Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Chantry Island to Goderich Windfarms Today we stopped washing our dishes in lake water. Even with our system of bio-degradable Dawn dish detergent and bleach, the smell of fertilizer on the lake has compelled us to rethink our use of fresh water. Just north of the Bruce Nuclear Plant we sighted the first of what would be very many windmills on shore (wind farms). When we came upon the first few I was surprised they were not noted on the charts as an aid to navigation, but as the true number of them became known I could see why not. In the dark they flashed red and gave the look of an unending string of Christmas lights to the shore-line. It was 2230 hours when we reached Goderich harbour. Even though we were very familiar with the harbour, we had a difficult time finding the lights marking the breakwalls amidst all the ones on shore. Once through the breakwalls we encountered a freighter on the wall in the harbour channel (at the salt mine). It had it's loading conveyor off to the side of the boat, which almost entirely blocked the harbour entrance. We skimmed along the far pier and our mast just fit through beside the conveyor. After a long day on the water, we closed our hatches and put our wood door in to block the noise of the mine's elevator, and called it a night. Note to self - future plotting - it's a whole lot easier to see where you're going in the day light.

No comments: