July 15, 2010
Normally at this time of year I would be many miles north surrounded by cold clear water in some cedar and spruce lined rocky bay near Manitoulin Island, Ontario. This year I am only a few short nautical miles from our home port in Sandusky as we cruise around the warm waters of South Bass, Middle Bass and perhaps Pelee islands. I am certainly not complaining! This abbreviated sailing journey is limited by the change in career.
As some of you know, I said goodbye to television news after a long career on April 28th and started a new job the following Monday morning, May 3rd. I am now vice president of Hennes Paynter Communications, the only strictly crisis communication specialty firm in Ohio. My news and legal background fit perfectly with the superb skills of Bruce Hennes and Barbara Paynter. When it “fits the fan” our phone rings. We help put the fire out and then leave.
For decades too many companies and institutions would call their lawyer when trouble was brewing and he’d tell them to say “No Comment”. The attorney is concerned about the impact on potential litigation. However, the court of Public Opinion is in session right now and you can’t duck your head and hope it all goes away.
Since I started in May, the only time I could get this first year was 2 weeks and with problems popping up, that was slimmed down to 8 days. Hence the Lake Erie trip.
Happily, one of my favorite destinations in the world is Put In Bay. On a hot summer day there is nothing more entertaining than floating in the big bay of South Bass island and splashing around in the afternoon followed by lobster bisque at the Boardwalk. Then it’s time for the show. Either the Roundhouse or the Beer Barrel for an evening of people watching and music. The party is always on and Mustang Sally always delivers. Then back to boat to watch the stars and do it all over the next day. Pretty tough duty, I know.
I would write more but I have to get back in the water. You get the idea! It’s not scarey, but it is an Erie stay-cation at its very best.

November, December, January, February, March, April…..Long cold challenging time for Great Lakes sailors. There is only so much arm chair sailing you can do and only so many pictures to organize and sigh over. Winter is our cruel season.
Here we are celebrating the long Memorial Day holiday weekend and the weather is incredible. Blue skies, warm temperatures, gentle breezes and a clean boat ready to toss off the dock lines and go. Aaaahh. It’s almost too good to believe.
We did allow the professionals at the Catawba Island Club Marine Services to detail the boat (top and hull) over the winter. This year when we pulled up to the dock at SYC, “Adagio” looked incredible. The CIC crew even cleans up the boat after they launch her with a crew of 4 people working inside and outside. Wow! It felt positively decadent to have done so little and have such a lovely boat. The Admiral will certainly approve the expense again next year.
We had a visitor onboard yesterday afternoon and evening. The Polyphemus Moth, largest moth in the midwest came by for a rest. This giant silkmoth the size of a bat gets its name from the large eyespots on its hindwings, referring to Polyphemus, the Cyclops of Greek mythology. I did get some pictures with my cell phone and will post them later.
This morning the giant moth was gone.
We also have a great blue heron that has taken up residence in the rocky shoreline of the turning basin just behind our transom. He makes quite the production out of spearing a fish and then shaking it back and forth, tossing it into the air and then swallowing the fresh sushi whole.
I have been forced to put a small sponge inside the end of our boom. The barn swallows had started a pre-nest inspection tour and were already making out a check for the summer rental. Of course, the frustrated pair then pooped all over the foredeck as they bitched at me from the jib sheets. So there I was after breakfast, back on my hands and knees with a scrub brush and deck cleaner paying my dues. Summer has arrived!

