Hi All,
I'm lying quietly at anchor in the lower reaches of the St. Clair River.
I picked a spot in a bend that allowed me to hang in about 10 feet of
water at least 100 metres out of the channel. The
freighters couldn't
get me if they tried and I'm tucked in enough that only trolling
fishermen have gone between me and the shore. I strung out the cool new
anchor light I got at Pride Marine. It consumes some small fraction of
an amp and has a Fresnel lens that is supposed to
make it visible at 2
miles. It even has a photo diode that shuts it off in daylight.
Highlights of yesterday:
New BBQ! It is essentially the same as the old BBQ, except that the
manufacturer has made a bunch of updates in the design that address
*all*
of the things that bugged me about the ten year old design. There
is a different burner, more like a propane stove burner that should be
less affected by wind. There is a corrugated grill plate for heat
distribution and further wind protection. The grill has a neat little
insert-and-twist mechanism that locks it into the shell. (Why would I
think that's important?) It locks onto the same mounting bracket, but
with a new, much more positive mechanism. On top of that it was cheaper!
That brings me to highlight number two, the people at Wesport
Marina.
They were so friendly and helpful. They gave us a discount on the
already cheap (dollar a foot) mooring fee. They found a taxi for Laura
and Adam to get to the train station. They have great showers! They let
me plug into their DSL line, which is how you got yesterday's
instalment. Then they phoned around to see who had
BBQs locally and lent
me their van to go pick one up. Finally, they wheeled the pump out
trailer down to the boat and pumped the tank just sitting in the slip. I
keep saying "they" because I'm lousy with names. It was Ron (pumpout)
and Marlene (or Maureen, or something like that I think) and their son
Aaron (net connection). Marlene did everything else. I will definitely
go back in on the way down. Highly recommended. The
entry is good for at
least eight feet, but stay in the obvious channel and dock on the north
side where all the other sail boats are. (Yes you detect a hint about a
very gentle grounding ;-) )
Awesome thunderstorm in the
edge of it, as most of the brunt was on the
lots of rain and verified that the mast still leaks through the deck.
Traffic is incredible through here, even without the freighters. At one
point there were four of us in the same little 100 metre
square patch of
water, all going in different directions.
I am getting more and more relaxed. I woke up this morning, made coffee
and realized I don't really have to go anywhere today, so I am sitting
here enjoying a breakfast of rye bread and cream cheese and some very
good coffee out of the lexan french
press I got for my birthday.
Still, I probably will go somewhere today. The next step is to review
the navigation up to
Still having a lovely time! More later in the trip,
Rick / Dad