Great Loop Cruise Video

Welland Canal

Sorry guys. Shhhh, That's the boss, not the cap.

Roger was a big help today, and a good guy to have aboard. After the Erie Canal I was set to fender the same. In lock 2 I'd have been scrambling to get more fenders over the side, but Roger had us set before we headed into lock 1. These locks load from the side, and there's some wicked pressure as a Sea Ray traveling through with us found out the hard way. Think she has a few dings. But we were fine thanks to Roger's advice. Only two problems with Roger. The first is his name. It leads to a lot of "Roger Roger" over the radio.The second is that he doesn't have the pull he thought at Sugarloaf Marina. At one point the boss told me he had us set up with the Presidential suite, but when we called a half hour before arrival they'd switched us. When I pulled in and looked at the slip I had to ask what they were going to do with the other half of the boat. So I ended up on the fuel dock. So he's not perfect. Seriously though I'd like to give a big thank you to Roger. It absolutely paid to have him aboard and was a pleasure.

So now I can say I've transited the Welland Canal. I can also say that I hope to never do it again. It was a looooong (13 hour) day. After Roger left us at lock 7 it took us about 3 hours to get through lock 8 as we had to wait for a ship ahead of us, and he was waiting for a ship coming from the other direction to lock through.

One other thing about the Welland Canal. Someone needs to tell Verizon that it's in Canada. Can't wait to see my phone bill when I get home. May have to sell my house. Up in Alexandria Bay, NY they charged be a buck a minute saying I was in Canada. So I bought a Canadian plan. In the Welland it charged me a buck a minute saying I was in the U.S. VERIZON, take a geography lesson. We don't even want to talk about what our bow cam cost up here. Those who've enjoyed should send a big thank you to my boss.

Tomorrow we'll head back to the U.S., probably Erie, Pa. We'll also switch back to our U.S. phone plans.

Welcome to the thread. I'll PM you a blog that I'm sure you'll find interesting. Valhalla was actually in very good shape, and I believe the asking price was right about the same as yours, but she was a 30 year old boat that spent too much time as a dock queen (even though the P.O. did cruise a fair but). The ISO Boosts are indeed a great thing, but they take some getting used to. It would be better if they ran through the gauges so we could see what we had instead of guessing. I've found that at 175v they're an absolute necessity. At 190v-208v sometimes you need and sometimes you don't. At 220v you'll backfeed the pedestal and pop the breakers. Two other things that could have been done better were that they had all the air conditioners on the same source. That's about 39 amps (we split off one unit). Another, and this I'll never understand, was that both cablemasters fed the same panel. So if you ran out (2) cords you still couldn't split the load between the two pannels and (3) sub panels. We corrected that as well.
The arch isn't hydraulic, but it's only a two man job (one to raise or lower it and another to do the bolts. It's light. We approached the arch with fear and trepidation, and had plans set to install hinges. But thankfully we found that under the arch are what look like shark fins. So you can roll the arch back, and you have the fin still in the slot when fully down.

P.S. The bow cam should go live again about 8/17 as we leave Erie, Pa. heading up to Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.

Underway again

This morning we'll be casting off and leaving Erie, Pa. enroute to Cleveland Ohio (hopefully). Erie was a good stop, nice people and the Wolverine Park Marina was a good location. Last night we were treated to a first-class fireworks display as they celebrate Erie Days. One caution I would give the cruiser is that it's not a place to get work done.

Mostly the 2nd, but a little bit of both. Stupid stuff like overfilling the oil during a change and neglecting little jobs. For instance we needed a new manifold in a shower. Job not touched. I came on board Saturday evening, called a plumber, and the job was done. 3 hours later The yard could have done the same thing during the 3 weeks the boat was here, stuck $100 on top of the plumber's bill for just making a phone call, and everyone would have been happy. When you know the boat's captain and owner will be notified by the alarm and cameras when you're aboard, it's not good to let the job sit till the last minute and then not complete the job.

When someone else doesn't do their job I do it, and they don't make the money. That simple. Wish I could say this was an odd occurrence, but it's rampant. Guess there's a lot of people in this business who don't need money and would rather give up income than hire adequate staff (or even sub out the work). There's a lot of businesses in this world today who are watching the pennies while the dollars walk away. Their problem not mine. It's a beautiful day out on Lake Erie.

Hi Caltexflanc. Oh to live in a perfect world. I'm jealous (at least of that).

Hi Roger. Hope you had a good trip. Thanks again for the help in the Welland. You did well to hop off at lock 7. Lock 8 is easy, but it took hours to get through due to traffic.
The north channel should be next week if all goes well.

Definitely have to get my Canadian Verizon plan again. Came home to a $700 bill despite buying the extra plan. $300 in roaming charges because we bounced back and forth. So now I have to fight with Verizon. DK how you guys survive living near the border. Must just deed your houses to the phone companies.

Birds??? Sure it wasn't the boss? (He was having lunch out there about that time).
We have about a 3' following sea. On AP we're swinging about 40*+ as we're only making about 10.5 kts. I raised the bow which got us an extra 1/4 kt. and went to standby when I took the helm, but the boss finds it too much work keeping lined with the waves. Not serious in these seas so we'll let it be. Years ago I was bringing a 43 Ocean down to Florida. We followed another 43 Ocean out from Hilton Head, heading for St. Augustine in about 14' seas. He was leading and on AP. The mate was chumming off the stern as I looked at his transom, then the bow rail, then the transom, etc. Had to call and tell him to go manual before he ended up broaching. AP is wonderful in calm seas, often good in a head sea, but rarely as good as an attentive helmsman in a following sea.

ROFLMAO.. We've been covered (and bitten) by tons of spiders and more than a few skeeter & flies our entire trip since Oswego. They're driving me nuts.

With doing transports all these years I've never messed with a guys settings. Never even read an AP manual. Guess its time. Will check into it tonight. Thanks. Fortunately the boss got tired of the swinging about an hour ago and went to standby.

Cleveland 5 miles ahead.