July 16-17 Toronto

At the end of the last newsletter we were at the foot of the Welland Canal, with a tentative plan to explore Port Dalhousie on the south shore of Lake Ontario the next day. Our story resumes the next morning with Andy shaking me awake at 6 am and apologizing “I’m sorry to have to do this, but I think we should sail across Lake Ontario today”. The winds were propitious but might die later, and rain was forecast for the next day, so I scrambled out of bed and got ready to go.

We could see the Toronto skyline pretty much the whole day, tiny at first and slowly (very slowly, as the winds did in fact die off mid-day) getting bigger. It felt rather triumphant, I don’t know why, to be sailing into Canada’s biggest city. So much energy and commerce and humanity is found in that metropolis. We spent a lot of time gazing at the skyline even after we arrived, as we spent the two nights moored on the wall at Hanlan’s Point on Toronto Island. We motored into the inner harbour, past the inner city airport, water taxis buzzing, got a toot from the airport ferry that runs every 15 minutes and had to “slam on the brakes” (go in reverse) to check our speed to avoid a collision (but it was not a near miss), saw kayakers, tour boats, and lots of other sail and power boats. Toronto Island was a great place to stay. It is a large car-free park run by the City of Toronto, with three ferry landings, many sailing clubs, beaches, picnic sites, and people cycling and roller-blading. There’s even a clothing optional beach. Tour boats and private boats do a circuit through the channels of the island, often blaring music. Yes, we heard the song “I’m On a Boat”. We walked to see the Gibraltar Point stone lighthouse, from the early 1800s, one of the oldest buildings in Toronto. Oddly it’s not actually on the water any more, it’s in a stand of trees well inland as the shoreline has moved.

The next day we took the ferry to downtown Toronto, in a drizzle of rain. We walked along the harbour front and shopped in Andy’s favorite bookstore The Nautical Mind. We visited the Toronto Music Garden which is based on Bach’s First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello with each movement represented by a different section of the garden (there’s no actual music in the garden.) I must now listen to this piece of music - on my list.

We then took the subway up to John and Frances’s house (our daughter-in-law’s family) where we were treated to a delicious dinner and a happy visit. This was our first time as guests in someone else’s house since the pandemic, excepting our son Eric and Alicia’s house. John kindly drove us back to the ferry terminal and we returned to Toronto Island in a beautiful sunset.

July 18 Frenchman’s Bay near Pickering

Pickering is about an hour outside of Toronto and it took us an entire day to sail there. It was slow at first but picked up in the afternoon. We weren’t sure about the depth inside the harbour at Frenchman’s Bay. As we approached it, we saw another sailboat on the AIS also turn to go in. We hailed them on the radio (the AIS told us the boat’s name was Maduro) thinking they might be locals who knew the depth of the harbour entrance. They were not locals, but they offered to check the depth as they went in, and let us know. We anchored outside and soon saw Maduro coming back out, travelling with a second boat Ubique, and said they got through the entrance but it was hard to tell the depth because the weeds kept misleading the depth sounder. And then one of the boats got stuck in the weeds so they were going to anchor next to us, just outside the harbour by the beach. I like these fleeting encounters with other travellers. Sailing is a solitary pastime but it’s nice to know there are other boats having their own watery adventures.

We were to encounter Maduro and Ubique again in Cobourg, where we learned Maduro sailed here all the way from Lévis near Quebec City. Maduru’s skipper is the brother of Ubique’s skipper, and Ubique are from Ottawa but sail out of Kingston. I learned that Ubique is Latin for everywhere - isn’t that a great name for a sailboat?

July 19-20 Cobourg

Long sail today, to the well-protected Cobourg harbour where we anchored but paid a small fee to use the marina facilities (shower!). It was a short row to shore and we made many dinghy trips in the two nights we spent here. Trip 1: after-dinner expedition to get ice cream cones. Trip 2: morning trip to do a run then shower, and have a carbohydrate-filled breakfast at the Buttermilk Cafe on a sidewalk patio on the main street with handsome 19th century buildings. Trip 3: Groceries. This is the first time we’ve provisioned using the dinghy, which is barely big enough to fit the two of us let alone bags of groceries. But it worked fine as there were no waves. Trip 4: Afternoon walk west on the boardwalk in the sand dunes, then through the town trying to do a walking tour of the heritage homes until we got drenched by a persistent thunderstorm that went on and on. It turns out smart phone touch screens don’t work so well when your hands are wet. Trip 5: Final expedition to dump garbage, get ice cream (one must take advantage of these opportunities), and stroll through Victoria Park where we saw and heard a Scottish pipe band practicing for some future performance, bagpipes and drums in a circle on the green grass overlooking the beach and lake.

July 21 Brighton Street Swing Bridge, Murray Canal

It was picture-perfect sailing today (not that I took any photos of actual sailing, it’s hard to capture) - nice wind, sun sparkling on the water, green shores, other sailboats looking tall and regal in the distance. We rounded Presqu’ile Point into the bay which we decided was too shallow and weedy to anchor in, so we continued on and went partway into the Murray Canal.

