Month: February 2020

The road trip to Florida helped me to talk out my plans, and I think I have things settled.

2020 will be broadly a repeat of last summer, sailing Tin Lizzie around the lakes. I think I’ll start in Sarnia or Lake St Clair, and do the GLSS race to Mac in late June, noodle around North Channel and Georgian Bay for a few weeks, then likely come down to race in the GLSS Trans Erie in early August.

After chatting about it with Samantha and Sarah I still wasn’t super excited about this until I went back and watched my videos from last summer. That got me energized. I’m really lucky to have these opportunities, and I’m planning my spring and summer around this.

My winter dockage is up late April, so I’ll most likely head up to Lake Erie then and see if I can find a parking spot for Mazurka for the summer somewhere in Lake Huron. I’ve been thinking of selling Mazurka, but I still want to do all the inland rivers. Will think about heading south from Chicago in the fall on Mazurka.

Got back a few days ago from a week of biking in Florida with Samantha and Sarah. It was very therapeutic.

I should note that I haven’t had a cigarette since our first annual trip this time last year. I haven’t kicked nicotine, but have changed delivery methods. I’m now a happy habitual vaper. I feel much better :-). I’m especially happy to be not leaving a trail of butts behind. That actually was the worst part. Filthy disgusting habit, smoking.

Anyway, moving on… Mazurka has been warm, secure and comfortable. I have a 750w ceramic heater in the ER, and 3 1500w heaters in the cabin. An electric matress pad makes the forward berth comfie. But we’ve had a mild winter. Tonight is as cold as it’s been yet, with an expected low of -14. There’s no ice, and the bubblers are keeping wide areas open. Think I’m going to survive the winter nicely.

I took the above picture a couple of weeks ago while strolling the boardwalk that’s between me and the city. Music Garden Park is lovely even in the winter. Maybe especially in the winter, as it’s largely empty except for a few friendly dog walkers.

The only other boat related news is on my bubblers. I bought two new 3/4 hp Taylor Made de-icers in the fall. I had spec’d out Kasco, but as usual put it off and bought these thinking they were equivalent. Not cheap kit, about US$550 each.

They both failed within a couple of weeks of each other after about a month in the water. I hadn’t been using them much, just on a couple of cold days. Both started getting ground faults.

I called Taylor Made, got referred to their service provider on Long Island, shipped them there and got one back yesterday. It’s labeled as a 1 hp, and is working now. The other one is now waiting for me in Guelph. Think I’ll leave it in the box. A brief internet search turned up similar stories, and the service guy didn’t have anything nice to say about them. They swapped out essentially the whole unit. It seems I made a bad purchase decision. Live and learn.