My friend Jim Manning sent me this picture of “Adagio” pushing into headwinds on Lake Huron in July. You will note that in the distance there is one other sailboat. There is nothing else around for miles and miles other than billions of gallons of cold clear Lake Huron water.
For many years, we always traveled alone as we embarked on our summer sailing adventure. For two decades we did the trip in a 31 foot sailboat. But today, even with the bigger boat, there are days when you look around and marvel at how insignificant our little floating platform of fiberglass and teak is compared to the vastness of a great lake.
That other sailboat in the picture is “Resolution II”, which belongs to Chuck and Gail Abood from Sylvania, Ohio. The Aboods joined us again this year for the annual North Channel tour. In Presque Isle, Michigan we were also joined by “French Connection”, owned by Tony and Kat Jachnycky from Catawba Island. All three boats are Beneteau 423 models.
We have discovered that as much as we enjoyed our solitude during our early journeys, there is a real joy in traveling with kindred spirits. When we get together for lavish cocktail hours or dinner, there is a great sense of shared appreciation for the extraordinary beauty and poetry of the wild (cold) Canadian island waterways.
Of course, since misery truly does love company, we could do nothing but laugh at our common suffering as we dealt with frigid temperatures and waves of bad weather during this recent trip. The conditions were the worst in all my years going north. July somehow melded into October with lows in the 40’s and highs in the low 60’s. Did I mention a water temp of 59 degrees?
On the days when we were bashing through the persistent litany of wind and waves on the nose, it was nice to know that should something go suddenly horribly wrong, there were friends in calling range.
There is an old Irish fisherman’s prayer that says, “Dear Lord, be good to me. The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.” I find myself using that short verse during every long trip.
We are in big water with small boats. It is more than a little comforting to know there are other great sailors in radio distance who share the same bond.

July 31, 2009
We got up early and hit the Detroit River at 6:10 a.m. in an effort to reach South Bass Island by early afternoon. The prize: one of the few remaining mooring balls in the field at Put-In-Bay. This is a regatta weekend and one of the rare times when the Port Authority allows mooring balls to be “reserved” for race boats.
The waters of the Detroit River and Lake Erie were very flat and we made great time to the island and snagged the “B” mooring ball near Gibraltar Island. The day could not have been more perfect. There wasn’t a cloud for miles, the temperature was in the 80’s and a cool wind was blowing from the northwest. The water temperature in the bay a balmy 74 degrees.
Lunch on the upper deck patio at the superb Boardwalk Restaurant with the greatest lobster bisque on planet Earth. Eric Booker continues to do an incredible job at the Boardwalk as he continues his father’s tradition of excellence.
Ahhhh. Swimming and sunning and reading and boat/people watching. Just like what summer is supposed to feel like and one of the rare moments on this month long sailing adventure. As cold and difficult as the weather has been, at least we get to finish with a gentle kiss from Mother Nature. (of course, with the approaching cold front and potential for rain and storms that gentle stroke may turn into a poke)
We’re going to bob around out here for another day. Last night we went to the Round House for the band Calabash. Then we sauntered down the block to hear Mustang Sally perform at the “Barrel”. What a great night!! Part two tonight.

July 29,2009
Sarnia, Ontario
After a very soggy start, the day slowly began to improve. The cold front swept in heavy rain as it moved across Lake Huron. When it finally began to lose some of its energy, we left pretty Bayfield, Ontario and headed for red buoy “2″ in the shipping channel just above the Blue Water Bridge a mere 50 miles away.
A few hours into the trip, we were able to peel off some of the dodger and bimini protection and put away the big heavy foul weather gear to lighten the load. This is a 7 hour trip and is the last big jump on Lake Huron for us.
By the time we arrived at Sarnia Bay Marina at 3:15 p.m. the sun was trying to peak from the fast moving clouds and the temperature had gone up 15 degrees. The lake was actually flat for the last 2 hours of the trip. Very strange since the previous week had been rather tumultuous on “big blue”. Normally when the winds die and the lake becomes mirror smooth, the flies come out like a plague. Today there were no bugs!
After getting everything in order at the dock, I hitched a ride to the Point Edward Casino and turned my $100 stake into much more. At one point I was down to $40 when my luck shifted into high gear. It certainly made our wonderful dinner at nearby Paddy Flaherty’s restaurant that much sweeter!!
Tomorrow we head for Windsor down the St. Clair River and Lake St. Clair. With a big current running south, the ride is pretty easy. Just keep an eye on the huge lake freighters and commercial traffic while trying to avoid being swamped by the gearheads in the big powerboats who have no clue about wake control.

