Lake Erie

Hello to all the great couples we have met so far. Mike and Cathy, Xplorer. Larry and Sue, Twos The Limit, God Bless Them. Larry and Gail, Tropical Gale Winds. Bob and Donna, Island Moose. Tom and Gerry, Sea Knight and Rich and Chris, Unforgettable. O.K. we take the good with the bad, we tell the good and the bad. Port Colborne is just outside the Welland Canal. We stayed there because we were exhausted. When we got up. the weather was a little nasty, the waves were 3 feet. By the way, you really have to listen, sometimes they use meters, 3 meters would be 30 feet. We decided to take the chance and surprise Larry and Sue in Port Dover. We did not have a chip for the north side or the Canadian side of Lake Erie, our chip stopped at the US border. We were about 2 miles off shore and Mike had a way point on the world map. I was watching the depth...it went from 40 feet to 10 feet then 2.2 feet. Mike pulled back the throttle to neutral and we heard ping, ping, ping eight times. We held our breath, our hearts were beating fast and the sweat was coming out of every pore. It wasn't a sand bar, it was one of the 2 rocks in Lake Erie. We started out slow and Mike felt a vibration at a high speed. We reached Larry and Sue and had the boat hauled the next day. On land the boat next to us was a 39 foot Sea Ray with $50,000. worth of damage because he hit a rock. He needed new props, transmissions, shafts and struts. Well, we didn't do that bad. Mike took off the props and had them sent out to have whatever they do to bent props. Remember I told you what beer and milk cost in Canada?, well we won't be eating out for a week or two. We still had a great time in Port Dover thanks to Larry and Sue. We headed across Lake Erie to the Erie Yacht Club. It's so great being in the lake, you jump off the boat and take a swim. No worries about big fish or sharks, of course Mike keeps telling me about the lake monsters. Anyway, you take your soap and shampoo in the water get washed and then turn on the generator and dry your hair. You know how at the club you wake up in the morning and the boat and everything is soaking wet? Here it's all dry when you get up...I guess the moon dries it!