Day One
After a long winter working on my boat ~ almost every weekend, all spring and summer, right up to the race; it was finally time! My boat was finished and ready, it was hard to believe! Boats are never really ‘done’, but it was done enough! What to do with all my time? A ginormous thank you to John for sacrificing his time to helping get Eloxy ready! It's helpful to have a selfless, sailing boyfriend! 😎
I will take just a moment to mention that John is an excellent sailor that successfully completed this race priorly among other GLSS solo races on his own boat ~ S/V Erewhon. Knowing full well what Lake Erie is capable of, there was no entering the challenge with my eyes wide shut! 👀 Knowing what I might be up against, and hearing all the stories. Anyway, I digress.
Sailing my boat, and not working on it seemed glorious! Some of my equipment and upgrades were barely finished in time! The dodger being one of them, it did get finished, and it was amazing! I came to be very thankful for that dodger...
Motoring Out To The Start Line
A photo of me passing North Cape Yacht Club, on my way out of Toledo Beach Marina for the start. Thank you North Cape Yacht Club for hosting the start of the Lake Erie Solo Challenge! Lucky me; the start line was just outside of my home port! A few other competitors boats in the background lying in wait!
Wanting to understand the start line, stay out of everyone's way, and size up the wind prompted me to leave the dock too early! 😁 Lots of spinnakers were going up so staying completely away from all of that was a goal! Planning to use a kite but not wanting to get into THAT mix, right at the start while trying to manage it seemed important! Scary! Some of my 'marina family' friends were watching from their powerboat. at close proximity. When it went up with no twists there was a huge sense of relief! 💃 A bird's eye view of a failed spinnaker hoist was not in my plan! They would never let me live that down! Cool! Breathing returns to normal.
Getting ready to hoist the kite!
On Towards Pelee Passage!
My apologies for these small photos. Most were taken from my tracker. Originally, there was no plan for this public documentation! Here's a photo showing me still 'kind of' with the pack headed toward the passage. This photo was at 1:30pm on Saturday. Wonderful sailing!
After crossing the start, it was a fun downwind ride towards Pelee Passage. My heading was: [insert heading here] John and I discussed weeks before, that making it through Pelee passage by dark would be ideal. I thought that might happen. The way the boat was moving it sure seemed possible! One of many delusional moments!
Somewhere, right after the start, while radioing ahead to whomever was listening for a radio & AIS check; it became evident that the transmitting portion of my AIS was not doing it's job. All the other sailboats and ships around were visible via the receiving portion so there was no concern. Fellow competitors reminded me that people have sailed for hundreds of years with no AIS... yep, Ok noted!
My kite stayed up for a very long time. The longest it's ever been up in one solo leg in fact! Then of course the wind died!
Calling My First Ship
Calling a freighter this soon into the challenge was not anticipated. S/V Eloxy was drifting, just ghosting along, barely moving; with a Lake Erie Freighter headed right for us. This was not an enjoyable experience. At this point, my spinnaker was already down; mistake! Should have left it up! The wind angle was slightly changing and it became harder to keep it full, especially with how light the wind was. Radioing the freighter via VHF went fine, the captain was nice and laughed, responded by saying "Yep we see you". Drifting out of his way, was a relief, but that was a little too close for comfort! Amazing how loud those things are when the lake is quiet and calm; they sound creepy! The wind stayed light the rest of the afternoon into early evening. Making it through the passage seemed to take a week!
At 7:00pm I passed Point Pelee but lost the pack and stated falling behind. John Garhart and S/V Dulcibella were within radio distance and we chatted on and off, that was great! It was nice having him reachable! We compared our previous night's bug stories. It seems, S/V Eloxy was not the only boat that had the all encompassing green bug swarm!
Photo taken at 7:00pm, Saturday, Aug 13. SV Eloxy on bottom left.
Bugs Bugs and More Bugs
Sailing into the first night started wonderfully, leaving Point Pelee behind, the wind even picked up... well a little; but NOT enough to keep the bugs away! 😝 I have this eye allergy thing that happens to me sometimes, as my sailing friends can tell you! It's awful, and it's even kind of gross (my eye swells up ~ a LOT), and often it's caused by these little green Lake Erie bugs... not sure what they are but we call them "midges" and when you squish them they have lots of green goo that comes out; if the green goo goes into my eye, my eye tries leaving it's socket! Yuck, but true story!
Of course, the wind got even lighter, darkness fell, and soon my boat was completely covered in these little green bugs, and not just a few of them. Parts of my boat looked like it was covered in fur. There were thousands! A horrible eye allergy event began and continued late into the night. "Oh my gosh the wind needs to pick up so this does not happen every night." Thankfully, it was a one time occurrence.
The next morning, the boat was disgusting from the dead bugs, oh and it was green! My little white boat was green! It took a very long time to clean up just the cockpit! Thankfully, after the sunlight hits the 'green' the color disappears. Wish that would happen to dirt!