Next day is really fun and instructive as we are visiting the airbase and get to touch and experiment plane simulators, climb towers, and watch training planes landing...

Our last stretch from Oklahoma city to Wichita Falls is short, the stretch of plains and flat terrain is beginning...but the weather is very warm and sunny! We are looking forward to our family reunion.

We are welcomed by Niko, his girl friend Nicole and Suzanne at the gate of Sheppard Airfields. They escort us to our home...a very comfortable and pretty two storey house. That evening, we join about 60 other persons (graduates of the program, instructors and their partners) for a supper at the McBride McBride’s Land & Cattle Co. I eat a huge steak which is so tender that I can cut it with the back of my knife! It is a fun evening !

After an uneventful evening in a Springfield (MO) motel, we leave for Oklahoma city. The landscapes are changing, more hills, definitely more cattle and stockyards. We are driving parallel to the Mother Road, Route 66 - originally built in the 1920's - to link Chicago to Los Angeles. The road was 9 feet wide! Some stretches are still showing the "original" pavement...There is almost a cult of Road 66, with a museum, pamphlets on how to drive the original road and its sights (giant cement Bluewhale, old gaz stations, etc...).

We arrive in Oklahoma city around 16h00, and shortly after having booked the room at the Super 8, we jump in a city bus and think that we will get to the well-known stockyards and its restaurant. But the bus brings us downtown instead...another empty and desolated affair. We use the tourist trolley to "discover" the area but we see nothing except the lower part of the high rises. We do the rest on foot...including Bricktown. This area  has a similar style to the Toronto distillery area but is absolutely empty. No offer of happy hour drinks can entice us to go in those empty restaurants and bars...After a picture taking session, we jump back in the bus and head home (!) to the Super 8. We walk to the next Sports Bar and are happy to find a 10 persons crowd in the establishment: sounds fine for supper!

While we watched Sandy's destructive path in the northeastern part of the States on the news, we are enjoying clement weather. Blue skies...still windy and cool, however. We stop for lunch in St.Louis Missouri: VERY quiet downtown area, lots of parking space! We admire the very sleek structure of the arch, Gateway to the West, overlooking the Missisipi river.

 Between Niagara Falls and Indianapolis, only rain and wind..lots of wind. The car shakes! Only upon arriving to Indianapolis, do we see the edge of the front and a bit of sun...temperatures are very low and it is still windy. We stop at Terre-Haute, Indiana for the night. While that name did not evoke anything in particular, we learned that it once was the demarcation between Louisiana and Spain! And later on, we will notice a correctional facility ...and learn that it is here that one of the Oklahoma City terrorists was killed by a lethal injection ....

Running away from Sandy

Sunday is the day...we are happy to leave Kingston and to go west...away from Sandy. Well, not completely because rain and wind accompanying the complex weather system are going to be with us all day long. It is cold, windy, wet but we are in Niagara Falls. Don't we want to see the Falls???? Well, our first idea was to walk from the hotel to the falls. We drove! Much faster and drier. But cold...anyhow, the water of the last day added power to the mighty falls! Marvelous!

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.

Cruising the 1000 islands eastwards

Having time and fair winds pushed La Buena Vida eastwards in the 1000 Islands region.

There are differents routes one can sail and we chose the Canadian side of the river, sailed  through the narrow channel between Wallace and Ash islands (which does pack a fair current make things exciting for sailboats) and then past the 1000 Island Bridge into smooother waters!

Within the Thousand Island area the narrowest point in the St Lawrence River is in the Thousand Islands Bridge area where the Canadian and American shores are a scant 4 miles apart. However pretty this area can be, the steel bridge is very noisy and we chose a neat little spot about 2 miles past the bridge, just in front of Tar Island, to spend the night.  Although Tar island is very close to Rockport, which is an international touristic hub for the 1000 Islands, the continously running tourist boats past well west of us.