This will be our last day on Lake Huron, affectionately known on Adagio as “Big Blue”. Unfortunately, this morning it is also “Big Rain” as the line of showers extends back about 60 miles from Ontario to Southeast Michigan.
We were going to shove off around 7 a.m. from the port of Bayfield. That’s not going to happen. Right now that departure has been pushed back to 8 a.m.(at least) to let the bulk of the energy slide over us and the winds to shift to the west. The cold front is 50 miles away with the big low pressure sitting right behind near Adrian, Michigan as it messes up our morning.
Sailors who insist on following strict schedules aren’t sailors for very long and certainly have a tough time finding crew. It’s one thing to get caught out in the rain during a long passage. It’s quite another to choose to leave in the poor conditions when you have the luxury of time.
If the precipitation has slowed down to a fine Irish mist, we’ll put on the foulies and fire up the engine. If it’s still pouring buckets with poor visibiity, we’ll put another Senseo pad in the coffee maker and relax. It’s supposed to be a vacation! Big Blue can wait.

Monday July 27, 2009
Before we left Goderich, Ontario I walked out a small access road toward the entrance of the Maitland river to check the lake conditions. The stiff wind was blowing 15-20 knots from the West-South West and the waves were breaking over the nearby sandbar. This would be an interesting day on the water.
The good news-we would be able to sail and give the motor a break. The bad news-the waves would be rolling us from side to side as we made our way south.
As we made our way out of the protected waters into Lake Huron the bow of “Adagio” lifted like a big blue fiberglass submarine through the big rollers and then slammed down into the next trough. Always a challenging way to begin your day and a little voice starts to whisper in your head that maybe it’s too rough out here. The look on the Admiral’s face made it clear that she heard that little voice, too.
“It will be much better when we turn the corner and head down to our rumline”, I pronounced boldly while trying to sound factual and a tad enthusiastic.
Luckily, the conditions eased considerably once we hit the deeper water and adjusted our course. The sun broke free from the cloud deck and suddenly Lake Huron took on that almost caribbean blue that has charmed us for so many years.
We rolled out the jib and reefed the main and began to scoot along at top speed.
By 11 a.m. we were ready to take down the sails and surf into the municipal docks where harbourmaster, Don Lindsay, was waiting to take our lines. As usual, the river current was running toward the lake and the wind was pushing the opposite direction.
Did I mention how much I love our bowthruster?? A couple taps on the thruster and we slid right into our slip with no drama.
By noon, we had helped in “Resolution II” and “French Connection”, paid for two nights and made dinner reservations for six at the fantastic Red Pump Restaurant in town. What a glorious day in here with the sun shining and a very cool breeze coming off the lake. I could finally take off the fleece and put on the bathing suit..or less.

Sunday July 26, 2009
The plan was to slip the lines from the dock in Kincardine at 8 a.m. and head to the port of Bayfield, Ontario about 40 miles to the south. The concept was altered about 4 hours later when the forecast for winds to shift to the west proved a bit more whimsy than fact. The reality was growing winds and seas directly in our path. When we noticed 3 separate storm cells tracking across Lake Huron toward us, I suggested that we duck for cover into Goderich, Ontario and go up the Maitland River to the marina. Judge Abood on “Resolution II” quickly concurred and Captain Tony Jachnycky on “French Connection” affirmed the decision. Moments later the helms of all three sailboats were swung over to shore and in we went.
Dick Peever has owned the Maitland Valley Marina for years and does a great job making sure visiting boaters get a good slip and quite often a ride into town. The only drawback to Goderich is that the urban center is a long walk up a rather steep hill from the marina docks.
One of my favorite hikes here is the Tiger Dunlop (love the name) Heritage Trail which starts right by the harbor, and takes the hiker high above the Maitland River on the Menesetung Bridge. You can even visit the tomb of Tiger along the trail where the plaque describes him as a “soldier, doctor and raconteur”.
It seems that Dunlop moved from his home in Scotland after studying medicine and being appointed an assistant surgeon to the 89th Foot Regiment in 1813. He was sent to Canada during the war of 1812 and then went to India to clear tigers from Sagar Island. That’s where William became known as “Tiger” and also developed a side career writing articles for magazines and giving lectures.
Later as Warden of Woods and Forests, Dunlop cut a road to Goderich and built his home on the bluff overlooking Lake Huron. Tiger apparently loved to tell stories and there were plenty of tales about him.
My favorite legend about Tiger is that he once gave three reasons for not going to church: 1: a man was sure to find his wife there; 2: he could not bear to be at a meeting where one man dominated the conversation; and, 3: he never liked singing without drinking.
You can see why I like to visit old Tiger’s tomb on the hill over the Maitland Valley.
After the rains ended today, we had a big potluck dinner on “Adagio” that was going quite well until Judge Abood started inquiring if I ever knew any of his female law clerks while I was in law school at the University of Toledo College of Law. My attempts to take the 5th were unsuccessful. I did manage to recall that they were all excellent students and several had proven to be exceptional oral advocates in moot court competition.
Further affiant sayeth naught.
Tomorrow Bayfield.
—-

