Day 16: The last day

We woke up at 6:30 and had the boat at the fuel dock when they opened at 7. We did not have much of an idea how long it would take us to get home but guessed it would be 6 or 7hrs.

Belle woke up just as I had filled the tank and was not quite out of bed before we were ready to leave so once again the poor kid got shafted and would have to wait until we got home before she could get off the boat. I should add that the time keeper (my wife) would not allow us to look for a breakfast as we had to hurry up and get home… So I had what I hoped would be the last pop tart I would see for a very long time and we were off.

We lucked out with another nice day and some nice breezes and were once again motor sailing our way back home. Once we got to the mouth of the Detroit River it got pretty shallow and I’m pretty sure we were kicking up mud as we went. Unless you are in the big channel it is really shallow around there, luckily the lake is unusually high this year or we probably would have been calling sea tow several times prior to getting to the marina. At long last we had finally made it home. When I pulled into the marina it seamed much smaller then it looked from land. We saw our slip and attempted docking. Well apparently I turned a bit late and missed our slip. I was pretty impressed that I was able to do some maneuvering and got the boat turned around but as soon as I did the wind came by and blew us right into the dock beside us. Luckily both boats were out for the day as we were now sideways filing up both of their slips! Fortunately our new neighbors came over to help with a bit of coaching on the helm controls and then helped us walk the boat into the slip. Crisis averted. We got the boat tied up, bumpers out, stepped off the boat and our ride was there to take us home where Max was quickly dropped off and the grandparents ran away quickly for vacation!

We had spent the last 18 days living aboard our new to us Allmand 31ft sail boat. We completed a trip that was over 1000 miles going across the New York Harbor, up the Hudson River, across the Erie Canal, did our first overnight sail (38hrs on Lake Erie without stopping) and made it home to Detroit. We were first time boaters, with very little actual boating experience prior, traveling on a 30 year old boat that we had purchased on a snowy day in NJ nothing other then a surveyors report to go by, all while traveling with a 4yr old. Our friends, family, and co-workers thought we were crazy to even try such an adventure as new boaters but it turned out to be a great experience for the 3 of us and we are now looking forward to when Max gets a little older and we can start taking some trips as a family. The dream of taking a year off of work to spend it sailing up to Maine and then over to the Caribbean does not seem that far off any more!

Things that were great to have on the tip: A hand held radio, seems on most sail boats the radio is down in the living area which is hard to get to and probably even worse when someone is trying to hail you on the radio. I purchased a floating ICOM that worked great and rarely needed charging. Binoculars: Having owned a photography studio all our equipment had been Nikon and I knew the value of paying for good glass. The waterproof Nikon binoculars we bought worked great and actually made it easier to see in the dark then just my eyes alone. A nice chart plotter: We bought a Garmin 540s the day before the trip (I was going to try it without GPS going on charts alone but West Marine had a sale and my wife seemed to think it was not a bad idea to have one). The plotter was very easy to use and was great for all except the last couple days on the canal where the markers become unmarked and it did not even show that we were in water. It turned out to be great for trying to navigate at night, around Put-in-Bay (again at night), the Hudson River, and the Detroit area. A toaster oven (only worked when we had shore power): But worked out well for making pizza, toast, cookies, and other hot foods as our stove on board the boat is not currently in working order. Finally the Leapster & portable DVD player were great for keeping my daughter entertained as playing I Spy & all the other car games we played with our parents as kids on car tips does get old after a number of continues days ..

The only thing I wish we had on the trip was some way to have 110 power while underway. We had brought a little inverter with us but it was not much good other then to charge the DVD player, ipod or laptop while underway and with that the alternator was not really strong enough to recharge the house battery in any kind of reasonable amount of time after charging two devices. For our next trip we will have the propane stove fixed (it appears to be a smashed copper line not letting the gas though at the moment) and we are planning to buy one of the quiet Honda generators to take with us to top off batteries and provide limited power when anchored out.

