August 30 – Aylings Marina Merrickville
44°55′7″ N 75°50′5″ W

Wednesday night before I went to bed I had a number of visitors on the dock with me at Kilmarnock. About 20 people in 2 large canoes were portaging around the lock & they were paddling 150 kilometers non-stop from near Kingston to Ottawa as a fund raising event to send kids to camp.

The group hoped to be in Ottawa by 4:00 Thursday afternoon. You can find out more about their cause & to make a donation at this website: www.sth.gouldlake.ca

After all of that excitement I had a good night’s sleep & was up at 6:00am. I was underway by 7:30am & arrived at the upper lock in Merrickville just before 9:00.

The boatyard where I was going to have Santosha hauled out & stored for the winter was just a few hundred meters away from the 3rd & lowest lock in Merrickville.

I tied Santosha up at the waiting area & walked down to the boatyard. The owners told me that they could not haul me out today but they could look after me first thing Friday morning. They also had dock space available for me to tie up right away so I went down through the locks & over to the boatyard.

Photo below: Santosha going through the last set of locks for this season 🙁

Aylings Boatyard has been in business for over 20 years. The current owners used to live in London. They specialize in restoring wooden boats & have some beauties on their docks.

After admiring the boats moored I spent the rest of the day preparing Santosha for the haul out. I took the cover off the bimini & folded up the frame for winter storage. After that was done I cleaned the heads & drained all of the plumbing.

Photo below: Santosha with the bimini down for the winter.

That was a fair bit of work so I thought I would switch to disposing of the cold beer in the fridge. A great way to end the day!

Cheers!