I have been a delinquent blogger & fallen several days behind in my postings. Sorry about that 🙀. Here is a brief update on what’s been happening:

Saturday August 31:

Catherine & Emily & I travelled from Lower Brewers Lockstation to Kingston. That was the end destination point of our trip together.

Emily & I finally got a game of Backgammon in the night before.

We arrived in Kingston in the early afternoon & spent the next couple of days at Confederation Basin Marina in downtown Kingston. We especially enjoyed the hot showers!

BBQ’d ribs for supper!

Sunday September 1:

We had a slow start to our day & then took the ferry over to Wolfe Island to have lunch at a local restaurant then back on the ferry to Kingston to explore the downtown area. Early in the evening Catherine & I went to see the movie “Yesterday” at a downtown cinema.

It was a great movie with a lot of Beatles songs in it. Well worth seeing.

Emily opted to hang out on the boat & do a bit of shopping downtown.

Monday September 2:

Catherine & Emily took the morning train home to London. I was sad to see them go. cheered myself up by doing laundry & making updates to the Spanda & SET Togo websites.

Support Education Togo (SET) is an international charity established by Don & Heather Barclay & their family & friends. Catherine worked with Heather in London for several years & have been friends ever since.

Heather & Don needed some assistance with updating their website so I have been helping them out.

Their education charity has accomplished a lot for children in Togo. Please visit the website & make a donation if you can. https://supporteducationtogo.org/#

Tuesday September 3:

My friends Mike & Pennie Meadows from Goderich Yacht Club joined me in Kingston. They arrived just before supper. Dinner at a nearby pub! We stayed overnight at the marina in Kingston & headed out towards Ottawa the next day.

Wednesday September 4:

We got provisions at the downtown grocery store in Kingston in the morning & then started out on our next adventure.

Pennie took this photo above of a local fellow riding his motorized paddleboard in the bay just in front of the bascule bridge in Kingston. Very cool to watch him zip around on this thing.

The locks have now started operating on their fall schedule so we just barely made the last lift up at Kingston Mills.

Photo above – on the lower level blueline dock at Kingston Mills.

Our first night was stop (Wednesday) was at Lower Brewers Lockstation.

Thursday September 5:

Thursday morning we set out for Jones Falls. We arrived there just in time to get the last lift up for the day.

Pennie took the photo below while we were on a little side trip on our way to Jones Falls. Let’s just say that I took Santosha down a very shallow little channel that we should not have been in & I was darn lucky to get out! At least we got a great photo of the turtles sunning themselves!

Friday September 6:

We had a short trip to Chaffeys Lock & stayed overnight at the upper side of the lock. Dinner at the Opinicon Bar & then ice cream at the Ice Cream Shoppe!

Pennie & Mike couldn’t agree on who had the biggest cone!

But cooler heads prevailed & they made up & settled their dispute.

Today was also a special family day – my son Steve’s birthday.

Happy Birthday Steve!

I won’t disclose his exact age but let’s just say he’s “getting up there” & holding up well.

We had a very nice docking spot at Chaffeys – just across the channel from some local boathouses. Mike took this photo below. Very peaceful & idyllic setting, eh – but not for long!

Saturday September 7

We had an exciting start to our morning! About 10:00 pm the night before we were just getting ready to head off to bed when we heard a brief “bang”. It sounded like someone had fallen or dropped some lawn chairs on the dock. We looked out the windows to see what happened but saw nothing & heard no further noises so we all went to bed.

This is what we saw the next morning. Remember those boathouses across the channel?

The driver missed the corner, ran off the road, down the bank & ended up in the boathouse.

Apparently the driver was a “bit” inebriated & he simply crawled out of the car unharmed & then wandered off somewhere to sleep it off. Crazy things happen – it’s a miracle that nobody was hurt!

With the morning off to an exciting start we headed out towards Smiths Falls-our destination for the day. We arrived at 3:30 & decided to have dinner at a local sports bar & watch the Women’s US Open Tennis Match Final. I’m not really a very big tennis fan but we had a great time. The bar was packed with fans all cheering on our young Canadian star Bianca Andreescu!

Cheers everyone!