Belleville ON July 7, 2015

Jim and I were up first, probably about 6:15. I invited myself over for coffee. I had been listening to Fox News on the XM radio. I turned it on at 5:00, although I thought it was 6:00, and that I was actually sleeping in. Jola was up shortly afterwards, and Kerry was awake when I went back to Annie to refill my coffee. She made a cup of tea and the four of us sat out and enjoyed the morning.

My transmission went into gear properly today. Checking it is now on my pre-flight checklist. We followed a Ontario Research ship out of the harbor, and were surprised to find fog.

The fog got really thick so for the first time this voyage I turned on the radar. The air was so wet that you could see clouds of mist streaming by the windows. My hailer has a fog horn built into it. I tried to get it to blow, but was not able to do so. The public address function seemed to work so I will have to investigate this further. Wearing polarized sunglasses cut the glare and improved visibility a bit.

I was not able to reach Jim on the radio, so I called him on the phone to tell him about the fog. He was just leaving the harbor, about 45 minutes after we left. I tried him again on the radio and again no response. He said he could not hear me calling, even though we were only 5 miles apart. We pretty much have determined that Jim's antenna is the problem with his reception, as it is a stubby little thing intended for just coastal cruising. He called shortly later on the radio and said his volume was too low and he just could not hear the transmission. Still, his range is really short and I have been encouraging him to get a better antenna. Sometime one of us could need help and the failure to communicate could be a problem.

My radar worked really well now that I have learned to adjust the gain. Last year I left it on auto and I could not "see" boats near me. Today, I saw a tiny little fishing boat ahead of me. I slowed down and sounded the horn until he came into view less than 50 yards to our side. They waved as we went by.

The skies were clear as we entered the Bay of Quinte. We had a very pleasant journey into the Bay and through the Murray Canal.

As you pass one of two bridges, the bridge tender sticks out a basket for the toll, which is $5.

The weather forecast is not good - rain and thunderstorms, some severe. Winds up to 50 kilometers. While that's only 30 knots, it still sounds frightening. First they were to be southwest, then northeast. We could not find any anchorages that suited both conditions, so we decided to pull into Belleville Ontario, which was what our original schedule called for. Neither of us has anchored our new boats in high winds and this did not seem to be the situation to try it.

Kerry is so good about keeping Annie clean. Here I see her mopping the upper deck as I am returning from registering at the marina office. 

We started walking into town, but it was too far, so we returned. Kerry did laundry and Jola rested her swollen ankle (she fill into the bilge at Hanlan's Point). Jim and I got bikes from the marina and rode into town to see the sights. Dinner is on our own boats tonight, and we are off to Picton tomorrow, for two nights. So far no rain and the winds have diminished a bit, but it is getting very ominous looking now.

I have started growing a beard, my standard little white captain's cruising beard. The princess just said that the captain with the little white beard has to make dinner tonight. Bye!

Port Cobourg July 6, 2015

Finally I have the internet again. I just finished posting 4 days of blog updates. It's a relief to have that done. I had to stop at 4 different locations in the marina to find one that would work well enough to upload pictures. I was afraid I was going to have to search out a library.

Not much planned for today. I think we will get the bikes out and do a little shopping. There is a marine store here, a hardware store, plus a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot. We will be launching Jim's dingy soon and I have offered to tow it around because we go slower. I want to get a floating line so that I do not suck the tow rope into my prop or stern thruster.

Jim smiled at the thought of my stern thruster being inoperative. He does not have one and I tease him about it constantly. Truth be told, it makes a HUGE difference in how easy it is to maneuver a boat while docking.

Kerry was up when I returned from blogging and a little walk downtown. She was up to going shopping. We borrowed 2 bikes from the marina.

We were lucky they had baskets cause we set sail for Canadian Tire (my favorite store) and Walmart. I found a polypropylene rope and float I can use to tow Jim’s dingy and the cutest little slider cooker for the grill at Canadian Tire.

