Welland Canal to the North Channel

The Welland Canal wasn’t as difficult as everyone said. The turbulence was stronger because the locks are bigger to fit the barges and they fill them faster so that it doesn’t take as long. Everyone talked about how horrible it was but we were well prepared and didn’t find it bad at all. Luckily, we went with another cruising boat so they filled the locks slower for us. We went through a set of flight locks where you go from one lock to the next. When the doors open for you to get out, you’re in the next one. I didn’t like that part because we didn’t get a rest in between locks and it’s very tiring to fight against the turbulence.

This is a barge coming out of one of the locks. We had to wait on the wall outside the lock for them to pass. They only have about 8 inches of clearance on each side of the boat so they go verrrrry slowly.

After the Welland Canal, we crossed Lake Erie. One of the days we got to put up our spinnaker sail. We call it the pizza sail because the one on our old boat was the colour of a pizza pizza box and had a 7 digit ”phone” number on it. It was our first time on the whole trip putting this one up.

On the Detroit River, Aunt Shelly, Uncle Dennis, Laura and David came for dinner and Laura and David slept over and stayed the next day. We put them to work! This is Laura putting up the sail in the Lake St. Clair.

We anchored in the St. Clair River and Uncle Dennis came to pick up Laura and David and we went swimming. The current was really strong so we had to wear life jackets and hold onto ropes and fenders so that we wouldn’t be carried away. It was lots of fun.

We did an overnight sail from the St. Clair River across Lake Huron to Tobemory. It was really nice with a full moon and an almost downwind sail. We stayed in Tobemory for 2 days and then went to Heywood, where this cormorant decided to park himself on our davits. It was neat for a while and we took a bunch of pictures and inspected it, but then Dad started worrying that he was going to start pooping all over the dinghy, so he started poking it with the boat hook. But he finally decided that he didn’t like being poked, and flew away.
This is the Manitoulin Island swing bridge in Little Current. As always, we took lots of pictures of it. Before this trip, it was the only bridge we had ever gone by/under on the boat. We made it here for the Haweater festival on the first weekend of August, which was what we were hoping for.

We filled up on diesel in Little Current and then headed off to the Benjamins for a few days before Haweater. The Benjamins are my favourite spot up here. The water is really warm and it’s lots of fun hanging out. One day, we hiked up to the top of the hill and the other side of the island. This is the anchorage from the top of the hill.
We were tied to shore in the Benjamins and Steve and I spent a few hours each day in the water and one of our favourite things to do was swinging and jumping off the rope that tied us to shore. Mom managed to get Steve trying to tight rope walking on the rope and end up flinging himself.

This is us at our camp fire. I know it’s not dark, but it’s 9:00 at night. It doesn’t get dark until ten up here. We left the Benjamins and went to Matheson Island for a day and then returned to Little Current for Haweater.

Thousand Islands too

OOPS, we forgot to mention niece,nephew-in-law/cousin's Nickie & Drew who drove all the way down to the Islands during the Native protest on highway 401 in order to join the family weekend. Good thing they made it as they had all the food! They also acted a ferry service shuttling passengers from the train station in Brockville to Gannanoque to get them out to the Islands. Sorry for the oversight guys, for some reason you weren't in the group of pictures we used for that blog.

July long weekend with 'The Family' [dahn dahn dahn daaaaaaahn]

Three generations of mechanically challenged Mara men stuffed into one engine room. (Dad told me to say that) They were trying to figure out what was wrong with Grandpa's engine. We think it's because he brought bananas on the boat.