Saturday July 25, 2009
We love the port of Kincardine. For more than 2 decades this Scottish little town with the beautiful lighthouse snugged into the shoreline on the Penetangore river has been one of our top stops on the annual north channel adventure. The seafaring tradition in Kincardine started in 1848 when the ship called “The Fly” dropped off the first boatload of settlers.
About 40 years later, the residents decided to construct a 74 feet tall wooden lighthouse that sits on top of the two-story keeper’s home. Back in the it’s commercial heyday Kincardine had a thriving fishing and salt shipping industries. On summer evenings, a lone bagpiper (known locally as the Phantom Piper) emerges at the top of the spire to serenade the setting sun. When he (or she) finishes the plaintive solos on the pipes, you can hear applause ringing out from all across the waterfront.
This year we caught up with our friends Pam and Milo Janecek on the sailboat “Windwalker II”. Not only are they a wonderful couple with a great sense of humor, but they have a unique place in “Adagio” history. Pam and Milo actually towed our boat for several miles three years ago. The circumstances of this bizarre moment in O’Mara sailing history will have to be more fully recounted at a later time.
We always try to make sure that our trip is timed to take advantage of another great Kincardine tradition. Since 1948, at exactly 8 p.m. every summer Saturday night, rain or shine, the KINCARDINE SCOTTISH PIPE BAND takes to the street. With hundreds of tourists and locals following behind them, the pipe band marches down Queen Street and back again to perform in Victoria Park. The band welcomes all pipers and drummers who happen to be in the area. And in the middle of the parade you will see “Blinky”, the big fuzzy lighthouse mascot of Kincardine as he marches in step with the piper’s drum major.
After the parade passed by us for the second time, we had a lovely dinner at Olivers Restaurant featuring curry and Thai entrees. Not exactly haggis, but much more delicious (in my humble opinion).
After dinner, another round of showers swept across the lake as we made our way back to the boat. The new challenge this year is the complete renovation of the Huron Terrace Bridge that connects the town marina with the rest of the business district. The old 1936 span is supposed to be replaced by this fall. In the meantime, construction workers built a special pedestrian bridge across the Penetangore River next to the Kincardine Fish Hatchery.
In 1883, the ship “Erie Belle”, while trying to rescue the schooner “J.M. Carter”, sank off the shore of Kincardine after its boiler exploded, killing 4 and maiming other crew members. The boiler is visible at Boiler Beach, and a cairn acts as a marker for the “Erie Belle” and her crew. At Station Beach, the wreck of the Ann Maria, which sank in 1902, can be seen beneath the water’s surface. But with the water temp still on the chilly side, I made only a brief dip this year and headed for the beach.
Tomorrow we will try to head for Bayfield, weather permitting - as usual.

