Category Archives: 2010 – Down East Cruise

Ananda’s Down East Cruise in 2010

Saturday, July 24

Still anchored in front of Chrysler monument at Upper Canada Village. Spent most of the day puttering around the boat and updating Ananda’s blog. My cousin Heather Macintosh called and we set up a sailing date for her family and some other cousins tomorrow afternoon. The sky has been pretty grey with brief periods of sunshine mixed with scattered showers. I called Catherine and talked to her before she heads off to a week-long yoga workshop in Washington, Mass. Emily also heads out west early tomorrow morning for a 3-week visit to family in Alberta and British Columbia. No-one left at home now except for the cats. Hope they don’t tear the place up while we are gone!

Today Angelia Parham & John Abrera got married. A special day all around. Here’s wishing you both many, many years of happiness together! Sorry I can’t be there in person but I am certainly there in spirit.

Friday, July 23

I got up at 5:30am, motored out of the Chrysler Park Marina and anchored in front of Chrysler Farm Battlefield monument which is just a few hundred yards away from the marina entrance. I worked on Ananda’s blog and tidied up the boat. I Googled my friend Ren Arbuthnot’s name, found a current phone number in Cornwall and got caught up with him. Ren and I used to work together at the WWTP in Cornwall. Years later he was my Best Man when I married Catherine. We have stayed in touch over the years but it has been quite a while since we last saw each other. We arranged to meet on Monday and go for a sail. I also called my cousin Heather Macintosh in Maxville and left her a voicemail.

Thursday, July 22

Got up around 7:00am and debated what to do for the day. Head out or stay another day and anchor in the basin behind the drawbridge. I decided that I had been in the Kingston area long enough and that it was time to head to Brockville. The marina where I stayed last night was very interesting. In addition to docks it also has a very active boat building business associated with it–and their specialty is fire boats. Many of the boats they build are destined for the USA. There are also a number of “old favorites” stored in the marina–I wonder if I can convince Catherine to let me save a piece of history.

I basically backtracked the course that Brent and Rachel and I had followed over the past few days. The weather was great for motoring, little wind and not too hot. I got to Brockville around 5:00pm. It did not look like there were any decent places to anchor and I was not excited about paying for another night in a marina so I decided to keep moving east to see if I could find an anchorage that appealed to me. It did not look promising. This part of the river is pretty straight with very few bays on the Canadian side. I ducked in to a couple of small bays between Brockville and Prescott but they still had a fairly strong influence from the river’s current so I kept moving on. About 7:30pm I arrived at the Prescott International Bridge. There was a bay upstream of the bridge and near the grain terminals. I checked it out for anchoring but it was too shallow and I got stuck temporarily in the mud. Gotta keep moving. I still had a lot of energy so I decided to carry on to Iroquois. Once I reached there I would either anchor or go in to the marina just above the locks.

I missed the entrance to the marina so at 9:30pm I tied up temporarily on the freighter dock just above the lock to figure out what to do. While I was doing that the lockmaster came along to ask me what my intentions were. I explained that I was single-handing so was not going to attempt passing through the lock tonight.  He said that it was a very quiet night and that the drop through the lock was only about 1 foot, so he would let me through on my own if I wanted to pass through. I said yes right away and agreed to meet him at the lock gates in 10 minutes. I called Catherine and told her where I was and what I was doing. I untied Ananda and headed for the gates. By the time I got there the lockmaster and his boss were ready to let me in. They tossed me a stern line and I held on to it while the lock went down about 1 foot. This took all of 5 minutes. Quite a difference from the locks in the Welland Canal! There was no other traffic in sight so we spent another 15-20 minutes chatting about the Seaway and about my trip from Goderich and through the Welland. It was a beautiful night with no wind and the moon was very nearly full. I had a new burst of energy so I decided to continue on to Chrysler Marina at Upper Canada Village. I called Catherine back and we chatted for a few minutes longer. While I was talking with her my son Steve called and left a voice mail.

Travelling on this part of the river at night was magical. About ½ hour past the locks I met the “Montreal” a large freighter headed upstream. It was lit up like a city. When we got close enough I flashed my deck lights a few times to catch their attention and notice me coming their way. I also moved over to the furthest edge of the channel so the freighter had all the room they wanted. When we got close to each other I turned the light on in the pilothouse, stuck my head out the door and waved to the freighter’s helm. To my surprise, they turned their inside lights on for an instant and waved back at me. Very, very cool.

