6/29/18 Friday: Today was our Looper seminar day. We heard presentations about the locks in the TSW, and the route through Georgian Bay and North Channel. I made lots of notes, but I still don’t have an itinerary figured out! The more info and options I have, the harder it is to choose! We visited with lots of old and new friends. I think there were 100 attendees – some Gold Loopers (those who have done the loop once already), some in progress for the first time like us, and some planning and dreaming. It was a fun day. Lunch was included as well as a happy hour in the evening. This has been the only ‘docktail’ time around here. The marina specifically says no alcohol anywhere off the boats, since they are a licensed facility – so we bought our beverages there. Later after dinner, we joined Bru and Sandy on Coconuts for some fun laughs. They are great people! They are on their second time around with no schedule or itinerary – they just make it up as they go. Read more
Month: June 2018
Day 108: Just a little exploration around Trenton
6/28/18 Thursday- When you park yourself in one spot for a week, there isn’t any rush to go out and see everything. But we did get the bikes down for a little tour about town. We’ve been watching more and more looper boats come in, and have visited with a few of them. Scotty down in engineering was talking with Bru from Coconuts about a diesel additive to help keep the injectors clean and maybe even help with smoking. We’ve been trying to convince Island Girl to give up smoking, but she just can’t kick the habit. So mechanic Kenny found a diesel shop here in town that carries Stanadyne, a diesel fuel additive. That was motivation for him to get on a bike. The shop is located near the first lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway (TSW), so we figured we’d wheel on in there too, and buy our lockage pass. A one-way pass through the waterway is $4.65 per foot (length of boat). It would be about a 2 mile bike ride each way, and it was still a little cloudy out. It was supposed to get a little toasty today, so it would be good to get this done before it got too hot.
At the lock, there was a fun wooden sign for distances. It is 388 kilometers (241 miles) to Port Severn – the other end of the TSW.
Days 106,107: Trent Port Marina
6/26/18: We took our time hopping out today. We had about 40 miles to go to get to Trenton. The two big boats weren’t in a big hurry either, but they weren’t going quite as far as us. They were going to stop at Belleville, another surprisingly large town! We rambled out of the cove around 10:00, and just enjoyed a nice cruising day. There wasn’t much exciting along the way. We made our way through the rest of Zorro’s ‘Z’, and through the Bay of Quinte (KWIN-TEE). We cruised right on past Belleville, and waved good-bye to Greek’s Folly and Short Vacation. We’ll see them again in a couple of days.
Here is a map of today’s journey. Backing up to the right, G was Gananoque, on the St Lawrence River where we were yesterday morning. K is Kingston, which we cruised right on past yesterday. The big blue at the bottom is the northeastern corner of Lake Ontario. P at the bottom is Picton, where we stayed last night. The green line was our travel for today. B is Belleville, which we cruised right on past. And T on the left is Trenton, where we are now for a week or so.
Day 105: Plan B to Picton
6/25/18 Monday: I am pretty much a fair weather boater. I don’t mind traveling in the rain, but I don’t like wind or thunderstorms. We plan to be at Trent Port Marina on Thursday, for a seminar that we’re attending on Friday. It is just 90 miles from here. Our whole adventure in the Thousand Islands has been because the weather has been great and we have had lots of time. The weather is still great! Sunny, highs in the mid 70’s, breeze in the 5-10mph range. But the forecast for mid week has been wind, thunder, and rain – and it keeps changing on when and how much. Now it’s calling for rain on Wednesday afternoon, with some thunderstorms in the evening. Travel in the morning would be fine, but we’d want to be at a marina for the night. Chance of rain on Thursday with a little more wind. But nothing that is really bad. So Captain asks – what’s the plan, Sam? When we went to bed last night, it was Plan A for the next 4 days: Gananoque to Mermaid or Beau Rivage Island (3 miles) for a nice calm night on a park dock, then to Prinyers Cove (40 mi) to a marina, then to Picton (16 mi) to a marina, finally to Trenton (41 mi) Marina. I also had a plan B up my sleeve. Read more
Days 103,104: Drizzley days in Gananoque
6/23/18: I know I’ve said it several times, that this area reminds us some of the San Juan Islands, with all the beautiful islands around. In some ways it is nicer for boating, since it is fresh water, there are no tides, and generally just a little current. That makes it easier to put out an anchor, although there is some swirly current in some places. It is odd and it is really weirding us out that the current seems to die down at night. How can that be? Maybe there are locks and dams downriver that adjust the flow at night. Anyway, today REALLY reminds us of the Pacific Northtwest due to the weather….On and off drizzle and gray clouds all day, with temperature in the mid 60’s.
