Manna-Fish

After an overnight stop in Pennsylvania, we continued on in the morning and made it as far as Lorain, Ohio that night.  We anchored right inside the harbor with a lovely view of the Lorain Harbor Lighthouse. We found it funny that the river there where we had anchored was named the Black River because that is the name of the main river back in our hometown. We enjoyed an incredible sunset that evening and as dusk fell upon us, the lighthouse illuminated and starting changing colors every few minutes. It was a nice backdrop for us and we stayed for a few nights to catch up on some work that week.

The first night that we were there, a fisherman came in from being out on the lake and passed by our boat on his way. He asked us if we wanted some fresh Walleye. Since our dinghy was not working and we had no way of getting to shore to get more groceries at the moment, we of course accepted! The man tossed us a nice sized Walleye onto the boat and then bid us ado, and went on his way. How nice! It honestly reminded me of my Grandpa Dow who was an avid fisherman and was always going around fishing, picking apples or blueberries, and giving away most of his bounty to other people. Dustin fileted the fish on our back transom so that he could easily spray down the mess afterwards. We cooked up the fish that night and it was absolutely delicious!

The next afternoon while I was doing my work out on top of the boat, this same fisherman came by and asked how the fish was and asked us if we wanted another one.  Of course we said yes, so he tossed us another fish. We learned that this man’s name was Larry and we started jokingly calling the free fish “Manna-fish” because it seemed to be sent to us from God and falling from the sky when we needed it most! 😊 Now every time we see Walleye on a menu, we think of this man fondly and of course, will continue calling it Manna-fish.

Just before we set out from Lorain, Dustin was working on the dinghy motor, trying to get it to start, and to add fuel to the fire, the pull cord snapped in half. It was at this point we decided we had better start searching for a new dinghy motor. Ours was a 1989 Mercury 15hp and had been such a reliable motor for us. It was kind of sad to see it go! We weren’t super concerned about it because we had already made plans to spend the 4^th of July holiday in Put-In-Bay, Ohio and the mooring field there offers a water taxi to and from shore, so we wouldn’t need the dinghy for a bit yet anyway.

We left Lorain and passed by Cedar Point amusement park on our way to Put-In-Bay. If you have never heard of Cedar Point, it is a massive amusement park situated right on its own peninsula on Lake Erie. It looked otherworldly from the water, with all of the roller coasters and thrill rides jutting out of the earth. We have both been there many times, but it was fun seeing it from the water like this! Again, if we would’ve had more time, we definitely would’ve stopped here for a night and gone to the park!