Our trip is over! We arrived in Prescott yesterday and are doing miscellaneous boat chores and town walks until Kevan picks us up later this afternoon to drive us back to Ottawa. It's going to take some adjusting to get back to our old lives, as is always the case after a long trip. But I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends again and getting some exercise on my bike.

This past week has felt like a vacation within a vacation, as we did short hops each day and were always anchored by early afternoon. This was a nice contrast to our previous 8 or 10 hour days and leaves time for rowing, swimming and drying off in the sun, going for walks ashore, reading, and just plain relaxing with a water view.

July 25 Brakey Bay, Wolfe Island

We sailed past downtown Kingston and Fort Henry, and on to Brakey Bay near the eastern end of Wolfe Island. In the evening we saw the tall ship Fair Jeanne hove into view (aside: I just looked this up and apparently it's supposed to be "heave into view" but hey, language evolves). The photo album includes a picture of the ship the next morning as we were leaving. It is a summer camp for teenagers, to live aboard and learn about sailing a square-rigged ship. Seeing it on the horizon in the evening slowly getting larger and coming towards our bay felt like a throw-back to olden days if you ignored all the modern sailboats present in the bay. Through the binoculars we watched sailors high up in the rigging putting away the sails.

July 26 Forsyth Island, Admiralty Group

The French explorers simply called this region Lac des Milles-Îles. Two hundred years later, in 1815, the British decided The Thousand Islands needed individual names - so that's where we get the current names from, commemorating admirals and captains and ships. Or most of the current names. Near our anchorage off Forsyth Island was a small island called Moneysunk so I'm pretty sure that's a more recent moniker!

Before we got to Forysth Island, we had a failed anchoring attempt off Thwartway Island. The water was deep until quite close to shore, which means you need to let out a lot of rode (rode is the name for the anchor rope) as the anchor needs a minimum 5 to 1 ratio of length to depth. This also means you are going to swing in a wide radius when the wind shifts. We dropped the anchor and thought we'd set it, but I looked out the stern and was shocked to see the shore getting closer, way too close. "Captain, permission to start the engine?" We motored forward and Andy shortened the anchor rode and we thought we were good. I went for a swim as it was very hot, and then we were going to have lunch. But again, the shore was creeping towards us. Likely the bottom was rock and we were dragging the anchor. So, it was unanimous that we were not staying the night here, and we moved on to a better spot off Forsyth Island.

July 27 Downie Island, Navy Group

This was our most picturesque anchorage of the week, in the basin formed by Downie, Collier, and Ninette Islands, and a short row from Mulcaster Island with a nice walking trail. We had a fun sail to get here, through the Gananoque Narrows with the wind just right so that we could squeak through the red and green buoys.

July 28 Grenadier Island

We motored through Fiddler's Elbow, a narrow channel, and enjoyed nice sailing when the channel opened up, tacking back and forth to get past Rockport. Unfortunately Grenadier Island was a zoo of power boats when we got there. It turned out many were just there for the day and left at dinner time, but until then it was quite the gathering place for people partying and sun-tanning and jet-skiing. Not our scene! But fortunately Grenadier Island has a long walking trail from one end to the other, a former township road from the days when there was a farming community on the island. Its farms have been abandoned for almost a century and the fields are reverting to forest. We had a two-hour walk in the woods and along the north shore of the island and escaped the beach party madness. The anchorage mostly emptied out in the evening. I went for a row and spotted an osprey nest - bonus points if you can find it in the photo album.

July 29 Grant Creek opposite Harvey Island, Brock Group

Today was a drizzly day with rain showers. Shortly after leaving we saw a fisherman in a logo-covered boat reel in a fish, weigh it with a hand-held scale, take a picture of it, then put it into a locker called a live well (Andy knows these things). The boat is a special purpose boat for bass fishing and throughout the day we saw dozens more, either fishing, or racing at high speed to get somewhere else to fish some more. I did some web research and sure enough this was the first day of a 4-day Major League Fishing event. Yes, there is such a thing as Major League Fishing, to my surprise, with serious prize money at stake.

After some sailing in the rain, we motored through the Brockville Narrows, part of the main shipping channel, and turned off to our destination anchorage. There was a lot of current that took the boat in unexpected directions, but once we were off the main channel it calmed down. The sun came out later and we had a golden after-dinner row to walk on nearby Stovin Island, part of the national park.

July 30 Prescott

We are out of the Thousand Islands now and on a broad stretch of the St Lawrence. We had northwest wind of 10 knots gusting to 15 knots and had to reef the foresail. It was a good sail to Prescott and by noon we were in our new marina. It's a small marina, Prescott is a small town, and it's very peaceful. There's a walking path along the waterfront with a heritage lighthouse and the marina right in the center. In non-Covid times there is a Shakespeare summer festival, with plays presented outdoors in a grassy amphitheatre by the water, so we'll be sure to enjoy that next summer. Just east of the marina is Fort Wellington, a national historic site restored to show what a soldier's life was like in the 1840s. We haven't visited it before, so that's on our list too. There are a handful of restaurants, a Coast Guard base, and historic stone homes from Prescott's heyday in the 19th century as a transfer point for goods and people coming upriver from Montreal. At the time there were rapids just below Prescott, so this was where people transferred from smaller to larger boats to continue on to Lake Ontario.

Now all that remains to complete our trip is the drive back to Ottawa, with Kevan very kindly picking us up this afternoon. We are so lucky our two sons helped us out with the car shuttling at both ends of this trip.

Photo album: Thousand Islands

Here are some statistics from the trip: Total time just under 6 weeks; 31 days under way; 7 rest days; total distance 875 nautical miles (from the ship's odometer, so includes tacking)

Now that Heartbeat is only an hour from Ottawa, we can have guests join us for day sails! So consider this an open invitation and let me know if you are interested. It's hard to plan far ahead as we're so dependent on the wind and weather but I hope we can host you some day.