We got up around 8:00am and began preparing for our departure. Our plan was to head east to Gananoque for the day and then decide what to do once we arrived in that area. Things always take a bit longer to do than you think they would so it was pressing up against noon by the time we cast off from the dock. The hot weather was continuing so there was not enough wind to make putting up the sails worthwhile. We motored through the channel between Wolfe Island and the mainland and stayed in the outside channel to Gananoque.

We arrived at our destination about 3:30. Thunderstorm warnings were being forecast for the area so we decided to check in to the Town Marina for the night. Gananoque has a great marina, it is very clean, with long finger docks (that’s important to anyone with a boat over 25’ long) and friendly and helpful staff. There are a lot of marinas (Kingston included) that only have short finger docks and it is hard to dock up to them in a wind and to keep the back end of the boat from bumping up against your neighbor.

Once the boat was secured we set out towards the local boating supply store—for what else, but more boating supplies! We arrived there just in time to meet the owner heading towards his car. Closed for the day—see you tomorrow. As it turns out they do not carry what I was looking for anyway. Well, we needed the exercise after “being at sea” all day. We walked through the town and found the downtown area. It had been quite a while since I was in Gananoque so I could not remember at all what it was like. The downtown was small but really nicely done. Lots of small and very interesting stores. We found a small country market store and Rachel bought this awesome raspberry pie. You know me, I have never met a desert that I didn’t like J. We took another walking route back to the marina and went past the Town Hall, which was the former home of the founder of the Town and then past a beautiful little park with a small pond, a fountain and swans.

The evening weather turned out to be ideal. Light winds and clear skies. We BBQ’d supper and dined on the aft deck. After dinner Brent presented me with another surprise—a beautiful cigar humidor full of fabulous cigars. We cracked open another bottle of wine and I had a wonderful after-dinner cigar. After the sun went down we also discovered that the mosquitoes were looking for dinner too. We had armed ourselves with Deep Woods Off, a large citronella candle and mosquito coils—but we forgot that we were dealing with tough country insects. They went past all of our barriers like they didn’t even exist and prepared to burrow in. After swatting for 20 minutes we gave up and headed inside the cabin for the night. Time for bed anyways, more adventure beckons tomorrow!