Waiting patiently is always a hard thing for us…
and, one thing leads to another.
From my last post you know that we finally heard from our friend who was going to help us with our electrical system! He has been helping with getting our wiring cleaned up and consulting on the solar panel install, in particular, snaking the wires into tight spaces. He’s tall and skinny and that really helps with running wires in the walls. We are so appreciative of his help we can not thank him enough.
We had hoped to leave Port Clinton Thursday, July 7, 2022 but the angels were of a differing opinion. Our diesel mechanic still had some work to do to synchronize our engines from back in June. Ah, we thought that it would be nice to have the engines synchronized but it is not crucial to the operation of the boat. It would be a bit more work managing the engines without this convenience but it would be doable. After debating what we should do we planned to cast off the lines the week of the fourth. Theorizing that the waters would be relatively quiet after the holiday had come and gone. Then we checked the weather and all the forecasts up to Tuesday, July 5th showed that there was going to be rain from Port Clinton to Detroit on Thursday, July 7th! OK….might have to postpone till Monday, July 11th. Let’s wait and see, we said. The angels will let us know. On Monday, the Fourth of July, one of our boat neighbors, Sean, came on board and helped us adhere the solar panels to the top of the roof behind the flybridge helm. Thanks so much Sean for your help! Another job ticked off the list. Which lead us into Tuesday. Our diesel mechanic called on Tuesday and said that he could come over and check out the synchronizers. Yay! we thought, another job would be accomplished and would could leave on Thursday. The mechanic checked things out and said that the synchronizer cables needed to be replaced. He could get them to us by the end of the week…Ok….the weather is supposed to be nasty on Thursday and we really don’t want to travel on the weekend…..OK, decision made. We will stay through the weekend and push off on Monday July, 11th.
Later that day our friend, the electrician, showed up to help us with the autopilot and get a camera hooked up so we could watch the engine room while we are underway. Great! more things clicked off the list. Well, the boys did a lot of work with little payoff. The autopilot still was not responding. The AIS was not receiving but it was sending. At least we did get the camera in the engine room to show up on the chart plotter so we could check the engines underway.
Now we were waiting again to hear from the mechanic about the synchronizer cables. On Thursday we heard from the mechanic that the soonest we could get the cables was on Monday the 11th. Oh, no! No way! Monday would lead to the end of the week and then before you know it two weeks will have gone by and we would be putting off leaving again. No! we have waited long enough. All the things that we would like to have operational are not essential to the operation of the boat. Our patience had met it’s limit. We will leave on Monday, the 11th as we planned! Come hell or high water. If the cables did not make it before the weekend we made arrangements that the cables would be sent to the broker who sold us the boat in the Orillia, Ontario area. We would install them when we got to Canada.
We spent the weekend getting ready to leave port on Monday. I think the people in the marina did not believe that we were really going to leave. Our friend, Loren (our training captain) asked if he could ride along until Port Huron and we said “YES! Come along.” Sunday night came and we were ready to cast off the lines and head north. We had informed the marina we would be leaving on Monday morning and all we had to do was wait for the marina office to open on Monday and Michael would give them our key card and off we would go. Canada here we come!
Monday morning arrived and Michael said goodbye to Deb at the marina office and gave her our key card to make it official. She told Michael she found it hard to believe that we were really going this time since we had told her several times before that we would leave and ending up staying. Michael said that everything that is needed for us to start our journey is working and the things that were not functioning were not necessities, merely convenience items that could be addressed later.
As we prepared the lines and started up the engines some of our fellow boaters that we had made friends with came to see us off. Sherry and Sam are their names and they stood at the ready should we need help with casting off the lines. I was at the helm and as I maneuverd the boat away from the dock, I waved good bye to them and said we would probably see them in a couple of years, but who knows where the adventure would take us! Then as we rounded the bend of our fairway Dave and Michele (other boaters we had befriended) waved and filmed us as we left the port for the adventure of our lifetime. O’ Canada! Here we come!
The plan is to go to from Port Clinton, Ohio to the William G. Milliken State Park and Harbor in Detroit, Michigan for the first night, then on to Port Huron, Michigan the next night where Loren will leave us and then the next day (Wednesday) go across the river to Sarnia, Ontario, Canada! See the maps below for the destinations. I will figure out how to do travel maps in the future.