Run east to Cleveland

Thursday, June 13 -- Vermilion to east side of Cleveland (East 55th Street Marina) -- 39 miles

This was an exciting day because Lee and Scott (Janet's sister and her husband) finally got to see the boat. They drove to VYC in the morning (after first picking us up at the Enterprise rent-a-car dealer in Amherst) and got a full tour, but unfortunately couldn't take a ride.

The other fun thing this morning was that we got to meet Amy Backus, who is the Commodore at VYC, but more importantly, was a friend of John and his sister Ki when they were kids at VYC. Amy and her family lived in the Vermilion Lagoons, so they were full-timers, and all of her sisters still live in Vermilion (Amy is in Connecticut but visits regularly and keeps a sailboat here). It was remarkably easy to reconnect with a friend from over fifty years ago. Here's a picture of a portion of the gallery of past commodores of VYC that's in the clubhouse. Amy's Dad and John's Dad are next to each other in the top row.

After Lee and Scott left we spent a lot of time studying weather forecasts and planning our next steps. Lake Erie was really rough in the morning (3-4 footers), but was predicted to calm down during the afternoon before kicking up again on Sunday. (Lake Erie is notorious for quickly getting rough and then calming again because it is relatively small and shallow.) We needed to be in Erie, PA on Friday for Andrea and Larry (Janet's other sister and her husband) to visit on Saturday. The run to Erie would be almost 140 miles. We decided to wait till late afternoon to give the lake time to calm a bit, then run east for a few hours so that the run on Friday wouldn't be as long. After making a reservation at the Cleveland Metroparks East 55th Street Marina, we filled up at the VYC fuel dock and were underway at 3:15. The lake was still a bit sloppy, but very manageable (although bad enough that Janet stayed in the cabin while John was at the helm on the flybridge). We ran close along the shore all the way, which was great fun because we both grew up in this area, and as a result there are lots and lots of pictures (which those with no interest in Cleveland and its western suburbs are free to skip).

Lorain is about ten miles east of Vermilion. It was a serious industrial town back in the day, with a big US Steel plant and a major shipyard (American Shipbuilding, which was owned by the Steinbrenners). Freighters used to navigate the Black River to service these plants. In this photo you can see the twin towers of the railroad lift bridge to the right of the lighthouse and then the top of the USS blast furnace (which I think has been idled, although other parts of the mill are still running) to the right of that.

About eight miles past Lorain is the old coal-fired power plant at Avon Point, which was decommissioned a couple years ago but is still a major navigational landmark.

A couple miles past the power plant is Avon Point itself, and as you round the point you can see the Cleveland skyline fifteen miles to the east.

The shoreline all along the west side of Cleveland is comprised of shale cliffs, with only occasional pockets of sand. The shale is subject to slow erosion and makes for some very interesting architectural efforts to support McMansions and to offer access to the lake.

Many of the older homes manage the problem by staying far enough back from the edge of the cliff and using creative ladder schemes to get to the lake.

Here is the decorative watch tower and beach house at Huntington Park in Bay Village. Lee and Scott came down to watch us cruise by and took some pictures of us underway.

More big homes west of Huntington Park with different approaches to managing the lake front.

This place under construction in Rocky River is spending some serious money before the house is even started.

This big condo building is where Janet's grandparents had their last home. The town houses to the left came long after her grandparents left in the early 90s. This was probably the biggest residential building in Rocky River when it was built in the late 70s or early 80s.

The tiny beach with stairs leading down to it from a stone arch entrance at the top is at the end of Wagar Road in Rocky River. It is within walking distance of both John's and Janet's houses growing up. It was a popular site for underage drinking, smoking and other teenage shenanigans.

Rocky River Park was another favorite hangout, but also for more wholesome activities like ice skating, pickup football games and seaweed fights.

John knew the guys who lived in these two houses. There used to be a narrow beach at the base of this cliff that was a popular spot for beer parties. Don't know when they had to shore up the cliff like this, but there is a street between the cliff and the houses and the city might have been worried about the street collapsing into the lake.

The mouth of the Rocky River is rather dramatic with the big shale cliff on the west side and a pier sticking out from the low bank on the east side. The Cleveland Yacht Club is on an island in the middle of the river before you get to the high level bridge for US route 6. That bridge was about fifty years ago.

Downtown Cleveland is about eight miles east of the mouth of the Rocky River. This picture shows the city skyline from about halfway along.

We entered the main harbor at Cleveland to take a look around. The Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse marks the entrance. The mouth of the Cuyahoga River is to the right. We didn't try to go up the Cuyahoga (tempting at it was given all the old industry up there) given the late hour and the fact that we would have to wait for the railroad bridge to lift.

We saw a thousand-footer docked on the lakefront side of Whiskey Island at what looked to be an iron ore terminal. The Cuyahoga River is too winding and narrow for these big ore boats to navigate, so the blast furnaces that are still working on the river get their ore transshipped by smaller boats. They used to do this transshipment at Lorain, but it looks like they have moved this to Whiskey Island, which is right at the mouth of the Cuyahoga.

We saw a Dutch ship (the Fludaborg) loading or unloading at the terminal just west of the football stadium and a cruise ship (the Ocean Voyager) heading out of the harbor.