About the Murray Canal: There are two options for getting around the large peninsula of land that is Prince Edward county - outside on the big water, or, what we chose, inside via the Murray Canal that engineers in the 19th century kindly cut through the base of the peninsula. It’s short, 8 kilometers long, and now only used by recreational boats. It has no locks, but has two swing bridges, and tow paths on either side. It takes about 2 hours total to motor through.

Each swing bridge has a bridge master, and they use VHF radio channel 14 to communicate with the boats. Confusingly, the radio traffic for both bridges can be heard at once, so you have to be careful and note which bridge master is talking - Brighton Street bridge or Carrying Place bridge. The bridge master sees you coming and refers to you as “eastbound sailing vessel at Brighton St bridge”. There is a dance that goes on as the boater wants to wait until the bridge swings open before proceeding, but the bridge master wants to minimize how long the bridge is open so that the cars don’t get annoyed. So you are supposed to maintain your speed and trust that the bridge master knows what he’s doing even though it looks like the bridge is not open yet. We were there near the end of the day (the bridge stops operation at 6 pm) so maybe the bridge master was tired but we heard a comical back-and-forth between him and a westbound sailboat that ended with him making the sailboat wait a while. The bridge master also has a megaphone speaker mounted on a large pole pointed down the canal and he resorted to using that because the sailboat wasn’t responding on the VHF.

The other cute thing about this canal is the payment of $5 is made by depositing cash into a cup extended on a long pole from the bridge master on shore to a crew member standing on deck of the moving boat. I got a photo of this the next morning as another boat came through. Sadly we didn’t get to try this maneuver, because we moored overnight at the bridge and paid our fees from shore.

July 22 Green Point near Deseronto

We are in the Bay of Quinte, between the mainland and Prince Edward county, and it’s nice sailing! No swell or waves, and green forested shores on either side. At one point we were doing over 6 knots in 20 knots of wind from behind, running away from a rainstorm that never reached us. Boisterous and fun! In the evening we saw wild swans, white and graceful in the water, and with a distinct call not quite like geese when flying.

July 23 Kerr Bay, Amherst Island

We sailed extremely slowly down Long Reach. At least the wind was in the right direction, but we were drifting at 1 knot or less. We got to the bend where Long Reach turns into the Adolphus Reach and had decided to duck into an anchorage for a swim and to wait for the wind to pick up. We had just dropped the sails when, whoops, here’s the wind again. So back up went the sails and we had a wonderful afternoon sail to Kerr Bay. This was a Friday night and it appears this is a very popular anchorage. We thought it was crowded when there were 5 other sailboats there on our arrival. But more kept coming throughout the evening and we stopped counting after a dozen. It was pretty after dark with everyone’s anchor lights on at the tip of the mast, like so many birthday candles.

July 24 Kingston

Things break on boats: During a regular deck walk to inspect the working parts of Heartbeat, Andy discovered that the topping lift was chafed and looked near to snapping. The topping lift connects the top of the mast with the end of the boom and is used to keep the boom slightly elevated when the main sail is not in use, so that we don’t hit our heads on the boom when in the cockpit, and so that the boom doesn’t rub on the solar panels. The weak spot was three quarters of the way up, way up, but you could clearly see the frayed bits. Figuratively speaking we had the sword of Damocles over our heads :) Andy called a marine supply store in Collins Bay just outside Kingston, and confirmed they had the rope we needed so we made a pit stop on our way to Kingston, docking at a public wharf a 10-minute walk from the store.

We had good wind on both legs of this short sailing day. I can see why Kingston is a sailing centre. As we neared Portsmouth Olympic Harbour where we’d be staying, we saw many racing dinghies out on the water. It turns out the Cork regatta, a week of competitive races, starts next week and some sailors are here already practising. It was impressive to see them sail into the harbour. We would never sail into a harbour in our keel boat, and always drop the sails to motor in the final bit.

Once docked in Kingston, the next task was to replace the frayed line. The line runs down the inside of the mast to an opening near the bottom where it can be tightened or loosened. So, Andy spliced the new line onto the old (skills!) and then I stood at the end of the boom and pulled gently and steadily on the old line to pull it out and pull the new line into place. I didn’t want to pull too hard and snap it! Once the frayed patch was in my hands, the next worry was whether the splice would get through without sticking - it did - so hurray, after a few more hours of work by Andy, we have a brand new topping lift. The album has a photo showing the frayed old line (grey, on top), and the splice from new (white and black) to old.

The new topping lift was put to the test last night - our harbour is exposed to the south east wind, and that’s exactly where the 20 knot winds were coming from last night, making for probably the rockiest night we’ve ever spent in a marina. But it’s calm this morning and Heartbeat is ready for the next and last leg of her journey, to the Thousand Islands.

Photo album: Lake Ontario