Erie, PA

Thursday, July 15, 2010

042-8.160 N
080-5.400 W

Ahoy from Erie, PA!

This will just be a quick log, but I wanted to write one since it will probably be my only log from Pennsylvania! Yesterday we had a nice 77 mile motor-sail from Buffalo to Erie. The winds were pretty much from behind, leaving us with very little apparent wind. In the afternoon they went more westerly and we were able to put up the sails and check out the lines. I think that we got up to 0.2 kts of boost, but hey, we were a sailboat!

We were headed to the Wolverine Marina, which is inside a bay which has a channel leading to it. The channel is flanked by the convention center on one side and a Sheraton hotel on the other with an overhead walkway connects the two. Sue and I were so busy trying to figure out where we were going, that we failed to really look at the height of the walkway. Well, we made it through without any issues, but I think that we just scraped through, as the charts show the height to be 64' and the water level is above normal. Our mast is 62.5', so I suspect that it was quite a sight as we passed!

We arrived just before the start of "Roar on the Shore", which is a bikers rally for which they're expecting 7,000 bikes and 50,000 people to attend. We went downtown for parade and saw some cool bikes, but the bikers were pretty tame, but then again it was pretty early. Oh, did I forget to mention that Molly Hatchet is playing and that Robbie Knievil is leading the parade?

I can't say a lot about the town of Erie. We took the walking tour as outlined in the Port Authority pamphlet and we were thoroughly unimpressed. There's not a lot to see and the map had us walking down a wrong street (we found the correct street), but I wouldn't walk down some of the other streets at night. If this is the best that they have to show, they've got some real problems. We also took a ride on the free trolley and had some very interesting traveling companions...

Tomorrow we're headed to Geneva, OH for a couple of days. That's a 51 mile trip and will pretty much be dead into the wind...Oh well.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser:

Wolverine Marina charges $1.30/ft and $1/ft with a BoatUS card. We were definitely one of the larger boats that they've handled at 40'. Bathrooms are adequate and they have 2 washer/driers @ $1.75 ea. As mentioned earlier, watch that mast height coming into here!

The Bay Harbor Yacht Club is much, much nicer than Wolverine. They have a new $800K club house with the nicest facilities that I've seen. I almost took a picture of their bathrooms as they're that nice. The people at the marina was super friendly too. Dockage is $1.60/ft.

We had dinner at Molly Brannigan's which was filled with college grad students in there for trivia night. The food was very un-memorable. We also had lunch at Smugglers Wharf and and that was better, but simply average.

If you do take the waking tour, skip most of it and only visit Gannon University on 6th Ave, not 5th Ave.

Log ID: 1368