Day 14 & 15: Lake Erie

It was official we had finished the Erie Canal and we had survived the Hudson River with no real issues. We had looked at the map and hoped to spend the next night in Erie Pennsylvania. While Amy and Belle took showers that morning I decided to have my first look at the chart and finally realized just how big Lake Erie is. We were now on what seemed like a hopeless time table and were starting to wonder what we were going to do as it was Friday and I was not sure we would make it back home by Sunday. Grandma had been watching our 1yr old (Max) while we were on this adventure and had planned to leave for vacation Saturday. We were already late getting back and needed to be at work on Monday. At this point we considered trying to get to Cleveland the second day and leaving the boat there to rent a car to go home until we could get another free weekend to bring the boat the rest of the way home.

Well it turns out we were all exhausted and ended up sleeping in, unfortunately we got out of the marina a bit later then we wanted to at about 9:30am and set out on the lake. It turned out to be a great day after the fog cleared from the storm the previous night. We decided to put the sails up and actually try doing some sailing, it was great! We quickly realized that it would be pretty late by the time we made Erie PA so we decided that we had been pretty luckily so far with the boat and we would try sailing though the night to see how much closer we could get to Detroit. We spent the rest of the day motor sailing though the middle of Lake Erie. At this point I should mention that we did not think to bring passports and were a bit afraid of going into Canadian waters without them so we were taking a slightly longer way across the lake to avoid any issues.

We decided to take shifts at the wheel, Amy put Belle to bed around 8 and soon after went to sleep in the cockpit with me with the agreement I would wake her up when I was ready. Sailing at night was one of the best experiences I have ever had; we had a completely clear night and great weather. Being able to look up and see all the stars reminded me of some of the time I had spent up in Maine as we never see that many stars living in the city. We had a fair breeze most the night and it helped us make an extra knot or two over the night. At about 3:30 I woke Amy up and took her place in the sleeping bag.

The next day we past Cleveland (we were maybe 10-15 miles out) and we decided to just keep going as it appeared our luck with the weather was going to hold out. The downside is that we had now been motoring for the last 30hrs and while I thought we might be able to make it to Detroit without stopping for fuel, I knew we would be coming in on fumes and did not want to risk it so we decided to target put-in-bay. We arrived in put-in-bay at about 12:30 on a Saturday night, I really had no idea what the lay out was or where to go so we went to the only dock that our charts listed as having fuel and it happened to be right in the hot spot with all the bars. Needless to say when we finally got off the boat after 38hrs of motor sailing Lake Erie our sea legs blended right in with the drunks wobbling about and we had no problems finding an open pizza place.

We both took turns wondering around a bit as Belle was still asleep on the boat. We noticed that they had a festival planed for kids the next day and it appeared they had another great play ground. Once again Belle was going to get shafted because of our time schedule but I figured if she woke up early enough I would take her over to play for a while and maybe we could get a hot breakfast as I was really getting tired of peanut butter and pop tarts.

Day 13: Raising the mast

We all slept in and by the time we finally got Belle dressed and ready the crane operator was there and ready to get our mast up, so Amy & Belle left for some much anticipated Mickey D’s (They also had a play land which was nice for Belle after being cooped up on the boat for the last few days in a row).

If you have been reading this you know by now that this is our first boat and we are completely new to sailing. With that said I went about putting the mast up. I had planned to rewire the mast, put a new radio antenna on it, and replace a few lights prior to putting it up but I did not realize how difficult it was going to be to work on the mast while it was on the boat so none of this got done. If I had planned a bit better I would have called ahead and had Wardell’s order the parts I wanted and been ready… Oh well, they did offer light bulbs but when I looked at mine the bulbs appeared to be undamaged so I assume I simply have some wiring issues, more stuff for the fix it list. I decided to go ahead and put the mast back up without doing any of the above mentioned work. Our survey indicated that we needed to rebuild our mast step in the next few years and our local yard has a crane so I’ll take that opportunity to replace the lights, wind indicator, and antenna next year.

