Monday August 12. 2013 Pine Island

American Tour Boat

I slept in until 6:30 this morning. We had a great sleeping night. Cool with a nice breeze blowing through the boat. We had 3- 4 layers of sheets, blankets and bed spreads over us – perfect. We got up at 3:30 AM when we woke up temporarily and walked outside to see if we could see meteors. We did not see any, so back to bed.

I caught 2 little perch today and again sent them back to their daddy. I came up with a plan to fix the problem with the Gary Yamamoto bait I bought. The fish love it and constantly chomp it. But with no hook on the tail of my worm harness they let go when near the surface. I took it off my line and rigged an extra hook on the tail. It took me 2 tries to get it the way I wanted it. Satisfied, I tossed it into the water to see how it looked. Ever hear the joke about the guy who threw his anchor over only to discover it was not tied on? That was me. It was gone. I would have gone in and retrieved it but it buried itself in the weeds. The water is really clear so sighting would not be a problem. Major bummer!

Thousand Islands Bridge

We left Potato Island about 9:30 for our three mile trip to Smuggler’s Cove. We motored by Mulcaster State park to see if there was a dock open. We thought we might hike the island to get some exercise. No open docks, of course. So we decided to go by Georgina Island State Park and see if they had any docks open. Nope. So we motored into Smuggler’s Cove and anchored. It was beautiful.

There were signs warning about duck and turtle crossings and urging boaters go slow. No problem in a houseboat. (And I thought sailboats were slow) Kerry did see a big turtle but he was camera shy and took off. It was really residential in there. I got the guide book out to see if visiting was an issue. It was not. But the book suggested it was not a great place because of all the residential housing and lack of privacy. Hmmm. I thought about it, and Kerry agreed we should move.

Anchored at Smuggler's Cove

Navigation Aids on the Canadian Middle Channel

View of 1000 Island Bridge from Pine Island

We went a few hundred yards down the Channel to Pine Island where we are now.  We were welcomed by a cute little musk rat or otter that swam over to take a look at us. There are a couple of houses here, but the ones near us are empty so it is much more private and remote like.

Sea grass at Pine Island

We decided to grill ribs tonight instead of for lunch because I want to drink wine with the rib dinner and it was too early to start the serious drinking. So we had Budweiser Lime- A-Ritas instead, with salted glasses, to celebrate our safe voyage. We sat at the stern of the boat in the sun and just enjoyed the moment.

House on Pine Island

We turned on the radio while I was cooking bacon for BLT’s and found El Rushbo (Rush Limbaugh). We listened for awhile and got a weather forecast suggesting we could have showers this afternoon and perhaps a thunder shower overnight. Great weather is promised after tonight. Tomorrow we will go to Grenadier Island, still Canada, then to Alexandria Bay NY on Wednesday. No WiFi available here so I am typing this into Word for a post later.

The wind picked up this afternoon. I began to think that we were a little close to the dock of a home behind us. I wanted to let out more anchor line to increase the scope and holding power, but was afraid to get closer to the home behind. We would not have any margin of error if the anchor dragged in a storm. I spoke to Kerry and we agreed to move the boat forward, away from the home behind. She ran the boat while I fought with the anchor. It was really hard to get out (certainly would not have dragged in a storm), but we got it free of the heavy mud that had entombed it. We dropped it 50 yards ahead, put the engine in reverse to be sure it was planted and relaxed. A few minutes later I saw a familiar stump (from where we had been earlier) looked up and saw that the anchor was dragging and we were really near the dock we moved from. On went the engine, up came the anchor, we moved forward and re-anchored really quickly. This time it held.

We were ready for our rum and tonics by this time. Snacks were the hot peanuts left over from yesterday, and dinner was a grilled steak with a bean salad like Nick Anthe’s use to serve. It was a beautiful evening so after dinner we sat out and read our books until the dimming light sent us inside. It was only 8:00 and we were ready for bed. We stayed up until at least 9:00, but not much later.