—-
Friday July 24, 2009
We pushed “Adagio” from the wall as quietly as possible at 6 a.m. trying to depart without waking any of the sleeping boaters nearby. The challenge leaving Tobermory and heading south is navigating the dangerous Cape Hurd channel. Over the last 200 years, this body of water has been littered with the bones of many sailing ships that came to grief here.
There are 20 major wrecks in the area, including the steamer, “W.L. Wetmore” from Cleveland, the schooner “Philo Scoville”, also from Cleveland, and the 154 foot schooner “Charles P. Minch” from Vermilion. The wrecks may be a boon to the local scuba diving community but I’d rather not contribute anything to their underwater adventures.
The challenge is so much easier these days with our big GPS chartplotters. However, even after all my years coming through this passage, I still count off every buoy until we are in the deep water of Lake Huron.
We were on the big water for only about 2 hours when the horizon began to disappear. Distance was not the problem. Fog was moving in! When I say fog, I don’t mean some poetic mist patch that temporarily puts a little haze on the water. This was the pea soup variety that allows you to see the bow of your boat and that’s about it.
On radar I could easily see our friends behind us on “Resolution II” and “French Connection”. My concern was making sure we picked up the small fishing boats that might be bobbing around out here that are difficult to detect with radar. A 16 foot aluminum boat colliding with a 42 foot fiberglass hull moving at 9 miles an hour would make for a very bad day for everybody but the fish.
Our other key piece of tech gear is our Sirius Sat Weather system that shows all the Canadian and American radar images. The display showed a big green blob moving our way. Time for the full foul weather gear. Soon the dodger windows were pelted with cold rain sweeping across the lake from Michigan. What a lovely day!!
Of course, the wind began to shift in the wrong direction and started to blow into our teeth. I altered course to keep the breeze slightly to starboard, but as the waves began to build our boat speed dropped more than I wanted to see.
We had a small chipping sparrow circling the boat trying to land on the deck. However, the flapping sails, pennants, and wind angle prevented the little brown bird from vectoring in for a safe landing. I found out later he eventually made it safely to the deck of “French Connection” and stayed until sufficiently refreshed and then winged away.
Several hours later I got another surprise. With the Admiral sleeping in the cockpit, suddenly the warning buzzer for the engine began shrieking in the cockpit. It made no sense initially. The motor was on and we were moving at 2300 rpm, but that alarm meant something was dramatically wrong. I looked over at the display and the power was off. Ok-the engine was on but the power was somehow off. For a few moments this contradictory data did not compute. That’s when I realized that the Admiral’s posterior must have turned the key off without killing the engine. So we immediately slowed down, put the motor into neutral, turned the key all the way off to kill the engine, re-fired, went back into gear and continued. About 10 minutes later, the color came back to my face as the adrenelin rush subsided.
After 70 miles on the water and 9 hours on the water, we arrived in the beautiful port of Kincardine, Ontario. Moments after we tied up on the east wall, the sun emerged and the day suddenly turned to summer. Half an hour later, down to the nearby beach to savor this rare treat of real July weather and a temperature near 80.
The tiny local movie theater was playing the new “Harry Potter” movie so we made plans to join our friends for the show at 8pm. Before leaving the boat, I took one more glance at the weather and laughed out loud.
“Hey, Eva”, I called. “You need to come see this”.
“On, no, tell me we are getting more rain tomorrow”, she replied.
On the screen, there was a huge line of storms rapidly advancing from the Michigan coastline. A quick review of the radar animation indicated they were moving our way at a speed of about 25 miles an hour. That would put them here just about the time the movie was half over. Depsite the beautiful sunshine, we grabbed foul weather gear to bring to dinner and closed all the ports onboard. It was still raining when we left the theater and walked back to the boat.
A poetic ending to this lovely day on Lake Huron.
Tomorrow we rest and watch the next storm roll across the big blue expanse of fresh water.
—-
Thursday July 23, 2009
Tobermory, Ontario continued
Showers on Nexrad all around us. Great day to read while trying to distract the Admiral from spending her day in the nearby specialty shops and art galleries. Sisyphus had an easier task.
—
Wednesday July 22, 2009
Tobermory, Ontario
As we prepared to shove off from the docks in Little Current, a huge passenger ship came floating a few yards away from us. The 215 foot Clelia II had arrived for a brief stopover and the big hull with 3 decks loomed over our mast as the blue yacht inched into the downtown channel dock. The ship is an all suite (50) cruiser and accomodates 100 passengers. Sort of the floating version of the Italian seaside Hotel Clelia near the Portofino Promontory.
We needed to time our departure to be ready for the 8 a.m. opening of the swing bridge guarding Little Current. The operator only stops the flow of vehicles and moves the bridge once an hour for about 12 minutes or less depending on boat traffic. If you arrive late, then you are forced to sit and wait in the current for the next hour. We were ready!
Over the years the trip down Georgian Bay has always been a bit of an adventure. For some reason, the sea gods that guard this part of the lake enjoy testing me. However, despite a forecast calling for impending thunderstorms, the nasty weather held off in Michigan. We motored carefully past the great Strawberry Island lighthouse, around Heywood Island and then through the passage near Partridge, Center and Badgeley Islands into the big Baie Georgienne. With the wind still out of the east, the further south we turned the better the angle of the breeze across our bow. Soon we had the main and jib flying and “Adagio” was screaming (ok, 8+knots) toward a 1pm flyby past Lonely Island.
Then it was another small course correction and down we went to Flowerpot Island, aptly named for the huge sandstone rock formations on the shoreline that look like flower pots.
The water temperature was running around 55 degrees and so the wind blowing across the big bay was in the 40’s with the wind chill. Another strange day of sunshine and October weather out here.
We arrived at the gas dock in Tobermory around 3:30pm having sailed 59.41 nautical miles. Of course, everybody in town was wearing shorts and t-shirts, completely oblivious to the chill out on the big water. Carla Watson, harbourmaster of the Little Tub docks, has been doing an excellent job keeping all the facilities in top shape. Her crew of dock hands are well trained, bright and good natured. They squeezed our three 42 foot sailboats into the very top of the bay.
We managed to get a pass from the Georgian Bay gods again this year. Now we will wait for the weather to settle down and the storms to move across Lake Huron before we make the big jump down the Bruce Peninsula. This is a lovely port to sit and wait. With hundreds of tourists meeting the M.S. Chi-Cheemaun, the town docks are quite lively. People watching from the cockpit with a single malt is pretty darn entertaining.
“Does your sailboat have an engine”, one lady inquired while working on her icecream cone.
“Pretty boat”, another offered as he held his tiny dog and gazed up at the top of the mast.
“How fast does it go?”, he asked.
“Oh, we top out just over 9 miles an hour”, I replied.
“That’s it”, he said looking surprised.
“Yep, that’s why we named it “Adagio”, slow and graceful”, I explained. But I could tell he was somehow disappointed that our pretty boat didn’t make a bigger wake.

