Hanlan’s Point July 2, 2015

We left Port Credit at 10:10. Jim said he and Jola would catch us in route. The trip to Toronto was beautiful. The barometer was high with a sun picture and an up arrow, we had smooth seas, sun and the skyline of Toronto getting closer as we motored on. I think this is the first day we would have been able to sail if we were in Excalibur. It would have been slow, but I know we would have taken this first opportunity to sail.   

Leaving Port Credit with Toronto ahead.

Anyone see Kerry is this one?

We arrived at the West Harbor entrance at 11:20. We did not get settled in our moorings until 1:00. The trip was 11.6 miles. You go right by the Toronto Airport. There are buoys around it to keep you from straying too close.

We arrived first and tied up. Jim came is after us and docked behind us on the wall, so we were stern to stern. We hooked our power up. Jim said that his electric post did not have two 30 amp power plugs that he needed to hook up his adapter. Ours did. So, we decided to move Annie in front of a sailboat and Jim would take our spot. We did that. Then we moved Jim. The power would not work even though the adapter light said it would. So, we decided that he had to plug into Annie again and run his portable battery charger through an extension cord. That meant that we had to go stern to stern. So we pulled Annie up a mooring. Jim untied and motored up in front of the sailboat and we ended up stern to stern, which is how we started about 45 minutes ago! Naturally we had a beer after all of that.

The power cord tie with Liberty

Kerry microwaved hot dogs for lunch. While we were eating two Japanese girls climbed on Annie to take pictures of themselves – totally uninvited. I told Kerry it was a good thing they were cute little girls, so they got away with it. That was rude!

Looks like there is no wifi on this island. Bummer! It will be a long 3 days without it. I will type the blog into Word to stay caught up. In the States I could use my phone to post.

I have been remiss in not mentioning Folex. It is the one thing we use the most. It is a carpet cleaner/spot remover from Lowes. It works really well, fortunately. We use it daily to remove food drippings from our clothes, etc. Yesterday I removed bicycle chain grease from my yellow “Canada Eh!” shirt and chocolate pudding from the towel covering our seats. Today it was a spill on the pants. We could not cruise without it!

We enjoyed a nice bike ride in the afternoon. We made several stops to take in all the amenities of the island. The back gate to the Royal Canadian Yacht Club was closed as we knew it would be, but it was still fun to see all the yachts in their docks. Then it was time cocktails.

When we pulled in this morning, the boaters behind us said they were trying to save space for a friend coming later. We pulled our boats up to make sure they had space. Their friend arrived during our cocktail hour. It was a big boat and Jim said it would probably need 50 amp power. We never thought it would fit in the space allotted, but the skipper did a magnificent job and squeezed right in. A bit later I noticed he was plugged in to the same plugs that did not work for Jim. So, I walked down to compliment him on a super job of seamanship with his docking, and ask if he had power. He did. Jim came down then and we said he could not get power.

These fellows were so nice. They came down with a power meter and diagnosed Jim’s problem. It was not a problem with the power at the dock. It turns out that the problem all along has been that a circuit breaker in Jim’s galvanic isolator transformer had tripped. Once it was reset Jim had power! His adaptor worked. While he is bummed that he did not figure it out himself, the rest of us are just pleased that the power issue is behind us for the remainder of the cruise. Yes! It now appears that we can stay here of our three nights in Toronto. One day we will take the ferry to the city. The other day we will just chill and enjoy Toronto Island.

We grilled out tonight, hamburgers and veggie burgers. Also, we cooked spiced zucchini and potatoes on the grill. Because the wind was behind us, we moved the grill to the side of our boat so the smoke would not blow into Annie. Everything was really good, but it did get a bit overdone because we waited to serve until the mystery of Jim’s power problem was solved.

The ducks showed up again this year to beg at the picnic tables. They must have remembered us from 2011. The little beggars did pretty good again this year.

After dinner I decided to enjoy my first cigar of the trip. I sat out for awhile then decided to walk to the beach to see the sun set. As luck would have it, I entered the beach right where the clothing optional/clothing required split occurred.

Offshore, there was a sailboat race finishing in very light winds. The boats were ghosting along. In the interest of science I had to explore both beaches. There was a nice mixture of the sexes on both beaches, and 85% or so were fully clothed. I do not quite understand why many of the folks taking advantage of the optional clothing felt the need to wear hats. I did understand why many of the sailboats were dropping out of the race. In any case, with the setting sun shining on the city of Toronto, it was a beautiful scene.

Jola invited us over for hot tea and cookies before bed time. Kerry was fascinated by the landing aircraft going by so low in front of Toronto, and made us look at a lot more than we wanted. Stayed up until 10:30, much past my normal time.