Next morning, we motorsailed towards Alexandria Bay.  We picked Cherry Island to anchor and took the dinghy over to Heart Island to check in.  We had first tried to dock there with the big boat, but the water level was too low to do so.   On Heart Island stands the (in-) famous "Boldt Castle", which thousands of tourists come to see each year.  But the history of this castle has a rather "hollywoodian" character!

In 1900, millionaire George C. Boldt—proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City—set out to build a full-sized Rhineland-style castle on Heart Island for his beloved wife Louise. This was to be a rather imposing six-story structure with 120 rooms, complete with a drawbridge and Italian gardens, boathouses, gardens, the "real" thing!.  Then in 1904 tragedy struck. Boldt telegrammed the island and commanded the workers to “stop all construction.” His wife had died unexpectedly. Boldt never returned to the island, and teh construction crews left materials and tool behind - where they fell.  A big blow to the local community. The castle remained vacant for 73 years. Since 1977, millions of dollars have been invested in the restoration of the Heart Island structures and the Yacht House on Wellesley Island (of which the local communities benefit once more).  We figured that we would be happy with the Yacht House alone, large enough for our sailboat to fit, with its mast on!!!!

It was fun taking the dinghy around Bold Castle and through the surrounding islands ... but then we had enough of sight seeing and negotiating the never ending stream of tourist boats, and moved on to our beloved Picton Island anchorage a few miles west.

Time to go home and to install windows - 6 in total, before we opt for another trip!  The weather is getting unsettled, a sign that our summer is coming to an end.

 

1812 War commemoration

Our summer cruising adventures continued through August. The weather has been absolutely great, sunny, hot, and with barely one thunderstorms to trouble this idyllic weather.  We attended another 1812 War commemoration at Gananoque in the Thousant Islands region. Many are wondering why this war is the object of so many celebrations? Well, Canadians like to remind themselves and others that the country is NOT the USA and has actually been able to stand up to their power. The 1812 war is the celebration of the successful fight by British, English- and French-Canadian and First Nations allies to resist would-be American conquerors — at battles such as Queenston Heights in Upper Canada and Chateauguay in Lower Canada — set the stage for the creation of a unified and independent Canada a half-century later.
As usual, we came from Beaurivage Island to the Gananoque Joel Stone park by dinghy.  There were areas reserved for "gunboats" that were later going to be actors in the recreation of the battle between American and British ships and troops.

Why not celebrate the victory? We hoisted all our little flags - of all the countries visited since 1999 -and toasted to the now friendlier relations between our nations.

Waupoos and home

Our last stop before heading home was going to be Waupoos, in Prince Edward County. This is one of our favorite destination and it ust happened to be a long weekend here in Ontario. We have been often here and it was a very rewarding way to end our holidays. We began celebrating the pre-birthday of Marleyne...by going to the Waupoos vinery and the beautiful Cider Company overlooking the bay. We had met a nice couple from Oakville on board their Gozzard 37' and we enjoyed their company for these outings. These were very very hot days and we were glad to be able to swim several times a day. A cold front on Sunday cooled things down considerably and gave us great westerly winds...in direction of our home harbour.

All the way to Desoronto

From Cobourg, we finally were able to sail to Presqu'ile Bay...a spinnaker ride of 30 miles! We love this area and it was tempting to spend a bit more time in Presqu'ile. We know we can be back here, however, as it is a great destination for the fall, when the leaves turn golden and red and birds are migrating...

Going through the Murray Canal was uneventful...except for the new fee being set at $4.95 (!!!!!!!!!!) which had us laugh pretty hard.  You are supposed to place your money in a little pouch handed to you by the bridge master while passing the bridge.  And they would give change - if needed!  Why not making things easy for every body and charge $5.00???? Anyhow, our next anchorage was in Big Bay (just made it in before the next thunderstorm), located between Belleville and Desoronto and lastly, Desoronto. Definitely very far from big cities here....

Good bye Toronto

We felt happy with our stay in the big city and we left early on a sunny morning, admiring its golden skyline.  The islands were serene and we caught glimpse of a coyote walking on the beach!