Day 101 part 2: Canada! +Day 102: Camelot Island
6/21/18 Thursday: From Boldt Castle, we tootled across the U.S./Canadian border, and stopped at Rockport to check-in with Canadian Immigration & Customs. We got there about 4:30. This was a whopping 3 mile journey. Rockport is a tiny little town, but our navigation charts showed that it had a Customs office. We found Andress Boat Works, with a long dock that we could tie up to.
The wind was blowing a bit, but Captain pulled right up and the Line Goddess got us hooked, cleated, and tied up in no time. Then I had to quick get back on the boat! Until we are cleared with Customs, nobody is supposed to be off of the boat except the Captain. So he got our little packet of info, with our passports, boat info and so on, and went up to the building. There on the side of the building was a pay phone, with a toll free number to call Customs. Seriously – a pay phone! How long since you’ve seen one of those!? You can call from your cell phone, but they seem to prefer that you call from a known marina location so that if they do decide to send an officer out, your location is readily identifiable. Captain had to be on hold for awhile, but when the officer finally answered, he said that he had an appointment waiting and that this would be quick. He asked for the boat number. Oh. This boat has never been to Ontario? No Sir. OK, this will take a little longer. He asked for all the boat and passport info, did we have any alcohol, liquor, firearms or anything else to declare? No firearms, and just ship stores for personal use on board, nothing to declare. OK – here is your check-in number – post it on your window. TA-DA! All done with Customs. 👍 Read more
Day 101: Boldt Castle – deep love and tragic loss
6/21/18: We got a late start today, but it worked out just fine. We decided to top off our fuel tanks, even though we only needed about 50 gallons. Our total fuel capacity is something like 300 gallons, but we’re going into Canada today, where fuel is more expensive. It’s usually priced by the litre there, so it’s deceiving to see CDN$1.40 on the pump! There are 3.7854 litres to a U.S. gallon, so that price works out to about CDN$5.30/USgal. WOAH! But there is a favorable exchange rate of about 75%, so that gets it down to just under US$4.00/gal. Still not a fantabulous price. Anyway, the problem this morning was that there was a big Grand Banks trawler sitting at the fuel dock getting some batteries replaced. This is a working boatyard, after all. Not a big problem for us really, because we didn’t have far to travel today. We finally danced and traded places with the trawler and got our fuel pumped in and and holding tank pumped out, and were on our way just before noon. Our first stop was Boldt Castle on Heart Island, which was about 1/2 mile away. We dodged a few tour boats and got settled on their very nice visitor dock. (That’s Island Girl on the far right.)
Day 100!!!: Singer Castle
6/20/18: It is hard to believe that we left home 100 days ago! Yet, oh the adventures that we have had, the things we have seen, the places we’ve visited, and the people that we’ve met along the way – it has been fabulous! And to think… nearly 1/4 of that has been in NEW YORK!? Seriously! This is a big state! But tomorrow, we will bid adieu to New York AND to the United States, as we check in to Canada for a couple of months.
Today was a fun adventure. There are two castles on islands here in the Thousand Islands area. The Boldt Castle is right here in front of us at Alexandria Bay. The other one is Singer Castle on Dark Island, about 10 miles downriver. They have docking facilities at both islands, so we could take Island Girl. But today we decided to just take the tour boat up to Singer, and leave Island Girl here in her little cozy spot. So at 1:30, we hopped on the Uncle Sam Boat Tour with a couple hundred other tourists, and away we went.
Day 99: Exploring Alexandria Bay
6/19/18: Holy smokes the wind blew last night! The marina where we were docked is just off the river, and our bow was facing northwest. There was a long dock that was perpendicular to us, where three large boats (including Phanthom were docked). But the wind came from the north, right at the end of that dock, straight at us. It was blowing right at us all night, so we spent the night bobbing and rolling. It wasn’t violent, so it didn’t throw us out of bed, it was just constant annoying motion. Thankfully it was blowing us off of the dock instead of against it all night. Island Girl, Phanthom and Coconuts were all going to leave this morning, but sometimes you just have to wait for better conditions.
Day 98: Out and about in Clayton
6/18/18: One good thing about being in one place for more than one night, and being plugged in to electric…. we can have Pillsbury cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven with mimosas. 😉🥂 Cheers! Today was supposed to be windy and some rain with a chance of thunderstorms. It was a good day to stay put in a marina. We took our chances with the weather and walked over to the Clayton Antique Boat Museum. “The Antique Boat Museum collects, preserves, interprets and celebrates boats and related artifacts to advance public understanding of the importance of boating to the cultural history of North America and the St. Lawrence River in particular.” We had several people recommend that we go see it, so we did! As we left the marina, this is the hotel right on the river walk by the marina. It is very nice!
