Settling into Ontario, Canada

Prinyer Cove to Picton, Ontario

Days on cruise:  89

Distance traveled today  16.3 miles

Travel time:  2 hrs, 16 mins

Total trip odometer:  2,096 statute miles

Our stay last night on a mooring ball at Prinyer Cove Marina just off Lake Ontario proper in Canada was uneventful, until we woke up this morning and Bob discovered MILLIONS (no exaggeration) of tiny bugs all over the sundeck and flybridge, mostly dead and in piles on the deck. He swept them away, which left a less significant residue. We were glad we were inside last night and not affected by these critters, though they were something like gnats, not of the biting variety.

Traveling west on the Bay of Quinte Wednesday, we traveled a narrower passage with a small ferry terminal on each side.

While moving toward the  the town of Picton, the scenery looked much like our home cruising grounds in Puget Sound, with the waterway a mile or two wide, bluffs on each side, with homes that reached the beach via steep paths or stairways. The biggest difference was there were no fir trees, all deciduous.

We pulled into Picton Harbor municipal marina, a rather grandiose name for a bulkhead wall that can only hold three boats our size, and a gas dock designed for runabouts. We  discovered the park and marina will not open for the season until this weekend.  Imagine that: someplace that has an even shorter season than ours at home on Puget Sound! 

The upside is we were still able to tie up at the dock, at no charge as no one is here to collect, and much to our surprise, their electric supply and water is  turned on, so we’re able to hook up to electricity and use the air conditioning! Other boaters even gave us the key to the park bathroom, which they’d been given last weekend by Park employees who were beginning seasonal maintenance.

Two other boats were here when we arrived. One had been here 5 nights already but left shortly after we tied up, a deaf couple in their mid-60s who described to us the fascinating challenges of cruising while life-long deaf, including not being able to communicate by VHF radio or with lockmasters at the many locks on the Trent Severn Waterway, our next destination.  They’re both lip readers, don not use sign language, and have been boating for 40 years.

This area is experiencing a heat wave, with temps and humidity both in the mid 90s today, or about 40 as our Canadian friends say, predicted to both be in the high 90s tomorrow, with a heat index well over 100.  So we’re particularly happy to have electricity and air conditioning, though we could always use the generator if we were at anchor instead.  A cold front is predicted to arrive by Friday.

We walked into town and tried to obtain Canadian cell phones and internet, but the only store in Picton offers Bell products and service, not Rogers, and Bell has essentially no coverage in the Georgian Bay and North Channel where we expect to spend most of the summer. We’ll travel to the town of Belleville on Friday where there’s a Rogers Wireless store and hope we find that Rogers has better coverage. If not, we’ll be without cell phone or internet coverage for the summer, so will rely on text messaging and Skype or email on the occasions when we can find Wi-Fi, much like our experience during the 3 winters we spent in Mexico. Today we stopped at the town library and used their Wi-Fi to check email.

Picton seems to be doing well economically as the downtown was lively.  Storefronts were full, and all appeared busy, a marked contrast to what we saw in the towns along the Erie Canal.

The storefront above, not actually located downtown, was locked up and empty, despite the sign advertising a sale.  Apparently the Revolution has not been supported?  Or perhaps it just moved into some high-rise in Toronto, who knows?

So we spent the afternoon cleaning up dead bugs, reading books and developing a plan for the next few days. We remain happy and well, as (almost) always.