Smoke on the water
				7-01-99: This weekend ROCKED !! The Sarnia, Ontario “Canada Day” fireworks on the water was excellent as usual! The weather caused it to be held on Friday instead of Thursday and it was a perfect night for it. The power boater meatheads that never anchor out, so cause headaches to those of us that know how to anchor, were to a minimum at the end of the bay I was at. I’ve learned over the years to stay on the outside in the deeper water and the odds of a trailer boat drifting into you are much less.
	A lot of weekend warriors use the “2 foot more anchor line than water depth” rule of thumb and can’t understand why they keep bouncing off the sailboats that don’t seem to move in the water. After a huge heart clogging load of KFC chicken, the show started right on schedule. The sound echoing off of down town’s buildings adds to the spectacle as well as the reflections on the water. Afterwards we relaxed and watched the powerboats all race to the Black River and pack like sardines in a full contact battle to get under the draw bridges as quickly as possible. I’ve yet to understand why so many stink boaters are willing to run people down to keep from having to stay on the water any longer than they absolutely have to. If your in that much of a hurry, get a car! Saturday was a Hot, sweltering day. Cap’t Tony and Jan came up and docked at the club for the weekend with his recently acquired Sea Ray, for his first overnighter on his own boat. Several other guests rolled in and fun was had by all. After a great steak diner we slide out for a fantastic night sail. The shoreline was alive with bootleg fireworks, making a great backdrop to a lively 10 mile sail out into the lake and back with a boatload of people happy to feel the cool air off of the lake. We got back to dock at 1:30am and spent an hour and a half winding down over cocktails before closing it up for the night. It was a hot humid night. in the upper 80s all night. The air-conditioning was working hard all night but did the job! Two weekends away from “boat night” and the “Mac” race. The largest freshwater sailboat race in the world! Pulling in America Cup class boats from all over the world. I’ll be doing a picture page of that weekend hopefully. Three weekends away from a 3 week adventure up the coast in a singlehanded caper that should be a high point of the year in craziness. C. K.bowrider will be teaming up with me on the first week if he can break away from work long enough, but after that I’ll be on my own unless someone wants to hang out and pillage the coast with me along the way. Ahhh, life is good!!!