Grandpa and Gerry arrived on Bella Fortuna and we took over the end of the dock at Camelot Island for the weekend. Dad told me that this is the exact dock that Grandpa and Grandma used to bring the 4 kids to on their boat during their summer vacations 35 years ago. It was neat for everyone to come back. Dad says that it's still as nice as he remembers except that the public is no longer allowed on Endymion Island because of a rare berry. We had problems with the camera so part of the picture is cut off.
This is Uncle Mike blowing on our conch horn. Everyone tried but not very many people could make a sound on it.
Mom bought marshmellows and all the things for s'mores. Yum!!! We had a camp fire every night there but it rained so it was hard to start the fire on some nights. This was the picture with the most family members in it... there's half of Uncle Mike, Uncle John without his head, Gerry,Uncle Jeff, me, Mom, half of Steve and Aunty Kay's arm. For Canada day, Mom bought a rainbow fire thing that turnes the fire different colours when you throw the package in. It was really cool. We weren't allowed to do fireworks there.
I went water skiing behind Grandpa's new Boston Whaler. It went reeeeeeeeally fast. Uncle Jeff, Uncle Mike and Dad went in our dinghy for some close up action (of me wiping out!!!).
This is Aunty Mary and our cousin Sean who we met for the first time. Aunty Mary is wearing Sean's hat. It was neat meeting him for the first time, allthough he did not enjoy his first boat ride...it involved gettting wet, cold, tired, hungry and getting stuffed into a lifejacket and bounced around in the dinghy. He was not happy when he arrived. But he enjoyed camping in a tent a lot more.

The Thousand Islands

After we spent the night in Main Duck Island, we went to Kingston for a few days. We checked in to the country and provisioned and relaxed for a few days. We toured around and went to a steam engine museum and listened to a concert right outside the marina. We saw the new Pirates of the Carribean movie. Our first movie in the theatres in a year. Then we went to Gananoque and my Dad's best friend 'uncle' Bill stayed with us for 2 nights. We went to Camelot and hiked the island. It was exactly like Georgian Bay!!! It's the nicest cruising area that we've been to since the Bahamas.
My friend Calandra and her mom Paula drove to Kingston and came on the boat for a night. We went to Milton Island. Calee is at camp for all of July so she wanted to see us before she left.
Somehow Calee convinced me to jump into the freeeeeeeeeezing cold water. I stayed in just long enough for the picture. Brrrrr!!! It was really cold and swimming in warm Gulf Stream water all winter didn't really help the shock.
We set up the tarzan rope (as we call it) while Calee was here. We tie some knots in a rope and attach it to the halyard and swing out off the boat and into the water. Steve is affraid to hit his legs on the life lines when he jumps so he tucks his legs up. It looks pretty fancy.
We went back to Kingston to drop off Calee and Paula and the Snow Birds performed the next day so we stayed. It was different than the Blue Angels but I liked both performances. The Blue Angels went right overhead so they made a more impressive sound, but the Snow Birds did fancier tricks. There we also only 6 planes in the Blue Angels. There were 9 in the Snow Birds.

The Erie Canal to Kingston

This is a guy living on his little house-boat on the Erie Canal. It's a bit weird(crazy). You can see his little chimney and his table outside.
This is another boat entering Lock 17 before us. The big concrete gate is a bit scary to go under...you wouldn't want it falling on your head. Most of the locks have gates that swing on hinges like a regular door but this one drops down behind you.
This is Steve and I fending off the boat in a lock. The walls are really slimy so we wore gloves. The boat got covered in slime and gunk and Dad wasn't very happy. We went through a lot of locks. I think it was over 20 but I'm not sure.
This is at the farmers market in Oswego. We put up the mast and once everything was done, we went to the farmers market. This is a guy cooking popcorn. We found it amusing that he had to wear a welding mask to protect him from the popping popcorn. They added sugar to the popcorn and it made it taste really different but weird. The popcorn came in huge bags a foot and a half tall and Steve could barely hold it in one arm. It was HUGE!!! Dad didn't like it so Mom, Steve and I got more.
CANADA!!!!! We crossed Lake Ontario (there was absolutely no wind so we had to motor) and Steve and I stood on the bow so that we would be the first ones in Canada. We were also the first ones to step onto land in Canada. We were out of the country for 321 days. 93 of those days were in the Bahamas. We're finally home!!!!

