Our afternoon

This afternoon, Phil took off the main sail in preparation for taking off the mast tomorrow.  Then we had it on the driveway to fold up. Below is a picture of me holding down the sail so the wind doesn't blow it away.  Seriously, the wind was very strong coming off the lake and I needed to hold down as much as the leading edge as I could while Phil was removing the battens.  He had trouble with one batten - had to use finesse - loosening screws from the black batten car instead of forcing it. Didn't have any problems from the wind while folding the sail up and it's tucked away in the sail locker.

Phil working on batten car

Lorraine Holding down the Mainsail

Phil removing batten

After that, we went to visit Paul Van H. at Obersheimer's Sailor Supply that turned out to be just a few blocks from Rich's Marine Sales where we're docked. Phil met Paul when transporting a sailboat from Chicago to Buffalo NY a couple years ago with Captain Dave.  It was nice to meet him and Bill was kind enough to give us a ride in his truck to Wegman's Grocery Store - the best grocer store I've found!  I miss the Wegman's that I use to go to in Erie, PA so it was great to go to one here.  We got some groceries and a loaf of their great bread and walked about a mile back to Obersheimer's to buy a quart of oil to replace what floated into Lake Erie in the tote box.  BTW - the gas tank that was wedged under the seat in the dinghy wasn't broken after all.  It was upside down, so that is good news that we don't need to buy a replacement.

Lessoned learned from this trip - make sure that we use backpacks instead of tote bags to hold the items. Our hand and arms were sore quickly carrying them they way we did.

After coming home, Phil took all the cotter pins out of the screws on the shrouds while I put away the groceries.  We had left over Chicken and rice casserole, some cooked green beans and some of the multigrain sourdough bread for supper.  Very good if I say so myself. :)  Now I'm doing stuff on the computer and Phil is using his great math skills converting the statue miles to nautical miles in the Skipper Bob Erie Canal Book.  He's doing this for me because the book starts with the Erie Canal from the Hudson River going up the canal and ends in Buffalo and we are going in the opposite direction (downward).  So I now know that it's 297.2 nm and 342 statue miles from one end to the other and it will be easier to know how far we've gone in figureing out where and when to stop.  We are still hoping to visit Glenn and Pat this weekend.  Looking more like Sunday or Saturday if things go very well.  We are also listening to a Classic radio station that both Phil and I like - a miracle to both enjoy the same music (except for the commercials).

Tomorrow we will be getting up early to top off the water tank, disconnect the electricity from the mast, all the lines, the babystay, forestay, backstay and shrouds, and remove the Stainless (SS) mast holders in the saloon in preparation for the mast being lifted - if the winds calm down enough.

Thank you for your email messages, prayers and well wishes.  Feel free to post those message in the comments section of the blog as I will be checking the blog more frequently than I will be checking email and don't want to miss them.  I have also created a new distribution list on the Apple Computer and you should receive an email for this posting.  It's not too late for those that want to be on this new distribution list to send me an email to memryqlts@live.com.