42°52′32″ N 79°15′20″ W

I was up at 5:30am to prepare for an early departure to Port Colborne. It is a 6 hour passage from Port Dover.

The weather forecast was favorable with lots of sun & very light winds. The beautiful sunrise was certainly encouraging.

I pulled away from the dock at 6:15am and was greeted by a very different version of Lake Erie – compared to my experience approaching Port Dove the day before. The water was perfectly flat with a gentle breeze on my stern. This would be a great day for what was likely to be my my last passage on Lake Erie for quite some time.

Unfortunately this pleasantry was not meant to last. About 20 minutes after I left the dock I had a few thousand unwanted passengers join me for the voyage.

The boat was covered with tiny flys & they especially liked being on the flybridge!

Plus, huge clouds of them were following the boat & looking for a place to land. It was impossible for me to outrun them so my only choice was to retreat to the inside steering station until the invasion was over.

It was a real shame to have to go inside on such a beautiful day. Fortunately after about an hour the breeze picked up enough to clear the forward deck of bugs so I loaded up with sunscreen & bug spray & sat on a lawn chair on the bow of the boat.

I approached Port Colborne about 1:30pm. The large grain elevators at the entrance to the marina & the Welland Canal made my destination easy to spot from a fair distance away.

It was not very long before I was tied up at Sugarloaf Marina. The clouds of bugs stayed on the lake but I had a big cleanup job ahead of me because of all the dead ones still on the boat.

Once I was securely tied up I had a big G&T to cool down & to build up my motivation for the cleanup job that was facing me. Catherine & Emily we’re supposed to arrive in a few hours so I didn’t have too much time to waste! They would have no interest in boarding the boat in it’s current condition.

They arrived from London shortly after 7:00pm. After stowing their belongings aboard we went in search of a restaurant for a late dinner. We found a nice place on a street beside the canal & I pointed out the “waiting” dock for pleasure boats that were ready to enter the Welland Canal. There was a beautiful motor yacht tied up on the dock apparently in the cue to enter the canal.

Time for bed & an early start in the morning.

Cheers!