When I had called the day before I had stressed that we were not very experienced with out boat and would need some help with the mast & rigging the fellow on the phone told us no problem they get folks like us all the time.. We would be well taken care of. Well they really did not know or care to know much about sail boats so once he lifted the mast up I was on my own. I went about the task of figuring out where all the rigging went, put up the sails, and tried to guess how tight to make the stays. Overall Wardell’s was a pretty hand’s off operation. After about 4hrs of messing around I managed to get the boat back together pretty well and felt fairly confident about my work.

It was now a little past lunch time Amy and Belle had visited both museums (they really liked the carousal museum and said the staff was very friendly & knowledgeable) and were now hungry. I met them in town; we got some lunch and ice cream once again then headed back to the boat. Amy took a look at my work and seemed pretty happy with everything but the lazy jacks that I somehow had managed to twist up a bit but that was easily fixed. We made a few attempts at trying to find a good location to put the supports that had been built to hold the mast somewhere on the boat but decided in the end that they would just be in the way and if we ran into any bad weather would probably be more of a liability then an asset later on so we left them at Wardell’s where I’m sure he will be happy to sell them to the next guy that comes though looking for supports.

We decided that even though it was supposed to rain soon it was time to head out. We really did not want to spend another night at Wardell’s and wanted to stay somewhere that we could get right out to Lake Erie the next day. We traveled up the river & though the next few locks & various swing bridges then found a nice marina to tie up to that night. This was the first time I had attempted to pull into an actual boat slip rather then a wall and we were a bit nervous. It did not help that the finger piers were about 3-4 feet higher then the deck of our boat. Needless to say I botched it and did not give the boat enough power to get into the slip and with the rain and height of the doc Amy had a few problems getting the bow line tied up and we ended up sideways in the slip (luckily no one else was near us and we were in the last slip next to the wall). Fortunately the owner of the boat on the other side of us heard our struggling and came out in the rain to help. He turned out to be a really friendly fellow that was very into racing. I wish it would not have been raining as I’m sure he would have loved to have taken us out and provided a few sailing lessons while answering with some of my rigging questions.

We had hoped to get another hot meal but decided to skip trekking anywhere in the rain and settled for some Romen noodles on the boat that night.

Day 12: We made it out of the Erie Canal!

We went though a number of lift bridges today, it amazes me that these are cost effective to build and staff? Seems all the bridge operators run at least two and sometimes three bridges. We were pretty lucky as there were not many boats out and did not have to worry about timing these bridges when the operator was at the far bridge. We finally went though our last set of locks on the canal today. They were a set of double locks where one opens right into another, it was neat. We entered these locks with a tourist boat. Apparently the previous lock had radioed ahead and they had held them in the lock until we arrived. Needless to say there were 10-15 folks that video taped us coming in and going up in the lock. Luckily we managed these both pretty well and hopefully won’t be seeing ourselves on Americas Funniest Home Videos any time soon. I wish we would have had time to stop that the museum at the last set of locks to learn more about the history of the canal but once again the time keeper kept pushing us on.

We called Wardell’s ahead of time and planed to spend the night there and put the mast up in the morning. We got in around 6 and were really ready for some food and a walk on land. We found a few nearby restraints and a Dairy Queen, both were welcomed by everyone on board. Belle & I had really been craving some ice cream!

Wardell’s was not the best place to spend the night as they are right on the river and immediately after the last bridge you go under before one can put the mast back up so you hear both bridge and boat traffic all night. They did not have shower facilities, the light was out in the only bathroom & the only power they offered was a 110 extension cord but it was better then nothing and we plugged our battery charger and several other devices in to charge up while we were there. Next time I would look to spend the night at the city dock/wall or possibly another marina with a stepping facilities.

Day 11: The last night on the canal

We got a bit of a late start today as we decided to take advantage of the free pump out facilities in Holly. This was my first time doing it myself but we did not run into any issues. It’s amazing how stinky that thing gets. For some reason our tank does not empty all the way so I tried filling it and emptying it several times, this & cleaning the bilge has really seemed to help a lot with the smell on-board.

