Sunday, August 13, 2023 Vermilion Yacht Club

Well, it was the last day of our cruise. I woke up at 4:00 with all sorts of thoughts running through my head. Thoughts of the past weeks and thoughts of all that needs to be attended to once we are back in the real world, which was to be later today. I must have been very distracted because when I did get up at 7:00, I forgot to put my coffee cup under the Keurig. Do you know those little drip trays hold an entire cup off coffee? Now that is good design. 

Bad design is the men's room sink here at MBIYC. Ask Peter about trying to keep his toiletries in order on their curved sink.

The weather maps showed winds about 10-12 knots from the SW, putting it on our beam. NOAA said NW about 5-10 knots. It looked like winds might diminish as the morning goes on. The winds actually were SE most of the day.

Peter knocked on our window announcing he was here for his last cappuccino of the voyage and the last Skipper's Meeting to review the travel weather. He had a double cappuccino and we finished off the last four little white powered donuts. As we often did, we played with my television. The little adapter I bought to connect my phone to the HMDI input of the television did not work, which is a function of the Pixel phone and not the adapter. We did discover that the adapter worked with my Chromebook. 

I drank a cup of tea with Kerry on Annie's' upper deck. A little reflective moment before we started the final voyage of our trip. The Orros and Dades were staying for lunch so they waved good bye to us as we left at 11:00. They ultimately decided to go back today also as the weather for the next two days does not look favorable for travel. They had planned to stay over.

The trip to VYC was pleasant. Little 1' waves turned into 2' as we motored along, but it was not uncomfortable. I got a "Whoa" or two from Kerry when we had a bigger than usual roll. It took us 3 hours and 15 minutes to cover the 26 miles home. We went 812 total nautical miles on this trip, recorded 108.4 engine hours and used 381 gallons of diesel. We ran the generator for 24 hours. 

Jim and Jola were sailing Liberty when we arrived at Vermilion. It was fun to see them sailing and accept their welcome back greetings. Liberty looked good! We invited them to a post cruise cookout tonight. 

A boat overturned right outside of Vermilion as we were approaching the harbor. Four people were in the water and were pulled to safety by other boaters. Scary. We landed without incident. 

Once we were tied up, Gary, the club manager, gave Kerry a brand new black Yeti Rambler Tumbler just like the one that rolled overboard and sunk. Peter had ordered a replacement for Kerry and had it delivered here. She was really touched by his kindness, and he got a big hug from her when they met. 

Kerry had us in the showers and two loads of laundry done quicker than I could have imagined. Jimbo came over to say hello and drank a welcome back cocktail with us. He told us Stanley, one of our favorite little VYC dogs, had an accident and hurt his back. Stanley is a miniature dachshund and back problems are common with that breed. We called Pete, his daddy, who said they hope pain pills and steroids will solve the problem. They will know in 3 weeks. 

We set 6:30 as our dinner time which allowed Alex to drive Peter home to get his car. We grilled hot dogs and veggie dogs, and Alex grilled salmon. We had a great dinner in the club that included two delicious fresh salads. The hit of the dinner was Jola's homemade peach cobbler. It was really good. So good that Marianna scraped the baking dish to get those last savory portions.

There are two Helmsman 38 trawlers on the great lakes. As luck would have it the second one was here, docked one dock away from Peter's. After dinner the boys walked down to compare the two boats. The other one is a 2022 model and is almost identical to Peter's 2013 version. It has a mast while Peter's has an arch. Both have a slight starboard list which was interesting. We all thought the arch "wore it better." On the trip back, Peter's back sliding door slammed shut today when he got rolled from behind by a big motor boat and it's jammed shut now. Always something to deal with.

So, after about two months our cruise comes to an end. It's nice to be home but sad that the adventure is over. Thanks for reading the blog and sharing your thoughts with me. It was a really enjoyable cruise for us. We love cruising with Peter and Marianna. Their having a trawler this year enabled us to motor along together which was more fun and offered more security. Goodbye until next year.