The big big lake

Sunday

Everyone was tired so we decided it was time for a night with someone else dong the cooking; feast at Curry Original! Ever so yummy 

The harbour saw its usual share of loud music, people coming back from a good time, but everything ended early enough and we had a quiet night, under a beautiful full moon.

Monday

Situation critical, today there has to be laundry! Sebastien left with Thomas to the laundromat, while Liam and I had a nice quiet morning together. We decided to head behind city hall to see if there was a farmer’s market. No luck. We decided to keep walking around and we stopped at Pan Chancho, a wonderful bakery, and got ourselves a little treat. This place is bread lover’s heaven! The line up for coffee was too long so we went elsewhere to get a coffee for mommy and a hot chocolate for Liam. We found a nice spot in the park. After our treat we kept exploring; Liam was curious to understand the position of the watch towers and the fortifications with respect to Fort Henry.

We all met up at the boat for a quick lunch and then we went shopping at VanderVoort’s!  The boys each got a surprise, and we got a few things for the boat. 

I left the boys there and went to shop for some groceries. I met up with them again later; they had just left VanderVoorts! Full of food and ice, time to head to Kingston Yacht Club to get sone gas, water and a pumpout. The water levels were so high, they had to build makeshift dock extensions for the gas dock, build new docks so people could use their boats, and many areas are still underwater. A bonus, they were kind enough to let us stick around for an hour and let use the showers!

Another spot of rain and guess what, we are now on the lake! We had initially decided that we would not be going much further than Brockville-Grenadier this year. Well, I guess the call of the big water is stronger than the will because we are heading to Collins bay for the night, with the intention of rounding Amherst island tomorrow.

The anchorage area on the map at the end of Collins bay is a joke ; 3 feet of water, weeds, not so good. But before the marina, there is a good area to anchor on the east side (the west side has a sea-plane landing area so not a good idea. What a strange place; the road is right at the end of the bay, with a boat-repair shop on the shore side, the marina on the other side, and then the kicker: the train comes by every 30 minutes or so. And it’s loud. Throughout the night. Check out how close the train is at the back of the picture.

Tuesday

A gorgeous morning, and lucky me, I got to sleep in a bit. We are well fed and motoring up between shore and Amherst island to charge the batteries and we will sail lakeside down.

As we neared the end of Amherst, we were gaining on a beautiful vessel, Playfair, which seemed to be crewed by young sailors. They were climbing up the mast, trimming sails and working together to sail this huge vessel.

We were gaining on them when Thomas thought it would be a good idea to throw a croc in the water….so we went 180 and caught the croc. Then another 180 to catchup to Playfair again!
We had a great sail in the lake, flying between 3 and 5 knots. Perfect conditions, no crazy waves, beautiful sun….oops spoke too soon….the lake the lake thelake, the big big lake proved once again that it can change on a dime. Sky got busy, wind picked up, must have been blowing a good 15-20 knots from the west and the waves were probably a good 3-4 feet. In the cut to Wolfe, of course, the corkscrew again, and Thomas reunited with the bucket…. We were happy to anchor near Simcoe island ad relax, go for a swim a rest. But this was not a good anchorage for us for the night, so we corkscrewed our way across the bay into Kingston. The bonus was getting ice cream after supper!