Today we passed by a number of nice little towns along the way. Most look fairly depressed but do seem to have a town restraint, bar, and a few junk shops (my enduring term for antique or collectible stores). Our last few locks tonight we amazing, the sun was just right for the perfect evening light, a number of the flowering trees had dropped their peddles and it truly felt like we were in a Japanese style painting. I attempted to get some pictures but have not looked at the camera yet. For now like rest of the pictures I will upload a bad cell phone picture that will not do the scene justice at all. We ended the day tied up to a lock wall; looks like it will be a short day tomorrow?

Day 10: Lift bridge day

We got a late start out of Fairport today, leaving around noon due to some bilge issues the day before. I really can’t wait to get home and replace both pumps with a system I understand rather then putting band aids on top of the band aids to try and keep our current solutions working. We went by several towns that offered free pump outs, power and water today and decided to spend the night in the town of Holly. Unfortunately we only got 8 hours in today and the time keeper (Amy) aboard was not very happy about that but when you leave at 12:30 it was the best we could do. Holly offered a free tie up, shower, power, and pump out. We took advantage of all of them! They had a very nice park by the tie up wall but Belle had slept in that morning so we decided not to wake her though I’m sure she would have loved some time to run around and play.

Today was our second experience with lift bridges; we ran into one in Fairport but went though about 8 of them today. Most these bridges are about 3-5 feet off the water and everyone other then a kayaker has to call ahead to get them to open for them. Most the bridge masters run two bridges so they will typically ask how far you’re going then drive to the next one to let you though. Some are as close together as 100ft it seemed. They are cute but seem like an expensive way make/maintain a bridge.

We are hoping to make it to Tonawonda tomorrow where we can have our Mast put back up transforming ourselves back into a real sailboat, then head out into Lake Erie the next day. I am getting tired of the canals and would like a chance to put the sails up! I am guessing it should only be a 8-9hr day depending on bridges and the last few locks?

Day 9: Fairport

We had been on the canal for 8hrs and decided it was time to stop for fuel & a shower. So far it had been a long trip with little or no sight seeing and I was ready to get off the boat so after much pleading Belle & I convinced Amy we needed a short day so we pulled in early (4pm) to Fairport for the night. Note: Fairport does not sell gas you need to stop at the marina about a mile prior to getting to Fairport. We were all in need of a shower and this was a very nice town to stay at. Once we got in and tied up it started to rain, about this time Amy noticed that the bilge was filling up. Of course neither of our bilge pumps were working at this point so we had to figure out where the water was coming from and how to get it out of the boat. After searching for any water shut off we could find and closing all the sea cocks we felt comfortable little if any additional water was coming in. We later found out that the hot water hose had popped off & it was the water pump sending all our fresh water to the bilge. With the immediate issue solved we headed in to look for a bilge pump & a shower. Unfortunately none of the local shops carried marine parts, Amy was hungry so we headed out for some Mexican food. Dinner was good & I had never seen Mexican food presented as if one would expect in a high end restraint, the meal was expensive but cured my craving for Mexican. On the way back to the boat Amy stopped by the auto shop and asked if they had a loaner car we could rent unfortunately they didn’t but one of the mechanics was nice enough to loan us his car for the night. Amy headed to Wal-Mart to get supplies and to find something that might get the water out of our boat while Belle and I headed to the laundry. Amy found a little hand held electric pump and the next day we found batteries for it and pumped 8-10 gal of water out of the bilge. After playing with the water a bit more we determined that the water was coming from the hot water tank & the other source was from the drain in the ice box going to the bilge. After washing out the bilge a bit we decided to head over to the ice cream shop for a treat and then head out for the day.

Up until now we had spent a lot of time in the wetlands area of the canal and we were now starting to see civilization. It was nice to be reminded of life outside the boat again.

Day 8: Still on the canal

I just noticed that we apparently never finished updating this log. I am attaching our logs for rest of the trip & maybe summer today.


