather forecast research from multiple different sources, no navigation routing, no daily searches for where we’d sleep each night. And no blog to take pictures for and write about! If anybody tells you that the Loop is a relaxing trip, that’s just some kind of stowaway without any ‘sponsibilities!
So what was the plan for today? The weather predictors said that waves would be less than one foot, wind would be less than 10mph, and we had 55 miles to go west today. I was awake at about 5:15, and the alarm was set for 5:30. I got up, turned on some lights, got coffee made and made a little noise so that the captain could wake up gently. He so hates the sound of an alarm! It was beautifully calm outside. It was very humid, but there was no dew on anything, which was nice! We pulled our lines and shoved off before 6:00!! This was the view from our dock spot.
Another shot of the city from the marina.
And the Cleveland Browns NFL Stadium from the waterway.
We followed the channel that goes out just to the west of the marina. Thankfully we didn’t have to back track the five miles back east the way we came in! There was a nice little lighthouse shining a red light for the channel.
And a green light on the other side. Adios Cleveland. We were the first boat out of the marina this morning, but after a while, we could see on Nebo that a few others found their way out and were headed west as well.
Well, the waves may have only been one foot, but they were coming right at our nose and spaced out just right so that it was like riding a rocking horse for a couple of hours. Blah! The wave direction was predicted to change, and it did move a bit more around to the southwest, so it got more tolerable and less annoying for the last couple of hours of our six hour tour.
As we approached Sandusky, we could see the giant roller coasters of Cedar Point on the horizon. It is located on the eastern shore of the Sandusky Bay. For today, we’re going into the bay and to the west a bit to Battery Park Marina. It’s Friday, and that means that the Cedar Point marina charges a premium – for Friday and Saturday nights. We plan to go to the park on Sunday when the weather looks like it will shape up, so we’ll move over there tomorrow and stay just two nights. We could have just gone there, but there isn’t much of anything available outside of the park, and why spend the money for a premium night? If the weather was nice, there’s a pool, but in the rain with nothing to do but sit in the boat, we figured we’d save some $skrilla and just stay a mile away.
We tootled into the Oasis Marina at Battery Park, and they put us way back by the marina building. This is a good spot if I wanted to do some laundry! Hmmm… their washers & dryers are only .75 each. Hold on. I’ll be right back.
OK – I know I just did laundry somewhere not too long ago, but this is nearly free, so I think I’ll wash some sheets. And maybe all of our clothes that got soaked in the Cleveland downpour, especially since it has stopped raining.🥴
Back to the story about the marina. They put us in a 40’ slip. As we approached, there were two fellas on the dock to help us. I looked at the skinny looking slip and asked – “we’re 14’ wide…. will we fit?” “You should!” Great! 😳. Captain took a look and said “we’ll bow in”. It was actually no problem sliding in bow first, but there is not much room to spare!
We both took a little siesta while it sprinkled rain outside. Hey! We got docked BEFORE it rained!! Woo-Hoo!!! But this early get-up stuff is for the birds, combined with riding a rocking horse all morning, we were tired!
I finally shook myself awake and went for a stroll around town. This is Battery Park.
There is actually a pool here that we can use, and there were some brave families enjoying the water. It isn’t cold out, but it’s cloudy and been kinda rainy. But lately, you gotta take what you can get around here!
This was amazing to me. In the boating worlds that we’re familiar with…. Pacific Northwest Washington and Southwest Florida, I’ve never seen such a huge marina completely full of trailerable boats! In Florida, you don’t leave any boat in the water if you can avoid it, due to the sea creatures that take up residence on the hull. In the Pacific Northwest, everybody just launches their trailerable boat if they want to use it. But here – there are hundreds of boats in marinas everywhere we look! Interesting! I admit, if my boat is already in the water, I will use it more than if I have to launch it every time. Makes sense! And I guess these are only in the water for about five months, and maybe no critters move aboard in the fresh water? 🤔 It’s just different than my salt water world. Perhaps I’ve never been around a big enough fresh water lake for comparison.