—-FOR MORE LOG REPORTS GO TO “Cruising Journal ‘09″——-

My father opened the wonderfull world of sailing to me when I was six. Dad purchased a small sailboat from Germany that actually came in 3 bags. The “Klepper” was the kind of clever unsinkable little craft that you could actually assemble at the lake, plot a course and go. What I didn’t fully comprehend at the time was that my father knew nothing about sailing. It turns out he was learning and making it up as he went out on the water.

The first hint was the number of times we capsized the “Klepper” in the first few months. My father had no appreciation for the concept of reducing sail while underway. I soon gained a full appreciation for the “unsinkable” claims by the boat manufacturer. My mother wisely chose to ignore dad’s requests that she join us as 1st mate after he dumped her in small lake in the Irish Hills of Michigan. Oh, and I should add that she was holding my 1 year old brother, Mark, in her lap at the time of the sudden swim. That little trauma ended her career as a crew member for any sailing expedition that included my father as skipper. I, as the oldest son, had no such luxury of self determination when it came to joining Dad. Like the poor Irish lads in British port towns centuries ago, I was “pressed” into duty. Luckily, I was an excellent swimmer.

A few years later, my father decided to find a sailboat that wasn’t quite as tender and unforgiving of his nautical mistakes as the “Klepper”. Even in our little farm town in southeast Michigan, it seems somebody knew somebody who had heard of somebody selling a sailboat. Dad and I went to look at a gently used 23 foot Allied sailboat one Saturday morning. “It comes with everything”, said the owner with a wry smile. The equipment list included jib and main sails, four life preservers, even a few pots and pans in the tiny galley. “Does it tip over very much”?, I asked. “Son”, he replied, “I don’t think it’s possible to tip this boat over unless you plan to sail in a hurricane”. Then he offered to throw in a six horse outboard motor and the deal was done.

