August 19, 2009 - Cruising the 1000 Islands

We have been in the Thousand Islands at the eastern end of Lake Ontario for about two weeks now. There is no internet access on the islands so this post will make up for lost time.

Until a few days ago we were with Sin Cera, Chi Chi Maru and Blue Heron. When Lou and family joined us on board Polar Pacer there were 19 of us altogether, 8 adults and 11 children ranging in age from 5 to 17. What a great send off! We played water volleyball, went cliff diving (well I didn't do that one but Tom did), and swimming during the day, 'name that tune' contests with the appropriate dancing in the evenings (thanks Deb) and various board games thanks to Sandra to fill in the rest of our spare time.

We split our time between Cedar, Milton, Endymion and Beau Rivage Islands. Some of the time was at anchor and the rest tied to the national Parks mooring buoys or docks. We also spent one night at the Municipal Marina in Gananoque so we could stock up on provisions, take showers and do laundry. While in Gan we all went to the Maple Leaf Restaurant that specializes in Czech schnitzel. Both food and company were great.

The weather has been wonderful. Lots of sunshine, air temperatures in the high 20's and water temperatures in the 20's as well. Yesterday afternoon I overheard a scuba diver telling the Parks Ranger that she had been on a dive nearby where the water temperature at 72 ft was 72 degrees farenheight. I don't know what the conversion is but I think it's pretty warm. We did get a little rain last week and caught the edge of a storm that went by but nothing that lasted too long.



We are having some problems with our refrigeration and AIS systems that we hope to get sorted out in Picton later this week. Marvin from EZ Cold will recharge the refrigeration system. He thinks we have gotten some air in the lines that is causing the compresssor to run much too long in order to get the temerature of the holding plate down to -12 degrees. The AIS system is receiving information from other vessels but not transmitting any data on our GPS position. The help desk at Raymarine has advised Tom that we need to upgrade our chartplotter software from version 4.25 to 4.29. We'll try that and if it still does not work we may have to replace the unit.

Tom took one of the props to Gordon Maarine to have the pitch changed hoping that would give us better speed with the new motor. They could't do what he wanted but have done what they could. Tom will install it today and we will check it out on the way to Picton.

All else is wowrking well at this point.

We have already met a number of boats that will be travelling south about the same time as us and expect meet up with them along the way.

August 7, 2009 - Night Sail

The weather called for perfewct conditions for my first overnight sailing experience: full moon, clear skies, 15-20 knot winds from the west, all good for heading for the Thousand islands at the east end of Lake Ontario. We left LSYC with Chi Chi Maru around 6 PM and were accompanied out of the harbour by Mike on Hawley and Dave and Kirsten on Better Still. Thanks for the send off guys! We had a beautiful susnset with the Cn tower in the background and an amazing sunrise at 6:11 in the morning. Except for the wind the forecast was accurate. As for the wind, we had up to 28 knots, averaging around 20 knots with waves up to a meter off our port quarter which caused the boat to be pushed around a lot. The aautohelm didn't like that much. Chi Chi Maru hand steered the whole time and was able to stay with us without any problem. For the majority of the trip we had three sails up; full main, genoa and stay sail. Even in the 28 knot winds we were able to maintain 7+ knots of boat speed.

August 5, 2009 - Families and Friends

After three and a half weeks visiting with friends and family we are back on Polar Pacer making our final preparations before we say goodbye to our son and untie from our slip at LSYC for the last time.

During our time in Alberta we attended several special events that made it possible to see a large number of family members in a short period of time. There were many we had not seen in a long time and some we had not yet met.

Cousin Todd hosted his second annual barn dance/fundraiser on the edge of the Canadian Rockies complete with two live bands playing from the balcony of the barn. What an amazing location. It sure reminded us just how beautiful Alberta is.

We greeted sister Cathy and her horse Rowdy in Beaumont as they completed their leg of a trail ride in support of breast cancer research. See www.wildpinkyonder for more info.

Brother Brian celebrated his 40th birthday in style with a family barbeque at the country property where he lives. Happy 40th Brian!

The Peirson family reunion on the long weekend was once more a well attended success. Thumbs up to cousins Terry and Brad and their families for all the hard work they put into it. We really enjoyed seeing everyone. We were very fortunate to have ony caught the edge of the wind that caused the devastation at the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose.

In between the special events we were able to connect with some of our other favorite people in the Edmonton area and visit some of the old stomping grounds. Green onion cakes were on the menu at the farmer's market and we washed them down with draft at the Strath.