Saturday Oct 18

Saturday, October 18

Morning was spent with Rick in the motor compartment and me trying to get some more stuff organized.  I wrote out the postcards to the kids and gathered up the garbage and recycling. By noon Rick had finished up with the alignment and we tried running it up at the dock. It seemed a little rough, so he fine tuned it and we decided to take it out for a spin. Mike had come to the boat by then to see if there was anything else we needed. He came for a ride around the harbour and we all decided that it was running better than ever.

I had gone up to the post office at Shopper’s to mail the postcards, but forgot my wallet and had only a handful of change. The Navy League cadets from NLCC

Sunset...red sky at night, sailor's delight? I hope so!

Trentonian were tagging and by the time I got into the post office I was short of money. Of course, it costs a dollar to mail a letter no. No wonder no-one uses the post office. They tell you 85 cents but there’s 13 cents tax on that and they don’t give you back the 2 cents. And the stamp says $1.00!!

Anyway, Mike took the postcards and said he’d mail them for me. We cleaned up the stuff on the boat, untied the lines and left the dock for the last time.

It was a very cold rainy morning and by the time we were ready to leave it was colder but the rain had stopped. We got as far as a little island called Grape Island just west of Belleville. We contemplated going into the harbour and getting a dock for the night so we could have shower but honestly, what would be the point? It would be a cold room because everyone is shutting down facilities and who wants to get out of a hot shower in a cold room and go back to a cold boat? Had I been thinking, we could have gone to the marina and got a room at the local hotel!

So we are anchored off Grape Island. The wind is out of the northwest and we are rocking pretty good. It’s been a long time since we sat at anchor. The sun was setting as we finished dinner and we contemplated going to bed but its only 6:30!!! There’s a heavy cloud cover that is blocking the sun. Hopefully it will keep us a little bit warmer. The weather forecast is calling for Lake Ontario waves to subside to 1 meter by tomorrow afternoon so we won’t be crossing tomorrow.  It’s seems to be getting darker earlier now so that will cut into the travel time as well. It’s probably better that we left today instead of waiting until morning. The longer we sit somewhere the harder it is to move!

This  may be the last post for a few days. Until we cross Lake Ontario and get new phones, we don’t know what the data usage is like for roaming. I will text Liz and she can post on facebook to let people know where we are, but the blog readers will have to be patient until I get internet access organized.

Until then, stay warm and dry!