OM!! what a last few days.  Now let me explain, I am not a rollercoaster type of gal. We sailed for the past three days. That was pretty awesome. Although it seems like since we entered Lake Erie, the winds have been out of the North East hitting Beauty in the starboard side rear corner. It really hasn’t been bad out in the lake. But the anchorages inside the breakwaters haven’t been so great with the winds. From Ashtabula, to Fairport, now Kelly’s Island, we have bobbed like a bobber at the end of a fishing line.  During anchorage we bobbed up and down and side to side!!

Pulling into Ashtabula, Ohio wasn’t bad we were so happy to be out of the dancing waves on Lake Erie. We jumped into the bay to cool down a bit.  By morning we were bobbing.. LOL  Here is a picture of Ashtabula.

 

Ashtabula, Ohio was a great stop over for provisioning and a good lunch out.  They have a nice public dock in the center of town you can use for two hours while you do what needs to be done.  Bryce and I headed into town with the jet ski not knowing that we didn’t have to pass under the bridges to dock up to the free dock.  By the time we got back to the boat, winds were gusting to 17 knots.

They had a great entrance to the breakwater.

 

When we first pulled into Ashtabula, Bryce noticed this catamaran.  It was some new friends of ours that we met on the Erie Canal.  They are headed to Chicago then down the Mississippi.   Scott & Rhonda have a great voyage.  We swam over and visited with them for a bit. I should restate that! Bryce put his flippers on and I sat in my floating chair. He pushed me over like a queen in her chair. LOL

 

The following morning we headed into town in Ashtabula, Ohio. This is the public sea wall you can dock on. Bryce is putting his shoes and shirt on.

 

We had to make it to the post office for a package. When we noticed this was really a cute town. Loved the flowers

 

As we turned the corner to walk up the street to the post office, all I could smell was the grilled hamburger cooking from the Grind house restaurant on the corner. Yep I had to have lunch there. LOL    They had gourmet burgers so I enjoyed a great burger!!!  This was a snazzy restaurant with a great ambiance and a terrific view of the river through the picture windows shown in the picture below.

 

Well, we made it back to Beauty and pulled up the anchor to head towards Fairport Harbor, Ohio. What a sloppy mess it was to exit the harbor into Lake Erie. Waves were dancing on the seawall and rushing into the harbor through the opening of the breakwater entrance.  Sailing on a quartering sea, we were reasonably comfortable.

We sailed from Ashtabula to Fairport.  Fairport was just a lay over prior to our push to the Bass Islands.  Fairport was a poor anchorage in NE winds. The waves entered the inlet shown below and bounced off the seawall and hit us from behind.  The eastern part of the breakwater was open to east winds, so we had waves coming from that direction also.  We bobbed like a bobber all night long.  Finally morning came.  Bryce was not able to work more than about 3 hours.  With unsettled sleep, we pulled up anchor and headed out into Lake Erie.  We decided to head across the lake to Kelly’s Island nearly 72 miles away.  Close to Put-in-Bay.  I was so happy…They are indeed my favorite places on Lake Erie.  We traveled about 20 miles off shore on a due West heading straight to the northern bay on Kelly’s Island.

Here is a picture of the sunset at Fairport.

 

The morning we left Fairport, the sun was rising over the other break water with the nuclear power plant in the background.

 

Nearly 12 hours later we passed the eastern point of Kelly’s Island.  We nosed in to check out the wave action and decided to anchor right inside the corner of the point to protect us from the waves. They were supposed to settle down as the night went on.  Unfortunately the waves were slow to respond to the direction of the wind change. Bryce got up around 1:30 after hearing me complain that I couldn’t sleep and did something magical to the anchor line caused the boat to head into the waves. That smoothed it out and I was finally snoring logs. LOL

This is the eastern of the bay on North Kelly’s Island.  It is an excellent anchorage with a phenomenal beach as long as the winds are not northerly.  We will enjoy Thursday here and head into Put-In-Bay for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

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