Kingston ON July 11, 2015

I have this barometer, atomic clock, temperature contraption on my dash. We knocked it over yesterday while cleaning and it punished me by an alarm going off at 6:00 AM. If that was not enough, it came back on at 6:10 because I must have hit the snooze alarm instead of the off button. So, I was up.

Kerry made us a nice breakfast of eggs and hominy. We set a goal to shove off at 8:00, and at 8:05 we were steaming out of the harbor. We had no weeds, just lots of mud on the chain. Thank goodness we have a wash down pump. Jim said he had a big ball of weeds and mud on his anchor. He got to use his machete and it did the job for him.

The trip to Kingston was pretty and uneventful except when we got rolled by the big powerboat. When it first hit I ran to the salon to save Kerry’s plant. Then all of my navigation books, binoculars, coffee cup, etc., phone hit the floor in the pilot house.

Kerry's aloe plant.

We arrived at 11:00. The trip was 21 miles at an average speed of 7.9 knots. We stopped in Portsmouth Olympic Harbor to buy fuel. It was only $1.21 per liter there while is was $1.52 in Picton. Glad we waited! I am averaging around 3 gallons per hour of usage, which includes the generator usage. On the way we passed some alternate anchorages we considered. Kerr Bay had 10 sailboats in it, Stella Bay had 6. Jim and I were the only ones in the Prinyer Cove last night.

On the trip over I was again reminded how much better the chart program on my phone is that the expensive chart program on my Garmin Chartplotter. The Garmin chart has the features but nothing is identified, whereas the $15 phone app from Navionics has more detail and everything is identified. For the record, the Navionics app is called US and Canada.

The Buskars Festival (street performers) is going on now.

We walked downtown and watched a few performances and had lunch at Chez Piggy, which was always our friend Gretchen Myers favorite place.  Look closely and you will see the first evidence of my new beard!

Jim stopped at the marine store and bought a new antenna! It is installed and he is hoping for much better performance. If you look closely you can see the old black stubby one and the new longer stainless steel whip antenna.

We will be in Kingston for 4 nights. After that there is no schedule except to spend 14 nights in the Thousand islands which will be great. Jim and I will review possible anchorages before we depart, as well as inflate his dingy.

I am having a problem with power usage on Annie. She burns up about 90 amps of battery power overnight. I can’t believe how much she sucks the batteries down. The refrigerator/freezer uses about 4 per hour. I have not determined what else is going on. I have to leave the inverter on to run Kerry’s Cpap machine so I suspect the issue is somewhere with that. Even when I shut all the switches off I was using 1.8 amps. More investigation to be done. It is a good thing I have a generator. I think it is going to be very busy over the next two weeks.

Cocktails were on Annie's upper deck. Kerry brought dipping oils and Jola brought fresh bread. Taco salads were for dinner, one of Kerry's specialties. We got invited too late to a big party on the dock. the fellow next to us was cooking chicken, lobster, potatoes and salmon on his grill which was about 4 feet from Annie's bow. Boy did it smell good. We closed our starboard to stop the smoke and smells from entering.

Jola and Kerry smiling in Kingston Harbor

After dinner we went to town to watch some of the Buskar festivities. We walked about 5 blocks to see the fire show that started at 10:00. It was so crowded and hard to see that we did  not stay too long. Jim and I stopped at a local pub to polish off a pint before we turned in.