A leisurely sail to Ashtabula, (pronounced Ashtabula), 41° 53’.99N 80° 47’.71W, in winds varying from 3knots to 12knots, with corresponding boat speeds of 1.5knots to 8 knots. What the heck, it was a beautiful day, we only had 10 miles to go, and it was very quiet and enjoyable sailing along slowly with the occasional burst of speed. After entering the river we had to wait for a bridge to open. We were expecting this, but we weren’t expecting the huge freighter to be docked right on the bend before the bridge. So (a) we couldn’t see the bridge until we were practically underneath it and (b) we had about 20 feet of space to get our 16 foot wide boat through. We were totally blind until we passed the freighter and were committed to passing under the bridge so were very thankful there were no boats coming the other way. Explored Ashtabula on foot. An interesting waterfront with a huge conveyor belt 100ft high across the river that used to move coal from the railroad side to the freighter side, and now moves stone and sand.
We also found Old Mother Hubbard’s house. This is an historical house, owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard where slaves fleeing from the south were sheltered before kind local captains would take them across Lake Erie to Canada and freedom.
Today’s log: 10.6 nm, season total: 1098.0
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