We’re still here in Tonawanda; most of our friends have moved on and we will too in a couple of days. Meanwhile, people ask what is the attraction of full time cruising when there can be so many difficulties? There are no pictures with this post, but it is a nice story and indicative of why we pursue this lifestyle.
Several weeks ago while we were getting ready to permanently leave Sandusky a transient boat stayed at the Sandusky Sailing Club, our home club. Friends mentioned that we should try to connect with the owners, a German couple, as they had just completed a circumnavigation. It never happened, but we kept our eyes open hoping we’d bump into Ursula and Eckhardt along the way.
Here in Tonawanda the grocery store is a short bicycle commute along the waterfront. As I was riding there one day, I saw a sailboat with mast up moored at the beginning of the canal near a facility that drops masts. I thought it best to go up to them and let them know the situation on the canal as perhaps they would want to change their plans. As I got closer, I noticed it was a German flagged boat also flying the burgees of Middle Bass Island Yacht Club and the Sandusky Sailing Club. I knew I had found our wandering Germans.
That evening they joined our community of displaced boaters for happy hour, and their stories were out of the pages of National Geographic. The circumnavigation had taken them 14 years and to places as far flung as Cape Town, Alaska, the Pacific islands, and all places in between. They even visited a few locations with names we didn’t recognize. They had stopped at every continent except Antarctica. It was a fascinating evening for the bunch of us fledgling cruisers.
But here’s the charming part of the story. Western Lake Erie is riddled with islands, one of which is Middle Bass Island. It’s a quiet island with summer cottages, two restaurants/bars open only in the summer months, and a state park with a marina. Within the marina is the Middle Bass Island Yacht Club, a quirky sort of place composed of a picnic shelter, portable toilets, and a well-known outdoor, open-to-the-sky shower. This year the state park completed major renovations and the MBIYC has a new, fancier but not extravagant home, still with an outdoor, open-to-the- sky shower that has to be called a fish cleaning station due to code restrictions (figure that one out). Besides the shower, the club can claim to have the best burgee on Lake Erie – three vertical fish on a field of blue with the middle one outlined in red – Middle Bass, right?
Anyway, in the early years of their circumnavigation, Ursula and Eckhardt were traveling through the Great Lakes and stopped at MBIYC for a night. The members there were fascinated with their sailing plans and gave them one of their burgees to fly during the trip, with the hope it would eventually end up back at the club. Actually, it took more than one burgee as flags seem to disintegrate over time. But, this summer, ten years later, Ursula and Eckhardt showed up at MBIYC with a burgee that is now framed and on display in the new clubhouse along with some pictures of their adventure. They had detoured from their path northward along the Atlantic coast to bring their boat back into the Great Lakes and personally present the well traveled burgee to the club. Apparently, it was quite a celebration. They are now in Tonawanda where they will leave their boat for the winter, heading back home which is now in Austria to prepare for the transition back to a land based life. Come next spring, they intend to sail out the St. Lawrence River and across the north Atlantic, perhaps stopping at Iceland, before reaching their final destination of a harbor in the Baltic.
So, why do we cruise? You get a chance to meet some very interesting people.
