036 - Roller Coaster Haven

It seems an odd spot for so much investment, but at the western end of Lake Erie is the ultimate amusement park for those who love roller coasters, “Cedar Point Amusement Park.” Its investors can only get a return during the summer months. But somehow it works and it is world renowned as the place to go for roller coasters. It’s that old school Americana thing you don’t find a lot of anymore and fits hand-in-glove with Sara’s just up the road. This place will stretch your comfort zone.

This monster, “Top Thrill Dragster” accelerates to 120mph in 3.8 seconds and shoots straight up 400ft before spiraling you back down to earth all in under 13 seconds. It is literally over the top and Brian loved it. Brian said it all happened so fast you didn’t have time to be scared. I was too much a chicken to find out.

On a tamer note, was this massive wood structure for a more traditional ride. I think it was 400 ft vertical drop with a top speed of only 70mph. At least this lasted about 120 seconds. The line was almost two hours long. We watched the structure sway back and forth as the coaster moved along the track. It was noticeable to untrained eyes and made you a bit nervous that it would stay together for your journey. It didn’t for us and closed just a few minutes before our turn – oh well, a good reason to return.

Cedar Point is not Disney and they don’t want to be. It has an “on the edge” feel and I don’t think I saw a princess theme anywhere. Its clientele are looking for thrills so the crowd was a bit more tough than you’d find at Disney. I don’t get the love affair with tattoo’s but they were on full display this warm summer day.

Do you think our bathing suites are dated? Brian’s looking pretty sharp, must be the workout he’s getting hauling sails.

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046 - Fog Bank a Comin

To all those who insist on paper charts as a backup to electronics, “what good are they in fog?” What was a surprise to us was the frequency of fog on the lakes, it wasn’t anticipated by us, seemed like a New England issue not a lake issue. But the water is cold (60s in the big water) and the air is warm which is perfect for dense fog. We learned at the shipwreck museum that a large percentage of ship wrecks on the Great Lakes are ships driving into other ships, mostly in dense fog. Radar, GPS, electronics charts and AIS should mostly preclude this cause of shipwrecks. We expected the number one cause for shipwrecks to be bad weather (think Edmond Fitgerald) but bad weather only accounted for ¼ of so of great lakes shipwrecks. With far better forecasting today, this too shouldn’t be an issue like it used to be. But back to our story, without radar, we played our fog horn, set a watch on the bow, watched the AIS for ships (we could see them ...

048 - Big Water

The Great Lakes are mislabeled, they are really inland seas. They are so big that one end can have very different weather than the other end or even the middle. Waves however don’t really care where they come from and can travel hundreds of miles, reflecting off hard coastlines. Shallow waters amplify the waves by making for a shorter period; this can create little waves that brings the boat to a complete stop as it goes up and down pounding against a wall of water. Similarly, one end of the lake may be experiencing 20+kts of wind and the other end could be in a dead calm with waves that originated from the other end. Makes it tough to know what the conditions are for your journey, so when its good take advantage of it, it will likely change.

051 - Med Style Anchoring – It’s so European

It’s complicated but it really lets you pack them in. Having done it now 3 times now, I hope I’m done with it. For us it’s complicated by the tender hanging off the stern and our stern anchor rode being 300 ft long in the bottom of a lazarette under a pile of other items. All the rode has to come out into the cockpit for attaching to a tree on the shore. It makes for a messy operation. Let’s see if I can explain. To anchor med style, you have to be able to backup well, which being a sailboat puts us at a distinct disadvantage (can you hear me saying powerboat would be better here too, but I won’t say it). You also ignore the winds as you will back into a parking spot between other boats anchoring the same way. You “simply” pick a spot, throw out the bow anchor in front of it, back into the slot and tie a rope to something substantial on the shore, and put out bumpers for your neighbors. That’s all you have to do. So we pick...

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