We are all starting to get restless aboard the boat, we only have a babysitter until Friday for our youngest Max (1yr old) that we left at home and we have been pulling some very long days with very few breaks along the way. I think all of us could really use a day off. Unfortunately that will not come until we get to Buffalo when we have the mast put up. We are hoping to get one more long day in today and then a much shorter day on Wed

Day 7: Day 3 on the canal

Being at a marina we decided to take advantage of the power and cook a hot breakfast. We do not have a inverter on board that will support the little electric oven we purchased for the boat & our propane stove does not work (I think it’s because of a pretty significant dent in the copper line? Yet another thing on the ever growing top ten list of stuff to fix on the boat.). Needless to say hot food is a novelty on this trip. After breakfast it was about 7:30 and we headed out for the day we had hoped to make it as far as the opening for lake ornida where we heard there was a nice amusement park and lots to do. Unfortunately when we got to lock 20 we found out it was broken. We spent the next 3-4 hours chatting with several other boaters while waiting for the repair crew to fix the lock. Once they got the lock working we were back on our way and decided to continue to push until we got through the lock right before the lake so we could try the lake crossing early in the morning to avoid any bad weather. I had read several folks accounts online mentioning that they had been hung up not being able to cross the lake due to the chop on the lake. It was about 8pm when we got though the lock before the lake and we tied up on the lock wall for the night. There were tons of bugs and we were pretty happy that Amy had picked up some bug candles and spray during her Wal-Mart run a few days ago to help deter them that night.




A few pictures of the locks:

Day 6: We continue our canal adventures

This morning we woke up just before six and continued down the river. By the time we got to lock 11 we felt we had a pretty good handle on the process and were starting to get relatively confident in our locking skills (Going forward we used lock 11 as our standard to measure our success though each of the additional locks). We went through another 10 locks or so that day before tying up at the Johnsonville Marina & Redneck boat club around 6:30 where will topped off on fuel, water, and pumped out our holding tank once again. The manager was nice enough to drive us and another group of folks to a local restaurant that would then shuttle us back that night. We had hopped to get some laundry in that night but it seemed everyone else had that same idea as well so we gave up about 9:30 and went to bed.

At this point in our trip we have used just over $70 or 23 gal worth of diesel after filling up I watched a 43 foot power boat drop almost exactly $1000 for about 300 gallons that he had burned up over that last 2 days. I figure we can cover that same distance in about 4-5 (long) days and will only use about $70 bucks to do it?

Day 5: We make the Erie Canal

We had hoped to make it to Albany but ended up there about 1pm and kept going until we arrived at Troy. We decided to stop and take on some fuel & get a late lunch. We were feeling pretty good still so we decided to head back out and at least make the Erie Canal visitor center which we herd offered free dockage and power for up to two nights. By the time we go there though it appeared all the prime spots were taken so we made the decision to head into the canal that night.

Our first lock was interesting. Being our first we radioed ahead, asked for any tips and let the lock keeper know it was our first time. He was somewhat helpful basically telling us to pull all the way forward and grab on to a rope. We headed in, Amy was pretty nervous as she really had no idea what to expect when we got into the lock and I had told her to tie a line around a cleat and just grab on to something when we got in there. I think we somehow managed to bump both the front and back of the mast while trying to grab the ropes hanging from the walls. Apparently I did not have the boat completely in neutral when we were trying to tie up so that led to a few problems as well. Needless to say we made it though our first lock ok (I believe this was the federal lock?). The next five locks were a bit more interesting as we bumped the mast a few more times (I really hope we have not damaged it?) and got the boat completely sideways in the locks twice. We made the decision to try and push for lock 7 that night and ended up locking though it a little after 9pm. This turned out to be a bit nerve-racking as the markers do not light up at night, luckily we had bought a good pair of binoculars and between the two of us we were pretty good at spotting the next marker as we progressed. Once we got though the lock we were done and tied up at the lock for the night.

The lock keepers are a friendly bunch and were pretty helpful with directions, what we should be doing better and any other questions we had about the area. Our first few locks were a bit stressful & there was some yelling back and fourth for the first three or four but after that we settled down and got a little better. One of our major problems seemed to be with getting our transmission out of gear, after we got though the first five locks I made an adjustment to our transmission cable and our locking has gone much better since. Overall we had a very long day but we felt it was productive.

