Thank you too all

We are about to leave one of the most wonderful places on earth, The Royal Canadian  Yacht Club.

First let me tell you about Snug Island. We were moved out because they had a dock which would accommodate our new 67 foot Tartan. The group at Snug could not have been more welcoming. It is clearly one of the happiest and friendly spots in the whole club.

I cannot tell you the number of people who have come up to us wishing us well. Thank you all I hope you enjoy the trip.

Several members have made comments concerning our mast supports. I have taken no credit other then praising my self for picking really good friends. The supports were made by Jan and Gord. I do not know nor do I wish to think about what I would have done without them. Trish, Kelly and I thank you.

Finally let me thank all the staff at the club who not only have wished us well, but without the assistance of the marine yard we would not be leaving. The marine yard staff are not only the most competent marine workers in the world they are also patient, friendly and really care not only about the members they serve, but also their boats.

Thank you

In the background of the picture of our Island Club House you can see Toronto's CN Tower

Today is the day

Every journey has to start with a first step, well today is our first step. We will go to Cathedral Bluffs Yacht Club about 3:30 have a quiet evening then tomorrow motor to Rochester Yacht Club.

This is of course weather dependent. The wind tomorrow for the whole lake is forecasted to be less then 5 knots, perfect.

Tuesday's wind is more like 8 knots, but from the South and thus we will be on flat water to Oswego NY.

Please follow the three of us as we proceed on our 5000 mile trip. I would like to post something every day. Not much but each post will include a picture of our location. Sometimes I may want to send more then one picture. If this happens I may not write anything with the second and third photo.

Thank you for following us I hope you enjoy the trip.

Ipad to Blog Test

Good morning Trish and I are back in Toronto doing the final prep for our great journey. While we are both getting a little nervous we are also very excited. After a year of talk the time is here to push off. I want to do the blog but would like to use my Ipad which is easier and more assessable then the computer.

Thus this is test of the Ipad.

I tried just going to the internet and blogger but it did not want to retrieve my pictures. My second try was the blogger app I downloaded a couple of hears ago. This I believe has worked. The above picture  is a Loon taken at Sugar Island about 10 days ago. I think this will be good, but I cannot put a caption on the picture.

Sorry for the delay in posting

Good morning from the Kingston Marina. we have had a couple of problems.
First the internet on my new Wind Mobile phone did not work. I knew this because Wind is only in the major cities in Canada. I am using it today because I am in Kingston. Between here and Toronto there is no coverage.

I bought the phone to use in The United States and did once hook on to ATT. The single was not strong enough to use the internet. Hopefully it will work better on the big trip.

Then we had trouble getting the Rocna Anchor down. I do not meant trouble getting it to stick, but literally down the swivel would not go past the bail. After some concern we took the swivel off and it is now working.

Then our outboard engine stopped working. This happened before the fridge so I decided not to interrupt the vacation to get it fixed. Thus while we have been sitting around waiting for the fridge we have done nothing about the motor. It will be an easy fix once back at the club.

The next  problem is the big one our refrigerator stopped working. with the help of Roger Netzke and Doug Booth we now have the fridge and freezer filled with freon. The freezer is working fine but the fridge is still not working. Doug is here working on a boat and will come over when he is finished.

While trying to fix the the refrigerator unit the water pump broke. When I got here Sunday I got a new one at West Marine. The pump I took off was a .5 GPM pump which I replace with the smallest they had a 2 GPM pump. This now has created two additional problems. First it makes too much noise and second it uses too much electricity.

Next we were transmitting AIS but not receiving. I finally fixed this yesterday. On the way down I had, by mistake, reset everything to the factory setting. This erased my waypoints and changed the NEMA setting ti the one which does not work with AIS.

We may have found another problem with the batteries. They seem to loose voltage too quickly. This may be as simple as my miscalculating the power loss from running the fridge all the time.

On the positive side Pipe Dream was exhibited at The New Age of Sail Exhibition at the Kingston Marine Museum. They had a lot of activity and a great time. While biased they did feel that many visitors felt Pipe Dream was the high light of the show.

Pipe Dream on her way to The Thousand Islands

Ducks in Gananoque's lake

Kelly headed for breakfast

Irish Mist sitting in front of Pipe Drano

One of the larger yachts we have seen in our travels

Pipe Dream's new tender and electric motor

Irish Mist and Pipe Dream sitting at the public dock in Gananoque

Panoramic view of Picton Harbour

It is a beautiful, while cold summer day in Picton. I got up and decided I would try the Panorama feature of my three year old camera. I will now try to put the result on the blog. I do not know if you will be able to see just how wonderful Picton Harbour is.

Regular view of Irish Mist and Picton Harbour July 16, 2014

Panoramic view of the harbour

Cobourg, Sandy Cove and Picton

We set out from Cobourg at about 7:30 heading for the Murray Canal. It was built years ago to provide access to the Bay of Quintie, which it still does today.

Approaching the Murray Canal

Paying the $4.90 toll It was set at $5 but then the Conservatives reduced the GST by 2% thus $4.90

A parade of 6 yachts 4 from PCYC and 2 from RCYC

Trish relaxing picture taken by Kelly Brennan

 After passing through the Canal we went to Myers Pier Marina to fuel up. We did not really need any diesel but there is no where to get diesel on the Canadian side of the Thousand Islands and we wanted to know how we were doing. As it turned out not badly 60 litters or about 15 gallons for the year so far.

Pipe Dream and Irish Mist rafting in Sandy Cove just east of Belleville

Picton Harbour is on the North side of Prince Edward County which is now thanks to the Murray Canal an island sitting in Lake Ontario south of the mainland. It looks and fields like an eastern seaboard cove. There is no safer harbour in Ontario or on lake Ontario for that matter

Picton Harbour

Tomorrow we are off to Collins Bay which is really a suburb of Kingston.

Off to the Islands

Well not quite we are off to the Thousand Islands with my sisters and Pipe Dream. The first stop was Cathedral Bluffs. It is only 8 miles but it enables us to get away from the lockers and other thing which can delay a departure indefinitely.

We got two docks at the from and went in to dinner. The patio served as an excellent place to take pictures.

We often put the boat on auto pilot and let Kelly steer. She is great at finding boats approaching.

Irish Mist sitting at Cathedral Bluffs

Pipe Dream at Cathedral Bluffs

Brendan, Bella and Lexie are always ready for a party

Irish Mist from the Balcony

From Cathedral Bluffs we went 20 miles to Newcastle. For a number of years friends who live across the river from the marina held a huge party for their RCYC friends and any RCYC cruiser in the Marina. When we started cruising we came to Newcastle every year, but we ave not been here since 2006. It is a well protected storm hole with a very small entrance. They have a yacht club which grants reciprocal docking, but only 2 a night. Even though they were full Pipe Dream and Irish Mist got both free docks for the night. We agreed to have dinner in the restaurant in return.

A very narrow entrance

But once inside very well protected