New York City and the Hudson

This is us in New York City in Central Park. We explored the park and sort of got lost. There are a lot of winding paths that are very confusing. Apparently I’m supposed to say that we went on a long and winding road and ended up at Strawberry Fields. It actually took us a long time to find Strawberry Fields ( a section of the park sponsored by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon.)

Okay. This is an extremely creepy and strange busker in Central Park. There were actually a lot of strange people and things in New York. There was a guy that had a Chihuahua in a wheelchair. It was a sort of setup thinger that made it look like he was in a wheelbarrow race. There was also someone who was walking their guinea pig on the sidewalk. But this guy was the weirdest of all. He was wearing a loin cloth thing and a weirdo feather on his head and he was singing OOOOOOOOOOOOH!!! in a high pitched voice, playing the violin, ringing a bell and dancing around like a ballerina. It was very, very strange. He sort of freaked me out.

New York is very strange. These are some things you will see in New York:

1. 40 or 50 police cars all parked in one area, the drivers all looking bored or eating snacks.

2. A shop with very strange and very expensive furniture. (e.g. chairs with cows on them, red plastic tables in squiggly shapes)

3. Almost no one who is standing alone and not talking on their cell phone.

4. a freaky busker wearing a loin cloth

5. handicapped Chihuahuas

6. very strange clothes

7. a barefoot singer in Central Park calling himself the barefoot singer (he’s there every Saturday)

8. Lots and lots and lots of yellow taxis (Mom and I got to ride one!!!)

9. If you go on a weekend, everyone seems to be shopping.

10. We saw Donald Trump come in on his helicopter!!

11. A guy riding a unicycle down the sidewalk

This is a pretty picture of a sunrise on the Hudson. I think it was the morning after our first night out of New York.


As you can see, the mast is no longer pointing up. On the morning of my birthday, we took the mast down for the Erie Canal and the Oswego Canal. It went very smoothly (not like last time) and stayed on the deck for the whole time.

Washington to Baltimore

We stayed with Tina and Ed Burke at their beautiful home near Washington. They ferried us around and entertained us after having just returned from a six month sailing trip. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them and appreciate their kindness and generosity. Thanks guys!

When we got to Baltimore, we heard that there was a baseball game that just started. We could see the stadium from the dock so we hussled over to Camden Yards and watched the Orioles play the Oakland A's. We missed the first 3 innings but it was really fun and the Orioles won. This picture is of the sweeper guys that came at the end of the inning. Their mascot was a big oriole but this guy didn't give me a noogee like the Green Monster did at Fenway in Boston.
On our second day in Baltimore we did the maritime museum and we got to go on a submarine, a coast guard cutter and a lighthouse boat. This is the sub USS Torsk. It was really cool to see but I think don't think I would want to be on one of those guys underwater. It's very narrow and clostraphobic. The bunks for the crew are stacked 3 high and some of the guys have to sleep in the torpedo room above the torpedoes. They each get one teeny locker to put their belongings. The head (washroom) is not much bigger than the one on our boat. There are so many controls and handles and levers in there!!! Dad was getting clostraphobic with the sub there at the surface and he could get out any time he wanted!!! They had the sonar running so that we could hear all the boats whizzing around the harbour and the periscope so we could see them. It was cool. The coasties had a much more comfortable ride. They had much more space and were actually on the surface!!!
On our 3rd day in Baltimore we went to the Aquarium. This is a picture of the dolphin show. This guy jumped 22 feet in the air and touched a ball with his nose!!! He even got it on the first try. It was an incredible show. At the very end, one of the trainers was pushed all the way around the tank by a dolphin and the only thing in the water was her legs. She was sort of leaning forward and the dolphin pushed her all the way around. I decided that I want to be a trainer like that but there are no aquariums near home other than maybe Marine Land.
This is also at the aquarium in Baltimore. The only sharks we saw in the Bahamas were nurse sharks. This guy has much bigger teeth!!! It's a sand tiger shark. Lukily he was in a tank!!! I wouldn't want to swim with this guy. He even has an evil glowing eye!!!( that's actually the flash from the camera)We had lots of fun in Baltimore.

