Toronto Island – 43.6245158,-79.3824478

I was looking forward to staying an extra day in Toronto. It was a good opportunity for me to rest up after our marathon trip through the Welland Canal and I also wanted to have a visit with my friend Basheer who is now living in Toronto. I called Basheer & arranged for him to meet me for a late afternoon dinner at a restaurant beside the marina.

I had never been at this particular marina before so I walked around for an hour to explore the area and to get some exercise. Toronto Island offers great views of the city’s skyline that you simply cannot get from the mainland.

Basheer arrived on one of the passenger ferries at 6:00pm & we went for supper at the restaurant beside the ferry dock.

I met Basheer in London while I was volunteering with London‘s Cross Cultural Learners Centre (CCLC). Basheer lived in Kuwait before coming to Canada so we immediately had something in common. His first language is Arabic & he helped me a great deal with the Syrian immigrant family that I am working with.

This was Basheer’s first time on Toronto Island & he had never seen my boat before so there was lots to talk about.

Basheer had to work the next day so he had to leave before the last ferry took passengers back to the mainland.

Before going to bed I went back to the small beach that we had found earlier & got some nice shots of the city skyline lit up at night.

It was a pretty relaxing day compared to the previous two days but I was still ready to turn in before it got too late. I wanted to get up at 5:00am so I could have an early start on my passage to Whitby.

I will visit with the folks who bought Ananda from us in 2016 and are sailing her out of the Whitby Marina and I can get settled in before the big World Cup soccer game between England & Columbia began.

Cheers!

Port Dalhousie

43.2313214,-79.2120732

Toronto Island

43°37′43″ N 79°23′5″ W

We arrived at Port Dalhousie Marina at 6:00am. We were all so tired that we fell into bed as soon as the boat was secure on the dock and slept until about 10:00am.

Catherine & Emily needed to return to London & the car was at the marina in Port Colborne so I arranged for a taxi to come & pick them up at noon.

After they were on their way home I evaluated my options: stay at the marina until the next day & then head to Toronto or go to Toronto right away.

I checked the wind & wave forecast for this section of Lake Ontario & found that the forecast for July 2 was for strong winds. That meant there would be water too rough to travel in so I would have to stay in Port Dalhousie an additional day.

I had planned to meet a friend in Toronto on the 2nd so it didn’t take me long to decide that I had to leave for Toronto right away in order to get there before dark. I cast off from Port Dalhousie at 2:30pm.

The trip across the lake took about 5 hours. I wasn’t even halfway when I could start to see Toronto’s skyline on the horizon. The photo below shows Toronto when I was still 90 minutes away from my destination.

It was Canada Day so there were lots of people boating on the water & the public parks were packed. Navigating through Toronto’s inner harbour required as much concentration as if I was driving through the city on the 401 highway.

I had booked a slip at Toronto Island Marina and was able to get docked well before dark. No partying or fireworks for me! That night I was in bed before 9:00pm & I slept straight through to 8:00am the next morning.

Cheers!

June 30 was quickly coming to an end and there was no doubt that we would be traveling through the canal & locks until early next morning (July 1 & Canada Day).

Bristol Bay entered Lock 7 first, followed by Eagle & then Santosha. By this time we also had another pleasure craft join our group – a 58 foot Sea Ray.

The photo above shows Bristol Bay exiting one of the locks after we have been lowered approximately 50 feet.

I was really nervous approaching Eagle for our first raft up. Before we left the wall we discussed with each other how we would accomplish this. Both boats had lots of fenders positioned along the sides. Eagle would get set up along the lock wall & then I would come alongside for the raft-up. Catherine and Emily would pass lines from our boat over to Eagle’s crew & they would secure the two boats together.

Eagle has all the latest & greatest technology aboard. The Captain could handle this boat with a joystick & the twin diesel engines combined with bow & stern thrusters allowed him to make the boat do just about anything he wanted. Meanwhile, little Santosha has a single engine & a small bow thruster.

As I said before, Eagle is a beautiful boat. Earlier in the afternoon I did some research online & determined that she is worth about 35 time more than Santosha (yes, that’s thirty-five times)! And now I would be rafting up against this boat 4-6 more times in the dark! No pressure there, eh!

Despite my nervousness, I managed to raft up with Eagle through all of the locks without any incident. Emily & Catherine & Eagle’s crew did a great job with the lines & tie ups.

The photo above shows how we were rafted up during each of the lock passages. The boats drop approximately 50 feet during each lock operation & there is generally a fair bit of turbulence in the lock that causes the boats to shift around & to try to move away from the wall. Eagle’s owner did an awesome job holding our two boats in a stable position in each lock.

It was all a bit surreal going through the locks in the middle of the night with echoing voices coming over loudspeakers & vhf radios & the sound of water moving through the locks & engines revving up & down.

Finally, about 4:00am we entered the last lock on the canal. As the lock gates opened we said our goodbyes to Eagle & her crew. The owner was very kind to let us raft up with him. He was bound for Cape Cod & he told me that he had been through the Welland about 20 times – so he truly knew the way.

We entered Lake Ontario about 5:00am & headed for Port Dalhousie Marina about an hour away.

We had been up for 23 hours & our journey was not quite over.

Cheers!

And so our Welland Canal “adventure” continues…

We were just comfortably tied up on the canal wall near Lock 7 when the canal authorities told our group to move further up the wall to make space for a freighter that was coming towards us & would be tying up on the same wall.

Repositioning Santosha this time was much easier as the wind gusts were dying down a bit & the crew from Eagle took our lines as we approached our new parking spot on the wall.

The photo below is a “sister ship” to Eagle. Unfortunately I did not take a decent quality photo of Eagle but this one is virtually identical. Eagle is built by Riviera & is 58 feet long. A really beautiful boat.

We also received an update from the canal authorities informing us that it would be at least 9:00pm before we would be permitted to move through the next locks. Apparently a freighter further down the canal had a small collision with one of the safety gates in a lock & that basically stopped all traffic through the locks until the damage was repaired.

Now that we had to stay in one place for at least another 6 hours, we started making plans for dinner & to take some short walks along the shoreline.

The photo above shows the Bristol Bay along with its barge. Santosha is much further down the line behind Eagle.

The Captain of Bristol Bay walked down to visit with us and pass on the latest information he had about when we might start moving again.

Apparently the canal authorities were considering making the pleasure boats stay tied up on the wall overnight while Bristol Bay would be permitted to move on. The canal authorities were concerned about having the pleasure craft in the lock with the ship & barge during nighttime hours. Thankfully the Captain of Bristol Bay said he had no problem sharing lock space with us.

The freighter came to tie up behind us around 6:00pm

It was pretty slick how they tied up to the wall. Once they were close enough one of the crew was lowered from the deck by a small crane & then he caught the lines from his mates up on deck. It only took one person on shore to tie up this massive vessel.

Around 8:00pm two Canadian Coast Guard cutters passed by us – headed towards Lake Erie. The locks were back in operation!

A while later a freighter went past us & the canal authorities told us that it was finally our turn to enter the lock. By that time it was getting very dark and approaching 10:00pm.

Just before we were ready to cast off the owner of Eagle came over to tell me that he was instructed to have our boat raft up against his as we passed through each lock. This was not something that I was looking forward to doing.

to be continued…