The current in the river at this point is quite strong but also gentle because the river is so wide. I was motoring along at 6-6.5 knots and I only just had the propeller engaged. Tiki Navigation and the Navionics marine charts were awesome! I always knew where I was and established a bit of a routine where I set the boat on autohelm and I sat in the doorway glancing outside and then at the chart on my computer screen to make sure I was staying on course. Ananda was the only boat on the river and I felt like I could keep going all night long. I called my sister Grace and brother-in-law Don in Canmore and spoke with them for about ½ hour. Then I called Steve and talked with him too. The river was so quiet that I could do this without losing my focus on navigation. I was also talking hands free, using my earbuds—what a great invention those things are!

I arrived at the entrance to Chrysler Park Marina around 11:45pm. The channel in to the marina was dredged through a shallow spot in the river so I had to be careful navigating my way in to the marina basin. When I finally got in to the basin, I saw that it was very small and there were no dock spaces immediately in sight. I saw a catamaran anchored at the edge of the basin so I decided to anchor a little distance away. I dropped the hook as quietly as I could and then sat for 10 minutes to be sure that Ananda would not drag over to the catamaran or towards the docks. Once I was comfortable with the anchor I shut Ananda’s engine down and hit the bunk. It was just a few minutes after midnight. I set my alarm for 5:30am so I could get up early and be sure that Ananda was not in the way of any boats trying to get in or out of the marina. What a day this was. I never thought that I would ever be doing anything like this and I’ll never forget it (or the other parts of this adventure) for as long as I live.

Wednesday, July 21

We left our anchorage in Rockport about 9:00am. The previous night was so still that the boat barely moved from where we ended up when we dropped the anchor. This is the kind of anchoring experience that every boater hopes for. Sadly, today is the day that Brent & Rachel had to leave and head back to Montreal—prior to flying home to Denver. We had planned to motor through to Gananoque and then try to do some sailing in the waters between Gananoque and Kingston, where they would catch their train in the late afternoon.

The waters between Rockport and Gananaoque were a series of narrow but very deep channels between many little islands. All of the 1000 Islands are truly interesting as many of the main channels between the small islands vary from 35’ to 200’ deep and tiny islands barely big enough to hold a cottage rise straight up from the bottom.  The current in many of these places is very strong and we always had to pay very close attention to our steering. You have to wonder what the islands would look like if all of the water was drained away. Probably like tall chimneys.

By the time we got to Gananoque I noticed that the starboard diesel fuel tank was nearing the reserve mark. We stopped the boat in a safe area for a few minutes while I switched over to the port-side fuel tank. After starting up again, we only ran on that tank for about 20 minutes and the engine died—with symptoms of fuel starvation. We were in the middle of a channel so we very quickly set out the jib sail, turned the boat around and started sailing towards a wide area near Gananoque. Ironically, this was the only sailing experience that Brent & Rachel had during their entire time with me—and it only lasted about 10 minuets.

We switched back to the starboard-side fuel tank, bled a lot of air out of the lines and then the engine started up right away. Now that we had engine power again we headed to a marine service center in the town to get some more fuel. This whole exercise cost us a couple of hours and it was beginning to become obvious that we were probably not going to make it back to Kingston in time for Brent & Rachel to catch their train. We weighed our options & they decided that they would miss their 5:30pm train & catch the next one at 9:00pm.

When we left Gananoque the wind was beginning to build up to a steady 10-12 knots, so we were hopeful that we might be able to do some sailing when we got in to more open water. However, the wind was also beginning to kick up quite a few waves and the inflatable dingy we were towing was beginning to get tossed around quite a bit. So, we stopped again and raised the dingy out of the water using the dingy davits. By the time we had this task completed the wind had risen to steadily over 15 knots, & gusting to almost 20 knots.