 Kerry found her tea pot (finally), a salad bowl, a feather duster and some coffee cups that matched 2 we had on the boat. A boater in Port Colborne told us that a feather duster was the best thing to get midges off the boat without squishing them. It’s great to spend $76.76 at Walmart then get an email from Capital One stating that we just made a $61.24 international charge.

We had fish and chips for lunch at Stanley’s Fish and Grill. It was very good, but not excellent like the lunch at Toronto Island Marina. Jim and Jola went to the Buttermilk Café for breakfast and are now off getting ice cream. His power mysteries continue. The breaker in his isolation transformer continues to pop and today his bilge pump breaker was tripped.

I put Captain Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure around the glass on the front hatch this afternoon. I saw some in the marine store and took a picture for the blog. We have not had rain for over a week, since Port Dalhousie, so I don’t know if my leak problems are over or not.

There is a really nice beach here, just steps away from the marina. I walked over this afternoon and enjoyed it for awhile.

Tomorrow we are going to an anchorage.  We probably have the most challenging day of navigation so far. We go through the Murray Canal, through the Telegraph Narrows, and other areas where we need to pay attention. The autopilots will not be used much tomorrow. We are having dinner on our own boats tonight, then having tea on Annie after dinner. Kerry gets to use her new tea pot.

Port Cobourg July 5, 2015

We left the dock at 5:55 this morning. My coffee was not even finished perking. I woke up early and thought we might as well get moving. One minor scare – we cast off the dock lines but the transmission would not engage. It’s electronic and wasn’t working. We were drifting slowly away from the dock. I flipped the circuit breakers a couple of times and finally the little green light came on. You can bet I don’t cast off the dock until I see that light from now on!

Kerry got up when she heard the engine start. I was just going to let her sleep as Jim was there to help me leave. She had stayed up late working on her VYC project. After awhile she brought lunch up. It was only 9:00 AM. She figured that it must be noon as she had been up three hours. We had a good laugh about that.

The trip to Port Cobourg was 60 miles. We arrived at 1:00 and had an average speed of 8.5 knots. We bought 155 liters of fuel, less than 40 gallons. We did not really need to refuel, but I have decided to keep the tank topped when fuel is available easily to avoid any future problems.

The seas were really flat again. We have not traveled in any large seas or waves at all. Of course we did sit out a day in Geneva and also in Port Dalhousie when we decided not to travel. At one point the sea and sky appeared to be the same color, as if they had merged.

Jim left about 2 1/2 hours after us and beat us to Cobourg by about 1/2 hour. Here his Liberty zooming by Annie 8 miles from Cobourg.

This is a nice marina, but they put us on a dock that has been inhabited by birds for some time. It took us at least 25 minutes to clean the dock of droppings. I did comment to the staff that they could have been kinder to us in their dock assignments as other clean docks were available.

Dinner tonight is at the Oasis restaurant, highly recommended by some Canadian friends. The menu looked a little pricey when we stopped by, but once we figure the 19% discount, prices get back to the States level.

I hope to get the blog caught up, but the internet is slow and spotty where we are. I may have to use it at the marina office tomorrow. I am 4 days behind now.

It turns out that you needed reservations to eat on the patio at Oasis on Sunday, which was the recommended location. I was bummed we did not have them because we were there earlier in the day checking out the menu and could have made them. They offered us a table upstairs. I did not like the room so we opted to leave. Jim and Jola stayed which was nice, as we both got to have a couple’s dinner. We ended up eating in an Italian restaurant, Marca on the Wharf, which was very nice.

We did make another schedule change. When we leave here, instead of staying at Bellville we will anchor somewhere in the Bay of Quinte. We will be here one more night.

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.

Hanlan’s Point, Toronto July 3, 2015

It’s a beautiful morning in Toronto. I was up at 6:00 AM and showered shortly afterwards. After coffee and little powered white donuts (my favorite cruising breakfast) I took a walk on the beach. Jimbo came walking down the beach from the other end. So, the only two people on the beach optioned for clothing – thankfully!

