Tonawanda

The threat of rain and thunderstorms got us going this morning. We took down the sails although it was a bit windy, it was dry. Removing the sails went quickly with three people. We started out to try to get to Tonawanda early in the hope of being demasted today. Without sails, motoring was our only option, but it would have been a decent sailing morning. Things went very bad went we missed the entrance to the Black Rock Canal that bypasses a bad part at the start of the Niagara River. We ended up going under the wrong part of the Peace Bridge. The next bridge was clearly too low for the mast and we turned to go back. But the current was so strong, we spent close to an hour going almost nowhere. Just before we were going to call for help, a US Coast Guard boat showed up and asked if we were OK. We said that we needed a tow and they obliged. It took them quite a while to pull us back to Lake Erie, close to a half hour. We then motored to the Black Rock Canal and went through a draw bridge for auto traffic, a railroad bridge and a lock. A storm was closing in as we entered the lock but we had to deal with the lock so we couldn't prepare for the storm. There was thunder, lightning, cherry sized hail and a deluge of rain. We got soaked without having our rain gear on. It rained pretty much the rest of the way to Tonawanda where we docked against a wall across from where we were to be demasted.

Approaching Peace Bridge from the wrong coarse.

An indication of the river current. Google told me that this part of the river is typically 5 MPH. The boat can do at most 6.

Closer view of the approach. We should have been under the high part on the right, but there is a sea wall between the fast part and slow part.

The point of no return. We've crossed under the Pease Bridge.

Looking back at the Pease Bridge from the bad spot.

The US Coast Guard boat the saved us.

The bow wave created by being towed by a boat with power.

Wake created by being towed by a boat with power.

Back to safety. This is an entry marker into the Buffalo harbor.

Buffalo skyline.

After passing under the Peace Bridge on the correct coarse. Notice the sea wall on the right separating the channel from the Niagara River.

Another view of the sea wall and the other side. The Niagara River was flowing much faster than the channel.

The Ferry Bridge.

The Ferry Bridge closing.

The Canadian National Railroad Bridge. It is a swing bridge.

The swing bridge closing.

There is a lock right after the swing bridge. This is what keeps the flow of the channel lower than the flow of the Niagara River. It was about an 8 foot drop.

The I-190 bridge to Grand Island.

View of Wardell's demasting facility from our docking position.

Docked on a sea wall with no facilities. The demasting facility is off the picture on the right.

Our boat docked across from the demasting facility.

We walked a Mooney's restaurant that is a chain that features mac and cheese. We had a beef mac and cheese with peppers that was very good. We also had wings. The BBQ Gold and Hot. The BBQ Gold were tasty, the Hot were more like medium. We had a local beer, Hayburner by /Big Ditch Brewing that is a very popular hazy NE IPA. I also had a Pineapple Upsidedown Cake IPA by Ellicottville Brewing that is also a fruity IPA that tasted of hints of pineapple but no bitterness. It was OK.

The place we stayed had no facilities. We docked on a wall across the channel from the demasting facility, Wardell's.