Dad named her “Maggie” after his Irish mother who delivered him in a small house in southern Ontario. “Your grandmother loved the water”, Dad said. “But she preferred to enjoy it from shore”, he added. His mother moved her seven children to Detroit when her husband decided to go into the business of racing horses across Canada. “She was a tough woman and this is a tough boat”, Dad observed. Over the next few summers, we soon learned how durable that little sailboat really was.

My father had no hesitation jumping into the sailboat without checking the weather forecast or wind direction. “Any wind is good wind”, he would say as we left the dock. The problem was that we sailed on the St. Clair River between Algonac, Michigan and Port Lambton, Ontario. The river has a southbound current that runs about 2-4 knots. If the wind died, you could easily drift toward Detroit while waiting for the next zephyr to blow through. The St. Clair River is also a major commercial shipping lane for huge freighters hauling loads of taconite, grain, and wheat through the Great Lakes. We quickly learned to time our tacking moves across the river to avoid being crushed by the massive hulls that towered over our little ship. My mother said she couldn’t stand to watch us on the river as we dodged death and disaster every weekend.

I would regularly give thanks that the former owner didn’t lie when he said the sailboat was almost impossible to tip over. My father still had no clue about reducing sail and preferred to sail with the rail in the water. That means as the boat heeled in the wind, the leeward rail of the boat would be submerged in the cold blue water of the St. Clair River. If my Dad pushed her too far over, the keel would come out of the water enough that the boat would simply turn right into the wind and sit back down with the sails flogging wildly Dad thought this was exciting. I took a much dimmer view of the drama, but took note of the lesson in physics and aerodymanics.

I will never forget the summer day when Dad decided it was time for our first cruise. The plan was to sail up against the current of the St. Clair River, under the Blue Water Bridge spanning Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan and out into Lake Huron. Our destination was the port of Grand Bend, Ontario. The crew consisted of my brother, Kevin and myself with Dad as skipper. I should have known things were not meant to go smoothly when I asked my father if he brought any nautical charts. “Charts?”, he said with a look of surprise. “We don’t need charts for god’s sake if we’re not going to be out of the sight of land”. It seems that my dad fancied himself a sort of World War One pilot flying by the seat of his pants and the wind in his teeth. Not only did we not have charts, but our boat didn’t have a depth sounder, knot meter, or life lines. The compass was about the size of an egg and surely had never been checked for deviation or accuracy. And away we went.

With the wind blowing against us from the north, there was no point of trying to sail. The little outboard engine strained against the wind and current as we slowly moved north. Going under the Blue Water Bridge for the first time was amazing. The lake freighters were passing just a few feet away from us. The current was so strong that you could have walked at a faster pace than we were motoring at full bore. Finally, we were free of the powerful current and suddenly the big beautiful lake was ours. Using Dad’s navigational wisdom of following the shoreline, we shut off the engine and began sailing at a moderate pace of about 4 knots. Of course, I am only guessing at our speed since we had no way to judge our progress unless you threw an apple core off the bow and timed how quickly it slid past our hull.

A few hours later, I was standing on the bow looking at the extraordinary clarity of the Lake Huron water when I noticed how big the rocks and boulders were underneath us. “Hey, check out those rocks down there”, I yelled toward the cockpit. “The water is so clear they look like they are right ….” That’s when the keel smacked loudly several times as it wedged onto a huge shelf of granite. A few seconds later we were hard aground with the sails flapping helplessly and my father looking completely astonished.
“We must be a mile off shore”, he kept saying as he shook his head. Indeed, were were easily a mile off the white sand beach at Kettle Point, Ontario. Had we consulted a chart we might have noticed the very long and very dangerous reef that extends from Kettle Point far into Lake Huron. Now we were intimately aware of this hazard to navigation. We all jumped off the boat into the shallow water and the reduction in weight allowed the boat to float a few inches higher. We pushed with all our might and slowly the sailboat slid off the ledge and we were suddenly floating again. That’s when I spotted a red bouy in the distance. “Let’s head for that red marker”, Dad said sagely as I went below to see if we were taking on water. It was now about 3 p.m. and we still had many miles to go with the wind starting to diminish.