Our next destination was 55 miles east...in Cobourg, Ontario. We had stored our dinghy on deck for the trip as we find that it slows us down ...especially on no wind day like that one. The lake was calm and we arrived in Cobourg at the end of the day, finally enjoying swimming after a week of not being able to do that in the Toronto harbour...

Toronto

For us living in a small city like Kingston, it is tremendously eciting to spend time in a metropolis like Toronto. We had a "program"....the firs t item of which was to visit the Art  Gallery of Ontario in order to see the Picasso exhibition.  The Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris featured more than 150 highlights from the Musée’s unparalleled collection, including paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings. It was quite captivating despite the fact that we had seen several pieces of Picasso before....but the timeline of his work was very well reprensented here. In the same gallery, we enjoyed another exhibition, this one by the contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Huan: Ash Paintings and Memory Doors. 
Another fun activity was to meet a friend at the new home for TIFF (Toronto Internation Film Festival) which is a beautiful, welcoming five-story complex at the corner of King and John Streets in the heart of downtown Toronto. we had lunch in its Oliver and Bonacini restaurant and enjoyed the fashionable Toronto crowd!
Besides our long walks in the Chinese quarter, Queen street east and west and Spadina street, we also visited the International Jazz Festival at The Beaches and took the opportunity to visit yet another part of Toronto.https://www.google.com/search?q=the+beaches+toronto&hl=zh-TW&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=4RQkUJynN_GEygHNtYGYBw&ved=0CG8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=849

As we had our folding bicycles on board, we used them to tour all the Toronto islands. And what fun it was! Among the highlights, there was the second oldest lighthouse of the Great Lakes, at Gibraltar Point.  The Island Lighthouse is the oldest landmark in Toronto. From its site on Gibraltar Point, it has watched most of Toronto's history unfold; its light beam has, for more than 150 years, been a welcome guide for the mariner into the Harbour of Toronto. And it appears that the lighthouse keepers and his family became the first inhabitants of this area, slowly drawing more and more people to its quiet land. There are
over 600 residents and 250 houses on the islands. We toured both communities located on Algonquin island and Wards island.

We ended our bike tour with a huge ice cream cone while looking at kids having fun on the rides of the Centreville Amusement Park !!!!

Getting to Toronto and its islands

 Toronto's harbour is busy with ferries, offers a great skyline and the rumours of the big city fill the air...until you penetrate the green oasis of the Toronto islands.. It is an amazing contrast!
After a day of strolling in the busy and dusty streets, we enjoy returning to the boat and enjoy the serenity of the anchorage.

At night, the CN tower profile was visible from our boat, not letting us forget that the big TO is just around the corner.

Our stay in the Toronto Islands

We left early next morning, not being able to imagine drinking our first coffee while smelling guano!!!! In order to get to the Toronto Islands, one has to enter the Toronto Inner harbour...see map. We sailed from  number 17 ...and made our way to a secluded little bay where we were undisturbed for the 6 following days. The red dot on the map indicates our anchorage.

Oak Orchard or Toronto???

We leave Irondequoit very early (6am) and make our way west. The 15 knots winds soon stop and we are left motoring. As a cold front is forecasted for the next day, we decide to take advantage of the fair weather to make our way to Toronto...only 80 miles to go! 

Anyhow, this was not the best of passages: we had no wind for 8 hours (contrary to the weather forecast), with a overheating engine (because of a broken impeller…) and with an automatic pilot on strike…But this was not all: when the wind came up, it did with 15 -20 knots from the south west and we found ourselves unable to keep tracking to Toronto. Then the big thunderclouds towering over the cities of Toronto and Hamilton for the last couple of hours decided to move our way and we had squalls and thunderstorms creating 5 to 6 feet waves accompanied by heavy winds and forcing us to head more and more away from Toronto! When the whole thing blew over, it was 11pm and we could finally resume our course towards our destination…and entered Toronto harbour around 2am. Ah! That beer tasted good wth leftover sandwiches! A feast barely disturbed by the overpowering smell of the cormorans inhabited islands.