Day 4 Still Stepping the Mast

I spent the morning watching them take down the next two sail boats masts. Both these boats were owned by Canadians that had spent the winter down in the Bahamas and were heading back home for the summer both had lots of story’s to tell but were not that fluent with English. Both couples owned very elegant, large and fairly new looking boats. The yard was pretty quick and got both boats masts down in about 3hrs. We were last as we needed to have some supports made to hold the mast. The yard ended up making one X for the front and a arch to go over the back of the boat made from 2x6’s that would hold the mast up above our bimini allowing not to have to sacrifice any room in our cocpit area but still forcing us to perform some interesting boat yoga to get around to the front of the boat. The yard finished with us about 3pm and Amy and Belle were still out adventuring. Amy decided to take Belle out to find a park and explore the town a bit while I stayed back and helped take the mast down. They got back about 4 and we decided to spend another night. We found some other sailors that were nice enough to drive Amy over to the local Wal-Mart for some food & bug spray and we decided to wander back into town to catch a movie and grab some dinner that night. The town had a lot to see and do and appeared to be geared largely toward tourists as they had lots of antique shops, art galleries and wood working places. We had a very positive experience at Hop a Nose, they had the best showers we have found to date, were very friendly, and the food at the marina restraint was great. Apparently the yard owner is a chef by trade but when the marina came up for sale he bought and started learning about boats. The marina is a bit of a work in progress but it is clear they are really working to make it a nice place.

Day 3 Stepping the Mast

We knew we needed to get our mast stepped prior to getting to the Erie Canal so we asked around the marina a bit and got the suggestion to head to Hop a Nose marina in Catskill. We found them in the GPS and it said we would be there at about 3pm. When we called they said no problem, come on in and they could probably get to us that day. Unfortunately several other boats had the same idea and beat us in. We decided to tie up and spend the night. The owner was nice enough to tell us what we needed to do to prep the boat to have the mast taken down and we spent the next several hours figuring out how to get the sails off, take off the boom and loosen the stays. That night we all headed to the near by ice cream shop for a treat. They had a bunch of little rides like what one might find outside of a Wal-Mart or Meijer and Belle quickly found some kids her age to play with, we hung around until dark then headed back to the boat for the night.

Day 2 on the Hudson River

We got a bit of a late start not leaving the dock until around 9. We spent another long day on the Hudson traveling for about 10hrs. Going by West Point was neat; I wish we had time to stop for the tour as I’m sure it would have been very interesting. We passed by so many huge houses that day that we just could not pick out our favorite so we decided we were better off with our boat and kept going. On a side note Amy decided that any of the houses landscaped all the way down to the water must be reserved for folks with crazy money (clearly not us yet). Overall we were still doing pretty well with our boat, we had veered off of the channel at one point in the day and got caught up in some pretty deep sea weed that got wrapped up in the prop. I did my best to untangle it by shifting from forward to reverse a few times and it seemed to help getting our speed back up from 3 knots to 5 again. We pulled in to Norrie Point Marina at about 7:30 that night and again we were all pretty tired. I coming in I thought I had the boat all lined up for a nice soft landing but did not realize the current was as strong as it was and ended up hitting the dock pretty hard (I hope that scratch comes out?) Unfortunately they did not have showers or fuel but they did have a pump out and ice and the staff was very nice.

So the adventure finally starts..

We got word Wed night that our issues had been fixed so we rented a car for a one way trip. We left Thursday morning and arrived late Thursday night. We were tired and it started to rain shortly after we arrived. We quickly found several leaks and were so tired that we just lived with them for the night. The next day it was time for a test run. We took the boat out of the dock, scared the heck out of several of the boat owners across from us as I almost ran into a few of them on the way out of the slip but thanks to heroics on the part of the marina staff no damage was done and we made it out ok. I think the marina staff was a bit worried about us as the mechanics followed us for about 30 min in their little boat to ensure we were ok?