Washington, D.C.

It’s Danielle here. Sorry we’re late in updating the blog but we fell far behind.

As you can see this, is the White House!!! The one and only!!! There’s not really anything I can say except that it looks exactly how I imagined it. On our last day in Washington, (we only stayed for 2 days) we saw 3 helicopters come in to the White House so we are assuming it was George Bush coming home. Unfortunately, we were on the front side of the building and they land the copters on the back side so we didn’t see anyone get out. There was a guy living in a tent outside the White House protesting against nuclear weapons. He has been doing a vigil since 1986.

This is kind of a weird picture to put on the blog, but I think it’s really cool. We went to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and this was in the fossils section. It’s a prehistoric fish of some kind, but the cool part is, if you look closely (you can’t really see it on the picture) you can see another fish inside the first one. This guy died right after he ate the fish and its skeleton is inside the other one. It’s really cool. This museum was really big so we each got to pick a section to look at. Of course, I picked rocks and minerals and we saw the Tiffany Diamond and the Hope Diamond. There were tons of minerals. There was also pulverized wood which I found very fascinating. It’s wood that has been under huge amounts of pressure and heat and it turned to rock. I bought a little piece of it at the gift shop. Steve chose the insect section (of course) but it was closed for renovation so we went to the Animal section. It was really cool too.

This is the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. We went here on our second day in Washington. We read his speeches and all about how he freed the black people in the Lincoln visitors’ center. In the Constitution, they say all men are equal and stuff but what I don’t get is, why did they slave the black people if all of them were equal??? It confuses me. Did you know that it’s the Lincoln Memorial on the American penny??? I always thought it was the White House!!!
We went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and they had a room full of the treasures of history. This is the original R2D2 and C-3-P-0. There was also Kermit the frog, the signpost from MASH, the stopwatch from 60 minutes, George Washington’s uniform and sword, Abraham Lincoln’s hat he was wearing the day he was shot, Albert Einstein’s pipe, Marilyn Monroe’s gloves, Colonel Custer’s coat, Louis Armstrong’s cornet, the first computer, the first telephone, the first light bulb and a bunch of other stuff. We also saw some cool planes and the space pod that went to the moon on Apollo 11 (I think) We also went to the Art Gallery and the National Archives but we don’t have any pictures of that because there was no flash photography aloud and we couldn’t figure out how to turn the flash off on the camera.

This is the Washington Monument across from the Lincoln Memorial. We tried to get a tour to the top but it was fully booked. Dad wouldn’t have come anyway.

End of the ICW & into the Chesapeake

Finally, the last of the ICW bridges! We came northward a slightly diferrent route, taking the Virginia Cut route, rather than the Dismal Swamp for the last 70 miles of the ICW. Ed and Tina had to stop overnight at a marina to take delivery of a part so we continued through the lock & final 5 bridges with just us & this group of 5 mega yachts. These bridges are all tightly spaced & timed so the group travels together which meant that these guys all reached the bridges 10-15 minutes ahead of us then had to try & hold their positions in the 25 kt winds while waiting for us to chug our way slowly into position. It was rather entertaining having $75MM worth of boats wait for our humble home to putter up behind them.
The Norfolk naval base runs for several miles along the shore of the harbour and we passed along right beside dozens of varied warships like this sub and the carrier below. Those things are unbelievably huge! In addition to being a large base they it is also the main east coast yard for refits & repairs so many ships are in drydock or covered in tarps & cranes in varoius states of repair.

