Jazz at the Rex

With our boat put away for the winter, and Marleyne saying a "bye bye" for now, we are ready for some other travels.

As members of the Opera Guild here in Kingston, we, subsequently, enjoyed 2 operas in Toronto.  We are also using these events to stay over night in order to get our share of visits to galleries, to museums and to eat something exotic.

One nice surprise was our discovery of the Rex Jazz Bar on Queen's Street. What a cool place! How come we only now discovered this jazz and blues bar? Today we got to hear the Laura Hubert Band, a pretty amazing gang of 5 playing great jazz. We also enjoyed a couple of "Mill Street Ales".  In all:  a perfect late afternoon on a cold and windy day.

Next, we will be driving down to Texas to celebrate with Niko his pilot graduation.  We look forward to seeing him.  He has a neat blog ... http://niko-2011.blogspot.com/ and is looking forward to his next assignment - flying the Eurofighter!

Season End - 2012

After the first week of September, the season changes dramatically.  It can be sunny and warm, or very rainy and cold and wet.  You take your pick.

The weather sounded promising for our last sail of the season.  In fact, it was not that great at the beginning.  But we wanted to see the 1000 Islands again for a last look at the leaves.  In the evenings, we huddled inside taking shelter from the rain, lightening our kerosene lamps.  Time for cooking, reading books, and having a last swimm in the Lake Ontario waters (That's H!).

Nevertheless, we enjoyed this end-of-the year sail!

Heading home we stopped again at Cape Vincent - a lovely village - had a nice walk and relaxed under the warming sky at night (a sign that another cold front is approaching).

Back home, we begun to empty the boat and get her ready for haul-out.  On one hand, we feel saddened about this process, on the other hand, we have many more travel plans in the coming weeks (by car and tent!).

We also said our private good-byes to a good friend of mine who had died recently.  He was full of dreams to sail the North Sea and the Baltic Sea with is boat next year.  He had also wanted to come sailing with us here on Lake Ontario.  We had plans for him, destinations, anchorages ... Manfred,  when will we meet again?  We lifted a glass of rum in memory of his presence.  I will miss you.  We will miss you.