For the next two hours we ran up and down the channel wide open and everything seemed to be running fine, with that we decided we were ready to leave. After the botched take off from dock I knew there was no way I was going to be able to back this boat back into the slip again so we pulled up to the gas dock and asked for some help (secretly I think they were happy I did, as I may have mentioned before this was sort of a high end marina and most of the boats around me probably started around 250k). It was time to pick up a few last minutes supplies, drop the rental car and go… Well apparently the rental car company decided to close early that day and we were stuck until the next day with the car. No problem with another trip to West Marine I got a few more fuel filters, traded my smaller GPS for one with a larger screen, and got some new fender holders. The next day we got up went to breakfast messed around a bit and went to return the rental car once again only to find out they apparently closed at noon and it was 12:15… Ugh.. After a number of phone calls we finally found one office that was open on Sunday so were stuck in Sea Bright for one more day.

Finally Sunday comes, as you may have guessed we were the first ones in the office to get our car returned. Luckily the office was nice enough to drop us off at the marina. It was about 10:30am and we were finally ready to leave.

The second time out of the dock was no problem, but we did have one of the marina staff on standby should we need some help. We radioed to the first bridge, waited 15min and had no problem getting though, we could see the next bridge and called ahead again np, so we circled around for a bit but I guess we were too far out as they decided not to open for us, after calling back again they said they would open in another 30min… This time we made sure to get extra close and made several follow up calls on the radio to ensure they remembered we were there and waiting for them. No problem this time they opened and we were headed for the Hudson bay. It was a beautiful day, the bay was clam. We went past the statue of Liberty & Elis Island, it was really neat to see them up close. I can’t stress how cool it was to go by the statue in our own boat to see it up close. This was my first time seeing it this close as I had only gone by it once before on a harbor cruise. We decided that we were making good time and the tide was with us so we kept going until we got to Terry Town Marina. We had put in about 50 miles that day, put up with six foot waves for the last two hours of our trip and were pretty happy with what was really our first day out on the boat. The marina was nice enough to give us an end dock and we had little trouble ting up for the night, we visited the restraint at the marina and the lobster stuffed with crab meat was the best I have ever had! The only downside of our experience at Terry Town was the ¾ mile walk to the rest room from where our boat was tied up, this wore pretty thin with the girls especially since it was a pretty windy night and the fact that they turned off our power at 8:30am before we had breakfast made. Other then that our night there was pretty much what one would expect.

So the adventure continues…

Several months ago my wife had found another good deal on plane tickets and bought three one way tickets to NJ with the intention of flying out of Detroit May 24th to start our trip. We were packed and ready to leave bight and early Sunday morning when we got the call Saturday night from the yard. They had been able to replace the stuffing box with a drip less unit, had fixed another leak I had found with a broken seacock (the surveyor had mentioned it but I forgot to get it on the list to have repaired) and had just put the boat back in the water. When doing so the muffler decided to rust though at that moment & the alternator went out (this was supposedly fixed as part of our deal before we bought the boat). Well yet another wrench had been thrown into our plans; we decided not to fly up and chalked up the cost of the plane tickets as a lesson learned. The yard now seems convinced that both issues can be repaired by Thursday, so we now have high hopes of doing a one way car rental and making the drive once again out to NJ on Thursday with the full intention of leaving for our trip Friday afternoon… If all goes well we think we can make it to the mouth of the Hudson River Friday evening & then start the three day trek up the Hudson to Albany Saturday morning as the tide is coming in.

If we can’t start the trip this weekend, I’m not sure what we are going to do as we don’t have any time available to try again until mid/late July….

Our first weekend on the boat...

Finally the day had come we were off to spend our first weekend on the boat. We had the best laid plan, the marina was supposed to be fixing a few of the things identified in the survey & were supposed to put the boat in the water the weekend of May 15th. Our plan was to drive a car full of stuff (bumpers, anchors, clothes, ect) out to the boat in preparation for starting our trip the next weekend (May 24th). We had spent the previous few months reading up on the various safety equipment we would need & started buying basic boat stuff (dock lines, hand held marine radio, charts, etc). It appeared the canal opened in early May and we really wanted to get our boat home so we could spend as much time on it as we could over the summer…

Well as usual the best laid plans went down the drain our intent was to spend the weekend on the boat getting to know it, do some sailing, practice docking and all the other typical new boater stuff. Well this is where our adventure was to start, even though the surveyor had reported no problems with the engine apparently there were some problems…. We needed a new fuel tank and after getting that fixed the next hurdle was getting the engine to turn over. No fear the yard guys were supposedly on it & they had supposedly fixed the other items I had asked them to take care of so it would be “ready” for us when we got there.

