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.  And I was working on a Plan C that would get us closer to Trenton on Thursday so we wouldn’t have 41 miles to go if the weather got bad.  So, thinking we were just going across the street to Mermaid Island, we slept in.  But, when I got up and looked at the revised forecast, it said rain and thunderstorms all day Wednesday, and rain and bigger wind on Thursday.  Oh Poo!  Plan B it is.  I called the marina in Trenton and asked if we could add two nights to the beginning of our reservation and stay for a week.  Sure! No problem!  This actually works out great, because their price for a week is the same as about 4.8 days of the daily rate.  I called Picton and made a reservation for tonight.  Now we can travel on two beautiful days, and already be tied up at the marina in Trenton for the yucky weather- essentially for free.   OK Capt… time to get up….we’re going 56 miles today, not 3.  😳    Thank goodness he thought it was a good plan, so Navigator wasn’t in trouble for last minute changes, making a half hour trip into a 6 hour trip.   The boat next to us, a local, was was pulling out too.  Captain really liked his dinghy.

Cast off the lines Gilligan – away we go!  It was a nice day for travel.  Most of the day the breeze was behind us, so it wasn’t too windy.  Wind at 70 degrees can be chilly!  We were leaving the Thousand Islands and the St Lawrence River, and headed back west to the northern area of Lake Ontario.  I don’t think I told you this tidbit about the Thousand Islands.  There are actually 1864 islands.  To qualify as an island, the piece of land must be above water 365 days a year, and support at least one living tree.  No islands are split between countries:  each island is either fully in Canada or the U.S., so the border squiggles along the middle of the river the best it can.  Last year (2017) the area experienced severe prolonged flooding.  The guys at JP’s Marine in Alexandria Bay (where we stayed), said the water covered their shop floor, and they worked in rubber boots slogging around in water for three months waiting for the water to go down.  There was extraordinary rain, together with a very fast melt of the winter snow and ice.  Apparently there is a dam on the St Lawrence River that is upstream from Montreal.  Montreal is an island in the middle of the St Lawrence River, right where the Ottawa River flows into it.  Montreal was getting flood waters from both directions because both rivers were at historic higher-than-flood levels for MONTHS!  The dam was one way to slow some water down from flooding Montreal, but it resulted in three months of high water up this river all the way to Lake Ontario, damaging thousands of homes, docks, and businesses, all along the shores of the Thousand Islands.  Several of the docks on the Parks Canada islands are still closed for repair.  The flooding lasted so long that temporary docks were built on top of the regular docks in a lot of places.  I found this picture of Boldt Castle from last year.  The docks were still underwater in JULY, so they had temporary docks on top.  What a mess!  I’m glad we came here this year and not last year when businesses were closed.

We cruised right on past Kingston.  It is the largest city we have seen since Albany NY.  We’ll have a rental car while we’re in Trenton, so we’re planning to drive back to see Kingston, and maybe even check out the Canadian Costco.  People have told us that it’s a nice town – but it’s pretty big! High rises and everything!  A lot of Loopers stop here, but it isn’t working for us this week

This building looked ominous – near another one that looked like a jail.  Yep – one was the Kingston Penitentiary.  This one was the Rockwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane.  It was built in 1859 for the purpose of housing mentally ill patients (which as you can guess, was not always the nicest of conditions or treatments back then!).  The building closed in 2000.

In this picture, the building with the tower is part of the Royal Military College of Canada.  It is similar to our West Point Academy in New York.  It has been occupied as an active military site since 1789 and during the War of 1812 it served as the main naval station in Upper Canada.  Ships of the Royal Navy were built and based here and it was because of these ships that the British army was able to preserve Upper Canada from American occupation. 😮  The creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867 and the withdrawal of British troops from Canada in 1870-71 brought about the need for the new Canadian government to see to its own defences rather than to rely on England.  The College opened in June 1876.

Nearby was Fort Frederick.  Following the War of 1812, the strategic importance of Kingston in the defence of Canada was recognized, and over a period of time the military and naval facilities were strengthened here.  The original Fort Frederick was built on this site in 1813.  It was levelled in 1846 to make way for the present fort.  It is very interesting to read history from the Canadian side, and see the forts, sites, and battles between the U.S., Britain, and Canada!

We passed several ferrys along the route today.  This one actually ran on a cable.  It’s hard to see in the picture, but there were cables coming out of the front and back that it cruised across on, so we had to pass well behind it after it crossed the channel so that the cables would drop low enough in the water for us to go over the top of them.

From a distance, I could see a pile of bright colors floating on the water.  As we got closer, we could see that this was a bunch of big floatie toys.  When we got in front, we could see that they were all strung out in a line – like they were guarding the dock!  It made us smile.  I’ve never seen a floatie peacock (the blue one) before!

  

We found ourselves entering the Z mark of ZORRO!!  Our destination was at the very bottom point of the down slash.

We have seen a zillion colorful Adirondack chairs everywhere!  Red is a common color, which color coordinates well along with the Canadian flag.  And how do you like the fairway that the guy on the left has down to his dock?

We finally arrived at Picton.  It is at the very end of a narrow channel.  The docks were not big enough for a boat our size, but there were other boats there that were bigger than us, so we backed on in and tied up.  Thank goodness it wasn’t going to be windy tonight, or we’d probably rip the dock out with any kind of rocky-rolly action!   The other boats were loopers too – ones we had not yet met:  Greek’s Folly and Short Vacation.  Really nice people – they helped catch our lines on the short dock to help us in!

Picton was a surprisingly nice little town on a hill.  We saw lots of small gaggles of women coming and going.  Apparently this is a favorite place for Toronto-ites to come and tour wineries and such.

We didn’t do wine – we walked to the local town brewery – of course!  They only had about 6 beers, but they also had brick oven pizza.  AND, along with their outdoor seating, they had a sandbox for little people to play in while the big people visit.  Great idea!  The name was 555 Brewing Company, and their beer names all had to do with a well known local murderous crime from 1884. (The beers were named The Judge, The Jury, Executioner, Long Black.)  Back then, two men were hung in a double execution for the murder of a man who had just sold a load of hops for the sum of $555.  They apparently just meant to rob him of his hop money, but he ended up shot to death.  Yikes!

A Long Black dark beer for the captain, and a County Secret cider for the lady.  And a pizza to share.  Not a very big pizza, but it was good!

Nearby was a church, so of course it got it’s picture taken.  The Picton United Church, built in 1898.

These red lilies caught my eye- there are so many beautiful gardens!

The next thing that caught my eye was this ice cream store!  Our pizza was pretty small, so we had room for dessert.  The ice cream was yum—yum–mee !  And then, we spied some little treasures in a pasty case; little pastries called ‘butter tarts’.  These are a famous must-try Canadian dessert on the Loop!  So we bought four and took them home for tomorrow’s breakfast.  These are the first ones we have seen, so we will now begin our butter tart tastings as we travel through Canada.

   

A little pie is called a tart, and these are like little pecan pie tarts – but without pecans.  Very sweet, gooey, and rich.  Yet – not bad with a cup of coffee!  😉 One of the ladies from the big boats next to us said that she much prefers ‘beaver tails’.  HUH?  Apparently they are like an elephant ear that we would get at the fair, but supposedly shaped like a beaver tail.  You can get cinnamon & sugar, or a whole variety of other toppings.  Hmmm… we’ll have to watch for those!  And I better buy me some elastic waist britches!