I took a nice long bike ride around the island. The ferries had not started to run so there were no tourists to avoid on the bike. I stopped at Toronto Island Marina and was able to buy some additional propane containers for my grill. It is really a picturesque little island with lots of little waterways.  I took a couple of pictures of Annie from various positions on the island.

When I returned from my ride about 10:00 Kerry was just getting up. She and Jola made us a lovely blueberry pancake breakfast on the picnic table near the boats. We used our electric skillet we brought to fry fish – so the fish smell would be outside. The Princess and Duchess decided they wanted to go to Toronto tomorrow rather than today.

We did a bike ride after breakfast. Our destination was the Toronto Island Marina. The ladies wanted to visit the Marina store. I warned them that there was not much in the store, and they concurred once we were there. But they did have a nice patio bar and grill. Jim bought us a pitcher of beer which we enjoyed while sitting in the warm sun. We rode around Center Island which was fun. It’s like a mini Cedar Point, really fun for kids and families.

Dinner was hot Italian sausage with peppers and onions and baked potatoes cooked on the grill. Kerry made sweet corn in the microwave. I dropped my grilling tongs in the water by accident. Jola spotted them on the bottom. Thank goodness the water here is so clear. I was able to retrieve them with my mighty magnet I have for just such occasions. They are part of a grilling set Anne gave me so I was really happy to retrieve them. We made a bon fire afterwards. The begging ducks showed up again and for a short while we contemplated roast duck.

   

Jola had some mini marshmallows and toasted them for us. It has been a while since I had toasted marshmallows and I must admit they tasted really good. The crew on the boat next to us also made a fire. Their fire was huge. We are so glad we have an east wind which is blowing the smoke away from Annie.

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.

Port Credit July 1, 2015

It's Canada Day! The sun popped out about 9:00 after some nasty looking clouds went by. I cut my morning walk short because it appeared I was going to get dumped on. The bakery was not open when I stopped there. I had hoped to surprise Kerry with a treat. Everyone must not have money here, because I saw a chap taking cans out of the recycle can to put in his personal recycle bag.

Jim had his hose out so I filled our water tank. We had 63 gallons left, out of 120. If the good weather holds I hope to do a bike ride along the lakeside sometime after the parade. Our expenses are running $138 per day so far. Kerry says that's too high and we need to cut back. We don't keep track on a daily basis at home so its hard to relate that number to anything other than her budget. I think on Excalibur we use to spend $120 or so on our big trips, although the last one was in 2011. Once we start anchoring more, costs will go down.

The parade was pretty nice. We thought it started at 10:00 so we got great seats at 9:35. It actually started at 11:00 so we were plenty early.

The parade lasted a little over 1 hour. Everyone was in their Canada Day finest and it was a pretty festive event. Even this American got in the mood with my "Canada EH!" shirt.

There was a 1958 Pontiac convertible in the parade. I had one of those! It was fun to see one again. Mine was sunrise coral, or pink. A couple parade pictures follow.

We did get to go for a bike ride this afternoon. There is a very nice paved bike/ walk path that goes by the lake. They had two warning signs that seemed unusual to this biker.

After our ride we sat out and listened to one of the many bands playing. At one point we could hear three. We felt like real power boaters with our chairs on the dock. But, Jim and I noticed that we were the only power boaters that headed into the dock. Every other boat is backed in. Hmmm?  

Fireworks are at 10:00 tonight. We hope we can make it! Kerry is making a delicious looking tuna fish casserole for us for dinner, and we will be joined by the Karpinski's. Jim called it a cracked pot casserole because Kerry's favorite baking dish cracked in half. Who knows why? We were able to salvage the dinner.

We made it to fireworks, and they were pretty good. 

I am a bit surprised that we have not been inspected by the Border Patrol yet, but I suspect that will happen tomorrow when we get to Toronto. I don't know if wifi will be available on a regular or any basis for the next few days as we go to Hanlans Point on Toronto Island.