Tuesday 6/4/24 - Geneva On The Lake to Presque Isle PA
We were pleasantly surprised to wake up and find that the fog that was encapsulating us all day and into the night yesterday had finally lifted. The sun shown again providing us a nice sunrise.
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| Here comes the sun And I say It’s alright |
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| Strategic towel placement help keep the sun out of our eyes |
The temperatures warmed quickly and by 10am or so it was well into the upper seventies. Renee took advantage of the temps and sunshine by heading out to the bow to lay out (Erik was strongly cautioned that no pics were allowed….at least to make it into the blog!). With the music playing out onto the front via a new Pandora station (Eagles, Beach Boys and Keith Urban) Erik followed suit and also went out to lay out after sun blocking up well; may have even taken a short nap out there. The lake conditions got progressively smoother as we got closer to our destination. By the time we were making our entrance into Presque Isle there were virtually no waves.
It’s a Wonderful World
As we entered into Presque Isle we made a stop in at Lamp Marina to fill up our tanks…ouch $$$$
We then made a run over to the opposite side of the bay to check out the Presque Isle State Park and scope out where there might be a good boaters beach for later in the week/weekend when the kids and grandkids come to visit. Bach across the bay we pulled into Presque Isle Yacht Club at 2:30pm. We were greeted by the Vice Commodore, Tracy, who was very friendly helping us to tie up and showing us around the club. The docks, grounds and facilities were very nicely appointed and taken care of. Our slip assignment was all the way in toward land and immediately adjacent to a small fenced in dog run; yay for Riva!
A quick, small, late lunch was followed by us taking Riva for what started out as a short explorative bike ride. We rode up into town a little over a mile to check out the location of the AirBNB that we have reserved for Thursday-Monday coming up to house all of our guests. From there we decided to make the ride out to one of several Presque Isle State Park beaches to attend a 6pm beach AA meeting. It was a nice 6+ mile ride and we arrived just as the meeting was getting started. There were about 25 people all gathered around in a circle in their beach chairs; we had not brought ours. Fortunately one guy had a wagon full of beach blankets to share. Beach meetings are always a nice twist and fun even if we did have some challenge's hearing what people were sharing. By the time we made the 6+ mile ride back to the boat it was nearly 8pm and we all three were exhausted. We cooked up some brats on the grill, ate, drank our nighttime coffee and fairly quickly retired. It was a nice first day of cruising and exploring a new to us town.
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| Bahahaha |
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| After a long day Riva was ready for bed Or REHAB |
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| Bringing in a new day |
Erik awoke at his usual dark thirty and walked the grounds of the club until yet another pretty sunrise. He took a few minutes to add a second coat of teak oil to the bow pulpit and flag pole which were the two pieces of wood on the boat that we had not had the chance to remove and refinish over the winter…they are now both looking good! Shortly after sunrise rain moved into the area and stayed around all morning and into the early afternoon. We utilized the time to do a few small boat chores, laundry in the clubhouse (FREE laundry…score!), relax a little and nap. At around 2pm the skies cleared so we set out to head to the store for a few items. Renee went into Walmart which was about 2.5 miles away while Erik rode on further to NAPA to get a replacement fuel pump for our still non operational generator. Our butts are feeling the effects of all of the riding we have been doing the past few days; but we persevere!
By the time we got back to the marina we were hungry. We whipped up some beer batter with a batter mix we had purchased at the last marina ships store in Geneva. Being non drinkers we were fortunate to have Vice Commodore, Tracy, to have dropped off a can of Busch Light on our bow yesterday…..lol. We had thawed some of the walleye that we caught over Memorial Day weekend with our friend, Tom. The new induction burner we added to the galley worked great for heating the oil to a perfect 350 degrees which browned the fish up perfectly. It was delicious accompanied by some old faithful Glory brand seasoned green beans.
Erik discovered shortly after arriving back at the boat that the new fuel pump has larger diameter female threaded holes for the fittings….ugh. This will require a trip to the store tomorrow to hopefully be able to find what is needed. Tracy stopped by the boat and advised that we first try Kraus Department Store which in actuality is a hardware/everything store with quite a history in the area. It has been here since 1886 and the motto on their website is “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it”. Sounds like quite the place and we look forward to seeing it tomorrow.
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| Would have been nice if the fittings on the old fuel pump had been the same size as the holes on the new one :-( |
After dinner we took a nice long walk out onto the pier and along the shoreline to see what all it had to offer. There are several restaurants, bars, etc. At the end of the pier is the “Bicentennial Tower”, a 187’ tower that is supposed to offer some wonderful views of the Isle. We will have to go up before we leave the area. At the base of the tower was a small snack bar/ice cream stand. We stopped in for our FIRST ice cream of the trip; can you believe that?!?! We shared a single scoop in a bowl of moose tracks….aren’t we healthy! lol. We made it back to the boat just as some very threatening dark clouds started rolling in from the west. We battened down the hatches, tightened and secured lines, and then made our way to our recliners for the remainder of the night to be serenaded by natures thunder and pitter patter of rain onto the decks and roof.
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| Lots of interesting old boats on the Isle This ‘junk’ boat reminded us of our fellow looper friends Kim and Jim who owned and operated a junk boat in California before buying their looping boat |
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| A restored 1838 sailing vessel does daytime and sunset cruises off of the end of the tower pier One of the crew members chatted with us and told us some of the history of the vessel |
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| Bicentennial Tower |
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| The old historic 1838 sailing vessel at the end of the Bicentennial Tower pier, a sternwheeler out for a cruise, and you can hardly see them in this pic but there was a large regatta of small sail boats out on the bay |
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| Another historic sailing vessel docked at and being worked on at the Presque Isle Maritime Museum We plan to go to the museum in the next couple days to learn more about the rich history of the area |
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