Vermilion, OH August 14, 2016

It seems like two different worlds. Yesterday I awoke on Annie, in Canada. Today I am at home in Cuyahoga Falls. Does it mean anything that it was sunny yesterday and raining here now?

We wanted to leave Boblo early to arrive at VYC early. But it was a very nice morning so we decided to smell the roses one last time. We had tea and coffee on the upper deck, enjoying the pleasant morning, playing "what did you like best" and finishing the last of Rosemary's cookies.

But, like this vacation, all good things end. We set sail for Vermilion at 8:10. Going down the Trenton Channel to Lake Erie is a straight shot. No way to get lost on this leg. That's Lake Erie at the center opening of the channel.

Kerry saw the darker, rougher water of Lake Erie as we got closer. She braced for the worse. So many times we have come out of this perfectly smooth channel to find huge waves hitting us in Lake Erie. This was not one of those days -yea! We were welcomed to our home waters with 1 1//2' waves on the quarter, very pleasant conditions all the way to Vermilion.

For an experiment I tried using the auto route feature on my chart plotter. With this fancy chip I bought the plotter will chart the best course for you to follow. I never use it because the one time I tried I did not like it's route. But, I decided it was time to try it again. And, I still did not like it. Check this out.

Instead of taking me straight down the deep water in the channel then turning to port it takes me right in some shallower water before finally turning to port. Who knows what it is thinking?

The trip to Vermilion took a little over 7 1/2 hours and covered 55.3 nautical miles at an average speed of 8.4. We hit 10.2 for a short period while we were benefiting from the river current. We arrived at 2:45, exactly as predicted by the GPS. Jim and Jola came out to greet us in Liberty and took this final Lake Michigan Cruise picture of Annie as we approached the entrance to Vermilion.

For the trip, we traveled 1,165 nautical miles. From the time we started home from Leland, we traveled 440 miles. We had remarkably few problems once Mark from Parker Marine helped us sort out our electrical and AIS issues at the very start of the voyage. Other than the mental pain and suffering I experienced from our water leak, no other real issues. (I can't comment anymore on this because of the pending lawsuit.) We put 153.7 hours on the engine, and 7.5 hours on the generator.

Peter and Marianna and Big Jim were there to catch our dock lines when we arrived. It was great to see them and have a welcoming committee greet us. I had to watch Big Jim as he tried to get the Princess to mutiny against me for some "alleged" blog comments I made. We just happened to have a bottle of cold champagne which we popped to celebrate a safe return. Marianna brought a still warm delicious coffee cake which we did quite a number on. Rick and Nancy Simpson joined us too and we were able to get caught up on their successful trip to the Thousand Islands. Jim and Jola and the Boaz's also stopped over to say hello. Rosemary arrived a little later to give us a ride home. We stopped at our favorite Mexican Restaurant for one last celebratory pitcher of frozen margaritas before officially calling this vacation over by walking into our home on Cedar Hill Circle.

I will likely do one more post in a couple days. Kerry tracks our expenses and I always like to go back and post them to aid in future trip planning. Thanks for following the blog. The Princess says we can do it again next year. Can't wait!