During our last night in Presque Isle, a slow-moving warm front went through that dumped a lot of rain on us. As I crawled out of our comfy bed, it was still coming down pretty hard. I was not really looking forward to going out in it.
By the time I had made a big cup of coffee and checked the weather, the rain had stopped. I was surprised when I went outside to find that it was warmer than inside the boat, which was backwards. In fact, it was so warm that, for the first time since getting here, I was perfectly comfortable in my t-shirt.
The anchor came up without issue. Not surprisingly, as we passed the Erie skyline, we were the only boat out there. We even beat the keenest of the fishoes. We shut down the engines and unrolled the jib for the transit of the narrow channel to the lake. Once we were out there, we turned downwind and switched to spinnaker for the rest of the crossing to Port Colborne, at the southern end of the Welland Canal, which acts as an alternative route to the Niagara River for a way to get to Lake Ontario. During the sail, we were fast enough to catch back up to last night's front, and sail back into the cold, rainy air that had passed us the night before.
We tied up at the free town dock, just upstream of the first lift bridge. By then, a cold, steady rain caused me to send Maryanne inside, since I was the only one dressed to be out in it long term. Maryanne called the Canadian Border Services and had us officially cleared in by the time I was done tidying the lines.
We crossed the lake to clear in at Port Colborne (South end of the Welland Canal)
In the morning, we popped out to have a proper look at Port Colborne. It's pretty industrial, as would be expected, so it's not the kind of place you would sail for the view. The town is a bit run down and many parts seem to be teetering on the brink of dereliction. It does have a few pockets, though, where small businesses are fighting hard to keep the place vibrant and a little touristy. Plus, it has an excellent little museum, complete with reconstructed 19th Century buildings like a school house and a blacksmith shop.
We visited the lovely Historic and Maritime Museum (twice)
On either side of the canal, there are a few quiet paths and parks, which we could cobble together to make for decent-length daily walks. There are maybe half a dozen big ships per day going through the canal in each direction, and watching them go by can add a little bit of entertainment to our perambulating.
The giant ships are pretty much the size of Welland's locks. When they are inside, there's no room for them to do much bouncing around. For us little guys, the canal corporation hires seasonal workers to throw lines down to us. That means the transit season for pleasure craft is shorter than the one for commercial shipping. The first available slot for locking up is May 1st and locking down is May 2nd, which we scooped up within two minutes of the reservation system coming online. Our weather window from Presque Isle got us here with four days to potter around. I'm not competitive at all, but for some reason, I would be pretty chuffed if we could be the first and only down-bound boat that day, particularly since canal regulations prohibit us from locking with a ship greater than 100 meters long, which is pretty much all of them.
We checked out the nearest lock to see how it all works, and (of course) the ice cream store (not the best to taste, but great to see with a treasure trove of modern and bygone candies)
[Maryanne]Colborne is a good size town, and on first viewing really seems a bit on the run down side, but we soon learned to LOVE it. It has vintage-style ice cream parlor/candy store, accessible (just a short walk) supermarkets, or the laundromat; it has a great (and free) historical and maritime museum, and plenty of places to eat out; from cafes to bars. One bar has a regular trivia/quiz night (we always look out for these) so we made the time to spend an evening there (we came very last, but to be fair most teams were groups of 10-12 people and there were only two of us, and we know nothing about Canadian sports or pop culture!). The town also had a great second hand store right across from the dock where I was able to replace my well worn jeans at last. The free dock we were able to use is normally full (in season) but we were the only boat there for the whole of our stay (another hint to how early we are for this neck of the woods). Colborne does have a large marina also (Sugarloaf Marina), but it it is a little further out of town and, of course, comes with a nighty fee.
Dock location >> On google maps
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