9 Jun 17

Up at the stroke of 06:00, to a beautiful, clear, warm day. We slipped the dock lines at 07:00 and were off to Dunkirk before the wind got up. It was on the nose all morning - SW 8 - 12 - so we motored the whole way, with a bit of main out for stability. By the time we turned into Dunkirk, it was getting a bit lumpy on the lake, so I think early morning departure are going to be the rule as we head west on Lake Erie. We fueled up and then tied to the dock at Holiday Harbor at Chadwick, in Dunkirk at 12:40. We were going to stay at the free municipal dock, but they are having SpringFest, so we thought it would be crawling with people and partygoers later this evening; we decided a bit of distance would be good. After we settled in and had a bite of lunch, we went for a walk around Dunkirk, which, unfortunately, does not have much going on. Back to the boat and I thought I would spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the deck, which is in a sorry state. Just as I got going, a band struck up on the town pier, just a few yards away (and upwind) from where we were parked. They played 1.5 hours of great rock & roll hits from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. After a short break, another cover band played excellent covers of Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Donna Summers and a number of great disco hits for nearly 2 hours. We had ring-side seats for free from the comfort (and warmth - it was quite windy and cool, for us southerners) of our cockpit. Unfortunately for these excellent bands, who soldiered on gamely, there were hardly any people on the pier; we made more noise from the boat (with our air-horn) than the assembled host (of 10 - 15 people) on the pier - one of the locals told us there were 3000 revellers on the pier last night.

42-29.377’N, 079-20.097’W; Log = 32.9 N-m; Sum (2017) = 508.1 N-m