Saturday, August 10, 2013 Sugar Island

Well, we are at anchor now in the 1000 Islands. It has been a pretty nice day. We were up and showered and checked out of our hotel by 9:30. Thanks to Rosemary we could enjoy a breakfast bar (cookie) in our room. The first order of the day was to get some coffee and tea. McDonald’s turned out to be the lucky place. The $1 menu is $1.39 in Canada. They had a McLobster wrap which was new to me, but not for breakfast. We just had the "el cheapo" Sausage McMuffin.

We bought fresh corn and vegetables from a little stand beside McDonald’s. Then we went to the Metro Grocery to buy our supplies. They had everything but the little white powered donuts we like with breakfast. So I went to the No-Frills Grocery and found a big plastic container of them. Now we were ready to cruise.

We got to the boat a little before 11:00. We were assigned the one we toured yesterday.  We had asked if we could stay overnight on it yesterday, but they said no someone would be on it. As it turned out those people did not come yesterday so we could have spent the night on it, and saved a few dollars besides.

Peter and Neil run the Holiday Houseboat Rental. They are good guys and had us fixed up quickly. I bought ice, an 8 day fishing license and two dozen worms. Kerry unpacked all of our stuff and groceries and got our boat ship shape. Neil gave me a tour of how all systems and everything worked. Pretty simple, really. We showed him our tentative cruising route for the week. He thought it was fine and made some suggestions as to anchorages and Canadian State Parks. We can stay at any park for free. Neil said it was nice to rent to knowledgeable people. Last night’s group had not run a boat before and never read a chart. OMG!

Neil went with us as we left the harbor.

Kerry took a picture of a red house to use as a landmark when we return – definitely a good idea.

Once Neil was sure we could be on our own he jumped into his little boat and was off.  These boats will go 6 knots but will use a ton of gas if run that fast. We found about 4.3 knots to be a good speed and apparently we will use a  lot less gas than at full speed.

I was really pleased to discover that my navigation program works with the GPS  I bought, both connecting with Bluetooth. I knew right where I was all day.

Our first stop was an anchorage on the south of Sugar Island. Of course two boats were in there. So we motored to Prince Regent Island and found a boat where we wanted to go. As we were leaving there we saw one of the boats leaving the first anchorage so we made a bee line for there. Soon we were anchored. We were closer to the other boat than I would like (if I was him though).

Neil motored by to deliver our worms and brochure with info on all the State Parks. He said the anchorage on the east of the island was empty and beautiful. We decided to go there. As we were pulling in someone on a jet ski said it was shallow ahead, so we anchored where we were.  Ahead there was a pontoon boat anchored and the captain was fishing.

We decided it was time for the first cocktail of the cruise, a rum and tonic with fresh lime. Yum! Two were even better.

By this time the fishing boat was leaving so we decided to move ahead, further into the anchorage. This time we ended up too close to some rocks on shore, so we re-anchored.  Well, the anchor did not hold. So when we re-anchored again we decided to go further into the cove. It started to get shallow fast so we backed out of there and re-anchored close to where we were originally. We reanchored again when the anchor did not hold again. Finally we were in! Of course each time we pull the anchor in we need to clean mud and weeds off of it before we can reset it. We learned quickly that this is no job for crews in white shirts and tan shorts. I have a black bathing suit on now, and hope my good shorts will come clean sometime.  We also learned to think twice about re-anchoring once you are set.

I did a little fishing before dinner. On my first cast I pulled in a fish that would have been the biggest I ever caught, had I caught him. He fell off the hook as he neared the surface. After a couple of other similar misses I now think that the artificial worm I was using has the hooks too far forward, and that the fish are grabbing the back of the lure where there is no hook and then letting go once they have determined they have been tricked. I did get several good strikes which was fun. I am using a Gary Yamamoto lure the fellow in the Verizon store told me about.

We grilled hamburgers for dinner. We are so glad the boat has a grill. Breakfast bars made a great dessert.  We sat out until after sunset just enjoying the view and surroundings. We plotted our course for tomorrow and the rest of the week, subject to change, of course.  The boat was moving around a lot as the wind changed, so I threw out the stern anchor to stop us from swinging toward this big rock on the starboard side.  No surprises during the night!