Marine weather radio started broadcasting severe thunderstorm warnings for the entire 1000 Islands area so we abandoned any thoughts of sailing and set out to try to arrive in Kingston before the storms hit. This was not to be. We were about 1 hour away from Kingston and the storm hit. Pounding rain, hail and winds gusting 25-30 knots! Wow, what a ride! We could see the storm coming at us like a curtain being drawn across a stage. When it hit the boat we were layed over pretty hard but the boat kept moving forward without hesitation. This time the galley cupboard doors stayed shut! I told Brent & Rachel that this would blow past us in about 5-10 minutes and we would be just fine. Fortunately the storm was coming straight at us (instead of from the side) and we were in an area where the channel was 3-5 miles wide, no shallow spots, hazards or traffic. This is when having a pilot house pays of big time!

The storm ended about 30 minutes before we arrived in Kingston but the sky still looked pretty angry all around us and sever thunderstorm warnings were still being issued so we headed to the Kingston Marina, which is a privately operated marina on the upstream side of the Cataraqui River Drawbridge.

En route to Kingston Brent had called the Via train and changed their tickets to Montreal to a later departure. This allowed us enough time to head out to a restaurant for dinner. With the earlier engine troubles and the storm, we had not eaten anything substantial since breakfast so we were all pretty hungry. We had a great supper at Chez Piggy, a local “dining institution” in the city for over 30 years. It was founded by Zal Yanovsky, singer and guitarist in the rock band “the Lovin’ Spoonful” he formed with John Sebastion. After dinner Brent & Rachel caught a taxi to the train station and headed off on their next adventure—in Montreal—and I would continue on with my own adventure and fond memories of everyone who has been on this journey with me so far.

Tuesday, July 20

We got up around 7:00am and started preparing for an early departure. Our plan was to motor through the main part of the 1000 Islands, see the sights and then look for an anchorage towards the end of the afternoon. We passed through Canadian waters and over to the American side of the river. I wanted Brent and Rachel to visit Heart Island and Boldt Castle. I have been to the island 2 or 3 times over the years and it is an incredibly interesting place. It was built in the early 1900’s by George Boldt, the owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC. Construction was nearly complete when Boldt’s wife unexpectedly died. Boldt was so heartbroken that he immediately stopped construction and the building sat unfinished for decades before it was finally taken over in 1977 by The Thousand Islands Bridge Authority for the sum of $1—on the condition that the property be open to the public and any revenues received from tourism fees be put towards the restoration. Heart Island has docking space for pleasure craft but unfortunately all available spaces were taken up and we had to move on without getting the chance to have a tour.
We continued on down the river and about 45 minutes later we came upon Singer Castle on Jorstadt Island. The castle on this island is not as big as Boldt Castle but it is still very impressive by any measure. It was built in 1896 by Frederick C. Bourne of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. The castle was opened to the public in 2004 and tours are hosted daily. They also host murder mystery dinners and anyone can rent the entire castle for about $700/night plus about $70/night for each additional person.
This would be such a cool place to have a company meeting! Hey Rich D’Amato, how about having a BD retreat here later this fall? For anyone who has never been to the 1000 Islands area I would highly recommend visiting and touring. It is so interesting to see all the homes ranging from castles to very modest cottages on hunks of rock not much larger than the building itself.
The currents through the narrow channels are very interesting. Water depths varied from 25’ to over 200’ and water could be seen swirling, churning and boiling. I would not want to have engine trouble in this area. The results could be disastrous!
Towards the end of the afternoon we decided it was time to look for a place to stay for the night. We found a great little bay just in front of the Town of Rockport and dropped our anchor. The water was so still that the boat did not even move through the whole night—the weight of the chain on the bottom alone was enough to hold us in place.
Once we were comfortable with the anchor placement Brent & I donned our bathing suits and jumped overboard. The water was a wonderful 26 degrees C (about 76 degrees F). It was fun to cool off and play for a bit. Once we were cooled down we started to focus on dinner. Rachel and I worked on that task while Brent broke out a fishing rod to try his luck. In less than 5 minutes he had a catch. Not quite large enough to feed the three of us so back in the river it went.
By the time we had finished dinner the sun had set and the moon and the stars we out. Cue the Jonnie Walker Gold and some more cigars! It was a beautiful night. The mosquitoes were vicious at the back of the boat but up on the bow there was just enough wind to keep them away. We sat there on the deck for over an hour, listening to our favorite tunes, sipping Scotch, smoking cigars and stargazing. You simply cannot buy a night like that—it has to be given to you.