Solomon Islands part way up the Chesapeake Bay. This is the beach near the Calvert Cliffs, an archeological site with literally hundreds of thousands of fossils dating from 3-28million years ago. The cliffs themselves are protected & also unstable so digging there is prohibited but along this shoreline you can pick up thousands of ancient shell fragements and fossils including the kid's favourite, sharks teeth. Pictured here is Carol, from Cheers, one of the 3 boats we crossed back from the Bahamas with. We had met Carol & her husband Palmer briefly in the Bahamas & then bumped into them again on and off coming north. They live in a beautiful condo right on the water in Solomons (they can see their boat slip from their balcony!) and Carol generously drove us around to the museum and then to the cliffs & then they had us over for dinner at their condo. I'm not sure if it's just boat people in general or we've been unusually lucky or what, but since we set out we have been amazed at the generosity, friendliness and hospitality of the people we have met.
The U.S naval air team the Blue Angels. By sheer fluke we arrived in Annapolis harbour 15 minutes before the start of a rehearsal for the airshow that is put on for graduation day (today) for this year's class of cadets. When we came into the outer harbour it was jammed with over 200 anchored boats with naval & coast guard patrol boats buzzing around trying to keep a channel clear. We yelled over to another boat to find out what was happenning and they told us about the airshow rehearsal starting in 15 minutes so we quickly anchored and a few minutes later F18's were screaming by a few hundred feet over our heads. After the show we pulled anchor & headed into the inner harbour & lucked into a mooring ball so today we will be in a great spot for the actual show. Yesterday was amazing & the harbour was a zoo for the rehearsal so today's show should be lots of fun.

The southern ICW

This is a picture of the last remaining pontoon bridge on the US east coast. The bridge is actually floating on pontoons & the bridge tender controls it from within the white building in the background which is also part of the floating platform. The bridge is rigged up with underwater cables is puuled open by winches which turn the bridge sideways and pull it over to one side allowing boats to pass through the opening. The last time we went through this bridge it was about 6:30 A.M & the kids were asleep & missed it so they made sure to see it this time.
Although the travel days on parts of the ICW can get a bit long & monotonous at times, we only had to do about 50% of the 1100 miles on the way back, by going outside in the Atlantic more often. The weather has also been much warmer coming north so we have been able to see and enjoy some of the sights and cities more than on the way down when it was so cold.

We stopped again in Charleston for a few days as we really loved this city on the way down. This is a picture of slave cabins on a plantation we visisted outside the city. It was the Boone Plantation and their oak lined "driveway" (about 2 miles long) & house exterior was used in filming Gone with the Wind. Only the highly skilled slaves with trades and those that worked in the main house were housed in these cabins which were a huge step up from the typical wooden shanties housing the field hands.
This is Steve in school. He is picking up the results from a science experiment in which he had to build an enclosure to keep an egg from cracking when dropped from over his head onto the grass. I won't give away his grade.

Danielle's egg survived the grass drop but was not so succesfull when tried on the sidewalk.

Danielle hard at work in school writing her journal. Both kids are keping daily journals of the trip & though both had fallen somewhat behind they are starting to catch up again & Danielle is almost up to date.
Another of our sister ships, Merlin, in Oriental S.C. on one of the few colder days we've had since crossing back to the U.S. We first met Ed & Tina in Lake Worth in January, before we crossed over, & then ran into them again in Georgetown S.C where we waited out sub-tropical storm Andrea. They have been good fun to cruise with & we stayed together from Georgetown to Solomons I. Maryland. When we arrived in Georgetown and our raw water pump on the engine was leaking badly Ed saved the day for us in a big way. He had replaced his water pump twice & subsequently rebuilt both of his spares, one of which he gave me to install on our boat. Ed and Tina keep their boat in Annapolis & live near Washington D.C & when we told them we planned to visit D.C they generously offered to host us at their home so they are picking us up in Annapolis today for an excursion into D.C. They are great folks and have been absolutely wonderful to us.