One place that I wanted to scope out was the nearby Baithouse Brewery. I was thinking we could walk here for dinner maybe, so I checked out their menu.
They had burgers and pizza, but only one good sounding beer for my captain. It looked fun, though! They had giant jenga in the yard, and music playing, and people were having fun. This could be good.
As I strolled along, many of the houses were in disrepair and pretty junky stuff in all the yards. But I did spy some tigerlily flowers!! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any of them live and in person. They were pretty.
Then what to my wondering eyes should I see? A drive through liquor store. Yep. Right here in Ohio. It’s always interesting to discover the difference in liquor rules when we go state to state.
These were just some neat old buildings of various textures.
In town, this alley caught my eye. It was right next to a wine bar, and it looked really quaint and cute. And wet. Nobody was sitting outside right now.
More old buildings in town. I didn’t get the scoop on any of the buildings, but I know that there are National Historical Register buildings here in Sandusky.
Such a nice line up of buildings! And look! There are more cars and traffic here than there was in downtown Cleveland!
Down by the water front there is a ferry that runs to South Bass Island and Put-in-Bay, and there was a nice park with flowers and fountains, benches and so on.
This is the old Sandusky move theatre. It was built in 1928, and apparently it is currently closed due to a crazy huge wind storm that came off of Lake Erie and hit in June 2020. The storm ripped the roof off and caused millions of dollars of damage inside. It is being slowly cleaned up and rebuilt.
I saw these kind of signs on several establishments, so I had to stop and scope it out. Apparently, Sandusky has a DORA thing. From what I could gather, these establishments can serve beverages ‘to-go’ and you can walk around with them in public (gasp! 🤭) as long as you stay inside the marked DORA perimeter. It’s a pretty big area, based on the map at the bottom of the sign, but I don’t know what DORA means.
This old building said “The Winery”, but it didn’t look like it was in use.
I found several little lighthouses around town. Well – not really little – maybe 5-6’ tall. This was at a park by the waterfront, and had the big dipper painted in the night sky on it.
OOOOH – A Farmer’s Market tomorrow morning! It’s kind of a hike from the boat, but I might get up and go. I think we can’t ‘check-in’ to our new marina until 11:00, and it’s a whole one mile away. Maybe if it isn’t raining….. 💦⛈🌧??
This was some kinda of cool nautical sculpture by the Sandusky Yacht Club. They are having a good ‘ol time over there tonight, with live music and pirate cannons!
Another lighthouse.
Ah HA! A DORA perimeter sign. Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area.
This lighthouse is at our marina. It’s really painted beautifully with vibrant colors.
Well….. as usual, the rain came. At least it came BEFORE we left the boat for dinner, soooo we didn’t leave. I fixed us some Frijole Friday (kinda like Taco Tuesday or Margarita Monday, only it’s Friday) mexican food, and a couple of painkillers, and called it good. We’re really getting tired of all this rain. There are alerts in the weather forecasts and on the TV about flooding. I know that many portions of the Erie Canal closed right after we got through, due to flooding and high water. WHEW! At least we made it through the canal before THAT happened!
Tomorrow will be a sleep-in day. Like I said – we can’t leave too early to go to our next spot anyway. There’s still a good chance of rain tomorrow, but Sunday looks like the first in a string of about a week of good no-rain days! YAY! We’ll probably fuel up here in the morning. We’re at about half tanks, but fuel prices are ridiculous. It’s $3.44 for Valvtech here, which compared to some of the prices we’ve seen, isn’t bad. It really hard to know what is ahead without calling marinas and asking. And then by the time you get there, things will have changed anyway. We paid $3.89 for non-valvtech in Tonawanda. Anyway, if we fill up here, we’ll be good to make it to the tippy top of Lake Huron and the Mackinac area.
Tomorrow will be pretty uneventful, but on Sunday – we’re gonna ride a roller-coaster or two. 🙆🏼♀️😲