“We should motor”, I suggested to the skipper. My father would have none of that logic. “This is a sailboat and if there’s wind you sail”, he replied. “Motoring would be cheating”.
We arrived at the far shore around 10 p.m. in the darkness that was punctuated by only a few lights from cottages in the distance. That’s one of the unique challenges to sailing. There are no signs that pop up to let you know how many miles to the next town. No “Welcome to Grand Bend” banners to let you know that you have arrived. We had no clue where we were as we bobbed in the still waters.

“Michael, swim to shore and get directions”, my Dad suggested. So, I took off my shirt and paddled with the waves into the sand. A few minutes later, I encountered a couple walking the beach. I’ll never forget their laughter when I asked which way we should go to find Grand Bend. They stopped laughing when I pointed out the red and green running lights of our boat in the distance. I splashed my way back to the little ship and we motored the mile and a half to the south into the quiet docks of Grand Bend.

There were other adventures with Dad at the helm, but that was first and last “cruise” that we ever attempted with my father as skipper. Looking back I realize that I learned a lot about sailing from my dad. Most of it was what NOT to do. I tend to over-prepare for every trip and my sailboat has just about every available chart and navigational aid. However, while perhaps one of the worst captains on the Great Lakes, my father was able to give me one key lesson about sailing.
You can’t have an adventure while sitting by the shore. You have to let loose the dock lines and get out there. And while I try not to put the rail in the water, I do think about my Dad often during our summer trips.
He can’t get around easily anymore so I bring him photos of our northern cruises. “Guess you don’t visit Kettle Point very much do you”, he’ll ask with a laugh. “No, Dad,” I’ll reply, “that’s one of the many things I learned from you”.

This “Jack Sparrow” really is a sparrow. He is a pirate bird who has been trying to claim our boat as his property for the past two weeks.
From his favorite perch at the gooseneck of the boom, young Jack starts talking just after the sun comes up and doesn’t stop until night fall. Our boat’s mast and boom have become his favorite aluminum tree and, more disturbingly, his favorite place to poop.
Now the concept of a poop deck on a sailboat may go back a few centuries, but the term has nothing to do with fecal material or a place to vent foul (fowl) matter.
In fact, the poop deck is the part of the boat that is the roof of a cabin built in the aft (rear) part of the ship. The name came from the French word for stern, la poupe, and they got it from the Romans who called the stern “puppis” in Latin.
If your boat was so big that it had a cabin in the back of the boat, you could actually sleep in the “poop cabin”. In the old ships, they would put the steering wheel on the top of this back raised deck so that the helmsman could see the sails and make sure the crew weren’t drinking too much rum.
Jack has moved his personal poop deck athwartships. That means right in the middle of the boat. So far, no amount of gentle encouragement, wild gestures, implied threats, or personal confrontations have disuaded Jack from his rude behaviour. He simply flies to a different part of the boat and then returns a few minutes later chirping and pooping with impunity.
There is one encouraging development in my standoff with this noisy defecation machine. He refuses to follow us to sea. Instead, he patiently waits for us to return to the dock. Moments later, Jack is back on the boom and the demand for our attention and submission begins again.
In a few weeks, we will slip our dock lines and leave on our month long adventure to the clear cold Canadian waters of northern Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. I won’t be cleaning up Jack’s constant mess or listening to his never ending request for food for thirty days.
Usually I celebrate getting away from cell phone calls and the daily pressure of television news. This year, I will add the absence of Jack Sparrow to my list of joys.
Of course, we all know who will be there to greet us when “Adagio” returns to Sandusky. The poop deck pirate will undoubtedly resume his crude ways with gusto. In a strange way, I am looking forward to it.