Every year we have a ¨boating holiday¨ on Lake Ontario. this year was no exception: we set off on Friday July 13th for a 2 weeks sailing vacation.
Is that clever?
Must be .... because we met our friends Mireille and Christian on Nomad in Brackey Bay (off Wolfe Island) who kindly invited us to have the apero on their boat. We had not seen them in a while as they are super (!!!) busy (!!!!) preparing the boat for a trip south.
We continued next day by a visit to Cape Vincent, USA.
The winds were southwest 15-18 knots (that is ... on the nose!) and we had quite a sportive sail all the way from Brackey's to Cape Vincent. We enjoy that village very much and like to stock on wine and beer and other wonderful beverages before touring the rest of the lake
http://www.visit1000islands.com/capevincent.asp. La Buena Vida is always quietly anchored in the basin...rather than at the free docks ... because the night breeze is so refreshing and there is no banging against the dock in case of boat traffic.
After a peaceful night, and yes, sleeping on the boat offers such a deep sleep!, we sailed towards Chaumont for an overnight visit. In Chaumont, life is quiet, very quite ... with signs of "Ducks Crossing" at roads intersection!
Next day, we set sail for Henderson Harbor which we had not visited in a long time. Since the very first European explorers, Henderson Harbor has provided safe harbor and recreation to travelers by land and by water. Samuel de Champlain first witnessed Henderson’s beauty in 1615 (!). It was the same tranquil harbor that we anchored in for 2 days. In additon, this little bay on the east side offered quite a bit of wild life with beaver and muskats crisscrossing the waters around our boat. And the water was a bit warmer than in Canada with a torrid 24C ... so we enjoyed the swimming so much more. And we also enjoyed "surfing around" with our new outboarder Yamaha 8HP which enabled us to visit the whole bay in a record time. With our portable GPS we measured a top speed of 13knots ...which is way faster than our big boat can do !!!!
After a day of strong north west winds, we left Henderson Harbour and ventured westwards towards Fairhaven in little Sodus Bay. We have been in Fairhaven on several occasions, always enjoying the change of scenery with the reddish bluffs of the southern shore announcing the entrance to little Sodus Bay.
It is amazing how this part of lake Ontario differs from the northern shores...and we thoroughly enjoyed exploring the whole bay with our folding bikes. Departing from one of the numerous public docks, we first went eastwards towards the Fairhaven State park, riding through quiet cottages lined lanes before getting to the vast sandy beaches of the State Park.
On our way back to the village of Fairhaven, we absolutely needed an ice cream! and went to the ice cream shop to buy enormous cones that we slowly ate in a shady area of the park. We were nicely exhausted of our 20 km ride and returned to our quiet anchorage for the rest of the afternoon.
Marleyne had brought her water colours and enjoyed sketching and painting the endless variations of lights on the trees lined shores.
On the next day, we rode our bikes again, but this time on the west shore of the bay; which we did not find as attractive as the eastern one. May be we were a bit more tired ... we nevertheless enjoyed having lunch on a shaded area of the beach near the long breakwater.
The ice cream ritual was, of course, part of the deal before returning to our boat. After the ice cream, we purchased another case of red dog beer for a smashing price of $9.99!!!!!!!!!
We had first tasted this American beer in Annapolis 2001. On this day, we had had an exiting day in Washington D.C and celebrated July 4th with the Red Dogs' ale on board La Buena Vida. So, if the taste is not the strongest, the memories are... Cheers!!!!
As we were almost halfways into our holidays and we had thought of crossing to Brighton, we inched slowly westwards and arrived in Big Sodus Bay on a Sunday. It reminded us of Florida's inlets on Sunday's: boats, boats and more boats...wake and more wake! Wow, is fuel in-expensive here or are people very rich ???????????? As we made our way through the bay, our jaws dropped at the sight of the power boaters "wading around" the tepid waters of the bay...
with their drinks on one hand and "blond babes" on the other!
We did anchor behind an island besides a couple of Toronto boats ... while winds were very light, the incessant motor boat traffic - including that of our Torontonian neighbours who drove their dinghies at max speed from one boat to another (that is 100 feet) - made the water very troubled ... a bit like the Hudson river on a busy afternoon!!!!
Big Sodus Bay has a very lively town, with bands playing in restaurants, heavy motorcycles everywhere, and a lot of gifts and souvenirs shops ... a mecca for tourists on Lake Ontario, no doubt. However, we were very happy to leave it behind as soon as the northerly winds gave way to the usual southerlies.
The idea was to sail over to Brighton, a 56 mile run heading NW. Unfortunately, we were not able to make Bighton, as the winds moved to the northwesterly side and created a "no fun to sail" into 6 feet waves. After 15 miles into the lake we changed course to Waupoos and Prince Edwards Bay which we reached at the beginning of the afternoon.
Ah! Prince Edward County...we spent a lmost a week there, taking out our bikes again and exploring the area from the Waupoos Marina Public Wharf heading for the Black River Cheese factory.
Great ice cream and great cheese, indeed, but the landscape: we were amazed at the breathtaking beauty of this trip. So much beauty !
After tasting the cheese and buying a piece of Mozzarella and Jalapeno cheese, we rode back and continued on to the Cider Company. Overlooking the lake, we sat there on the wonderful terrasse and enjoyed a pint of their cider with a wood fired pizza. Pure delight! This was such a nice experience for us that we repeated it a day later after a ride eastwards. Our bodies were tired and the bicycle ride was a bit shorter that day: we nevertheless stopped again at the Cider Company on our way home to repeat our gastronomic experience of the preceding day.
This was marking the last couple of days of our holidays wich ended with the usual anchoring at Pryniers Cove before heading back home in Kingston.
