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.

Road Trip

All cruisers need to get off the boat and take a road trip once in a while.
We decided to do ours early in the game when we still have our own car to drive. We had a number of items to be delivered to family in Alberta so we loaded up the red '94 Escort station wagon that we had purchased when our son was in University and headed west. Leaving Toronto on July 9 we traveled through Ontario, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana and then crossed the border back into Canada at Coutts, Alberta on July 13.

Here are some highlights from the trip:

Chicago Skyline - As we hit Chicago at rush hour
we had two hours to enjoy the view from the I-90.








The Corn Palace - Located in
Mitchell, South Dakota this structure
has existed in various formats as a
tribute to one of the
main industries in the area. The
murals are re-done each year and are made from different colored corn cobs. You can't miss the place - there must be 100 billboards for it on the I-90 from Chicago on.


Wall Drug - The billboards for this place outnumbered the ones for the Corn Palace. Located in the town of Wall on the edge of the badlands of South Dakota it is a rambling collection of western themed shops, restaurants, kitchy displays and much more, all under one roof.




Mt. Rushmore - As this well known national monument is only a few miles off the Interstate and the rain clouds had cleared away we made a short side trip to this amazing attraction. Very impressive!









Amazing Scenery - Every state and province we drove through had amazing landscapes.

IYC Weekend - July 3 to 5

We were glad to finally get away from our dock (yes, farther than the pumpout) and take a break from working on the boat. We had a nice sail from LSYC to IYC on the Toronto Islands on July 3 where we spent 2 days with freinds on their boats Sin Cera and Chi Chi Maru.

We took the IYC tender to downtown Toronto and walked to the St. Lawrence Market. I needed to stock up on my favorite pot scrubbers and the little housewares booth in the St. Lawrence Market is the only place I have seen them sold. They are small rectangles (about 4" x 6") of colourful terry towelling coated with something that makes them hard and scratchy. They work great on everything from BBQ grills to non stick cookware. A must for the galley!

The grand finale of the season's fireworks displays happened on Saturda, July 4, in honor of our neighbours to the soouth. We loaded the trhee dinghies and went across the beach on the west side of Hanlon's Point. From there we had a great view of the fireworks as they were set off in front of Ontario Place. It has become a tradition for the kids to gather scraps of wood on the beach and build a bonfire.

On the way home Sunday we picked up a passenger from Harbourfront for the sail back to LSYC.

The Condo

Ryan claims to not be a fan of boating but when you walk into the condo we just took possession of the accent colors he has chosen are red to portside and green to starboard! Hard to believe that it has taken two long days to paint less than 500 square feet.

We were rewarded by a wonderful dinner provide by the van Zon family when we got back to the club and this beautiful sunset to accompany our after dinner drinks on board Polar Pacer.

Living at LSYC

Lakeshore Yacht Club has been home for 18 days now. Weekends are sometimes lively but during the week when most people are working it is very quiet. We have to remind ourselves that we are living in a big city. We are still very busy doing work on the boat. I am sewing a cockpit enclosure using sunbrella and heavy marine grade vinyl. There is a lot of trial and error and progress is slow. The good news is that I can spread out my sewing equipment and supplies in the club house to work.




This is some of the wildlife that we are sharing the harbour with. They swim over to the boat to see if we will share our breakfast with them but people food does not make good duckling food so we decline. Unfortunately there are too many people around who feed them and they do not learn to fend for themselves very effectively.
There is also a family of swans living in the harbour but we do not see them too often. Lots of Canada Geese too but no babies. Tom was up the mast doing some work on the anchor light and took the shot of the school of carp.

We are trying to be self sufficient on the boat and not rely on the club facilities for day to day life.
The three solar panels are now operational and have been quite reliable for providing electricity to run the refrigeration and lights. We are getting a surprising amount of power even on cloudy days.

Each day we get a little closer to untying from the dock!

Retirement

I'm not usually one to read horoscopes but these seemed appropriate. We have now both finished our paying jobs and are trying to get ourselves organized around some kind of a schedule to make sure we get everything done before we run out of time. It has only been two days but I'm already having trouble remembering what day of the week it is. Many thanks to everyone for their congratulatory expressions and words of wisdom to send us on our way. A special thank you to Alice for organizing a pub night; Wayne and his team for the lunch at Canyon Creek; Ruby, Cecilia, Maureen and Helen for their special gifts and last but not least, Tony and the BUSGR team for the cake and dinner at Ruth's Chris.

We have stepped into retirement with both feet and are already in a mild state of shock. You work all your life to get to this point and then you're there. We have lots to do before we can leave and now we have the time to do it. I guess we'll just approach it like a job and get it done.

Yes that is a SOLD sign on the front lawn. It went up about 6 weeks ago. It was not on the market long before we got an offer that we accepted. We are really on our way now!

Only a few days left to work before retirement kicks in. We will probably be too busy for the first while to really notice. The 'To Do' list is still pretty long.

Launch is on Friday and there are still a few things that need to be done before Polar Pacer goes back in the water. It will be some time before she comes out again. The third coat of bottom paint went on yesterday and the last of the thru-hulls were installed. Today the mast steps were added. The new Yanmar engine has been installed and was up and running last weekend. Tom. has the week off to finish up anything elses that needs to be done before the boat is in the water.

The next major project will be to dispose of any possessions that we are not going to take on the boat with us or will not fit into a storage unit that is approximately 3ft, x 5ft x 7ft. That is going to take some doing.