Needless to say when we got there we were very excited to see the boat in the water, however, we could smell diesel from the dock and when we got down below it was really strong.. Guess they did not clean up the fuel that leaked out when they put the new fuel tank in? We were tired and decided to live with it until the next day. The next morning we were off to get some dish soap to clean up the mess in the bilge. When I got back imagine my surprise when I opened up the bilge I and noticed a good build up of water & then quickly found out nether of our bilge pumps were working… Well next we started the engine and now that the engine compartment was opened up it appeared the stuffing box was leaking… After making a few attempts at tightening it up it became apparent there were larger issues and the boat would need to be hauled out to have the stuffing box rebuilt… So that meant we were not leaving the dock that weekend and if we were lucky we could get the pumps fixed and spend rest the weekend on the boat without sinking. So after 12hrs, several trips to West Marine & Home Depot, and various other places around town we gave up on fixing the pumps for that night and the boat would need to be pulled. We had figured out the strange wiring set up, had gotten both the pumps up and working on several occasions only to have both pumps fail again or to have another hose break. It was now 9pm it was dark and we were tired. We had spent our first weekend on the boat and accomplished very little. We left a list of additional items for the yard to fix when they hauled the boat and a bit discouraged we spent the night in a hotel before heading home the next morning.

Our newest adventure... The boat.

I am going to attempt to start documenting our adventures with our new to us boat that is a Allmand 31 sailboat. Today it still carries the previous owners name “Incentive” but will eventually have its name changed to Escape Plan. I suppose only time will tell how well I do at maintaining this log?


One very snowy day last December I was surfing the internet looking at fancy sailboats we could not afford when low and behold appeared almost the exact boat my wife and I had been wanting & the price just happened to be pretty close to the number we had in our boat fund. Needless to say we made the call & after talking it over put in an offer and eventually got to a price we all could live with.


Now that we had a price agreed to my wife and I were off to actually see the boat and ensure it lived up to the pictures posted on the internet. Only problem was we live in MI & the boat was located in NJ. Luckily my crafty wife was able to find some cheap airline tickets that would let us make a day trip to see the boat vs the 22hrs we might have spent in the car if we drove. We have had a few false starts on similar models in the past.. One was taken off the market before we got an offer on the table, another ended up being way too much of a project, while yet another had a cracked keel that was leaking fuel somehow? Needless to say we were a bit skeptical of what we would find when we arrived in NJ.


NJ had received the better part of 8 inches of snow the night before we arrived, but that did not deter us from shoveling off the boat and sticking our heads into every nook and cranny. In the freezing weather my wife and I spent the better part of the day inspecting the boat and walked away pretty happy with what we saw. This boat was actually in fairly good condition for its age & we could afford it, imagine that? We decided that even though we had been over it pretty good we should still hire a marine surveyor to reassure us that we were not missing anything and to our luck we ran into one during our visit that mentioned he sort of specialized in sailboats. After getting a few good recommendations we hired him & after a few agonizing weeks he came back with a few minor things to fix but overall assured us it was a good boat and it would be safe.


With this we mailed off our check and a few weeks later a title arrived in the mail. I have to admit it was not the most gratifying thing to send off a large check only to receive a piece of paper back saying you now own a boat oh and by the way don't forget to stop by your local DMV & give Uncle Sam his cut of the transaction. Not to mention the pain of not being able to see or touch our new toy as its several states away...


Our next decision was do we have the boat put on a truck and delivered to our local marina in MI or do we bring it back ourselves? After doing some research we guessed that if all went well we should be able to do the trip in just over two weeks. We opted to bring it back ourselves which will mean that we sail a short ways up the intercoastal water way, up the Hudson River, through the Erie Canal, and then across Lake Erie from Buffalo to Detroit.