Hanlan’s Island July 4th, 2015

I choose a special t-shirt for July 4^th. It is my captain’s t-shirt. It looks dressy and I always get lots of comments about it. I explained that I dressed for Independence Day to anyone who remarked about it. Many Canadians came to the boat to wish us a happy July 4^th.

My days start about 4 hours before Kerry’s. I was up at 6 and she was up at 10:00. See, she is a princess. Jim and sat on our picnic table and enjoyed coffee and little white powered donuts. Yum! It’s so quiet, still and beautiful in the morning. It reminded me of being in an anchorage.

We took a long bike ride over to the Toronto Island Marina to look at all the boats and goings on. It is a really interesting marina with boats of all descriptions and shape, but junk and trash is everywhere. We confirmed that the marina restaurant did have their fish and chips today. When we were having beer the other day the fish looked so delicious that I could almost not restrain myself from stealing the dinner from the table next to me. We resolved to have it before we left and it will happen today at lunch.

Yesterday Jola said Jim would not let her use her electric water heater because it drew the batteries down too much. I could not understand this as I do not have this problem. It turns out that since his power is 240 volt, the 110 he uses is supplied by the inverter from the batteries and then the batteries are recharged. On Annie, the inverter recognizes when we are plugged into AC power, and just passes it straight through. Well, we solved this problem over coffee. Jim has a 30 amp to 110 adapter and I have an extension cord. So, if he plugs his adapter into the dock power he can run the extension cord into the boat and Jola can use her electric water heater for tea. Whew. I am back into the extension cord rental business. Hope to pay for a large part of this trip that way!

Jola has a pony tail!

Jim is so interesting to travel with. About 10:30 he determined that his hot water heater was not working. No power getting to it. After about 1 hour of diagnosis, tool borrowing, trying to line up an electrician in the next port, etc., he determined that it was working all the time. Fascinating to watch all the goings and comings on Liberty. I offered Jim equal time in this blog for a rebuttal but he did not accept. He did complete a project which was to put bigger screws in the fixtures that hold his seat.

The only thing I have done here other than relax and chill is clean the algae off my stern thruster and protector bar. It was OK when it was all green, but Jola saw ducks sitting on it and they scraped off some of the algae and the resulting clean area made the rest look bad. Stupid ducks!

It is really beautiful and peaceful on Toronto Island. It is one of our favorite places. Jim and Jola have learned to like it too. Before we arrived, Jim kept asking how long are we staying there? Once here he did not want to move even though I offered to do so if he wished. In fact, we all decided not to go into the city. We did not want to give up our tranquility for the hassle of ferry’s, etc.

The fish was as good as I hoped. Delicious! It batter was very tasty and the fish firm, but flaky. Not the least bit greasy or soggy. Best I have had in a long time.

I have started reading a book and have spent several hours sitting on Annie’s patio deck enjoying the view and the book. It’s called “Screw Everyone – Sleeping My Way to Monogamy”. I heard the author on NPR one morning. She is a standup comedian and was so funny I bought her book.

Tomorrow we head for Cobourg. It’s a great port which reminds me of a mini Kingston. It’s 63 miles or so away so an early start for Annie will be in order. I am sure we will have wifi which we have really missed and will be able to get the blog updated. Salads for dinner tonight. We have still not been inspected by the Border Patrol, which is a real surprise to me.

Kerry worked on several architectural schedules for the VYC renovation She will send them to Susan Lobalzo for inclusion on the plans. I decided to go to bed early.