So good that you cannot smell this photo!!  Just too many cormorans breed in the region, destroying all vegetation!

Irondequoit, NY

We are inching our way west in the hope to get to Oak Orchard,NY and from there, to cross the lake to Toronto (50 miles). Rather than stopping in Rochester where it is not possible to anchor, we venture in Irondequoit Bay, 5 miles east of Rochester. It is Sunday and we expect a lot of commotion and traffic in the area (we remember too well the zillion of power boats zipping in and out of inlets in Florida on weekend days!). But the crowd here is well behaved : they actually respect the 5mph speed limit in the canal leading into the bay. The area is attractive with a fjord look…meaning, it is not easy to anchor because it is very deep except ..when you are on the beach. Heiner manages to find a spot – he always does! – besides moored power boats and people standing in water with their drinks.

Chimney Bluffs and Big Sodus Bay

Today was the perfect day for "walking about"....First we biked and revisited the tiny village of Fair haven: it is reminiscent of New England sea side villages with pretty wooden houses. We then left the bikes on the beach at the State Park and proceeded to walk in direction of the bluffs. The rocky beaches are strenuous to walk...and then a bit in the forest...and then back to the beach along the bluffs. The following pictures are ours (yesterday's were taken from the internet)...pretty amazing geological structures! After 4 hours of this walking about, we were really happy to come back to the boat and go for a swimm...

Tomorrow, easterly winds should give us an easy ride to Great Sodus Bay, only 15 miles west from here.

Already planning ahead for our visit of Toronto, we phoned the Harbour Centre Marinas and were shocked to hear that it costs $20.00 to dock your dinghy there for 3 hours. $20.00!!! Canadian hospitality????????????????????  But then, parking is expensive in TO!

Little Sodus Bay

Early rise this morning: 5h30 am. The northerly winds were just beginning and we had a nice ride for the first 38 miles of our trip. At about 14h00 however, that was it: no more! We started the engine and just motored, surrounded by too many lake flies...We passed the Chimney bluffs, an amazing geological sight: born in the ice age and sculpted by erosion and glacier, those bluffs are the highlight of the area.
We are currently anchored in Little Sodus bay and the water is 27C!!! Beautiful swimming! We will spend the day tomorrow wandering around or biking around..not sure yet. Life is good.

Relaxing in Cape Vincent

We came to Cape Vincent for the French festival but also because it was a nice place to relax and to get in the cruising mode for our three weeks circumnavigation of Lake Ontario.  As I previously stated, the village is beautiful, very relaxed (when the crowds are gone) and it has a public library with a great deck overlooking the lake where one can have access to Wifi 24/7!

Here I am sitting and downloading the photos for our blog!

Fireworks

The parades day ended with a marvelous firework! The best thing about it was that our boat was anchored in such a way that the fireworks exploded right ABOVE us!!! What an amazing experience!

La Bastille day

So far away from France but so close! Every year, on La Bastille day, the small village of Cape Vincent celebrate the alliance between the American and the French because Cape Vincent almost got to be the nouvelle patrie of Napoleon..before he choose to escape to Elba, instead. Well, tant pis for Napoleon ... and too bad for us, North Americans - we could have our French baguettes every morning instead of soft (gummi) bread. Anyhow, here in Cape Vincent, they decided that the French presence of the late 18th century (up to middle of the 19th century) was worth a celebration. It is now called the Festival francais and draws crowds of near 10,000 people every year.  Bands of all kinds, from Big Band style to Scottish Bagpipes march through the beautiful trees lined streets of the village.

Canada Day!

The weather was picture perfect for Canada Day on the water. On this day, many Canadian boats choose to fly a large Canada Flag in the rigging.  We opted .... as self-declared Canadian ambassadors, to fly the flags of all the countries we had visited with La Buena Vida.  It made a nice colurfull display.  And then we went into town (Gananoque) to get some pulled pork!