Off to London!

Well, here we are in London, comfortably situated in PetDoc's flat drinking instant coffee.

Wednesday we started out in Ottawa having birthday lunch with Singer and Serdic and then headed off to the airport. As we approached the check-in counter, we saw J & S's Zoom flight land (they were returning from a 2-week visit with PetDoc) so once we were checked in we headed to Arrivals to wait with their mom for them to disembark. This sure helped shorten the wait for our own flight - once through security we only had about a 20-minute sit at the gate before our own flight was loaded.

Our flight was comfortable and actually appeared to be short. The A-V system was not working so there was no music / TV / movies - only the map showing our progress across the Atlantic. Air Canada has offered us a 5% discount on our next flight as compensation for the lack of entertainment. This is a very real possibility because we REALLY like this direct flight from Ottawa.

As we approached London the pilot gave us a wonderful banked view of the highlights of the city. We were able to see all the landmarks and even got a glimpse of PetDoc's street (the tennis courts of The Queen's Club are a dead giveaway). After passing through customs and collecting our luggage we headed to the Arrivals lobby where PetDoc was waiting for us. Then on to the tube to head home. It was strange to get off the tube at Baron's Court and know exactly where we were and where to go. The Google satellite images and maps have allowed us to become familiar with this neighbourhood even before we left home.

Noise had not left for work yet so we were able to deliver a large box of Tim-Bits in person as requested. A few were kept but the rest went to the London office of PWC for a little taste of Canada.









We went for a little walk with Buggy around the immediate Greyhound Road neighbourhood; had to check out the Vespa. We then decided that if we were going to adopt London time were were going to have to consider the breakfast we were served on the plane a midnight snack and have breakfast in London at London breakfastime.









Later in the morning we caught the tube downtown to meet Noise for lunch. We had a very nice lunch at a pub on Fleet Street and did a little sightseeing in the area. Then we took the tube to Tower Hill. We headed to St. Katharine Docks and had a coffee before we walked across Tower Bridge and along The Queen's Walk in front of City Hall. After a visit to The Borough Market (Borough Market is London’s oldest food market, established on the south bank of the Thames when the Romans built the first London Bridge) to pick up some fruit & veggies for supper we walked across London Bridge to catch the tube back to Baron's Court. It was rush-hour so fairly crowded but at least we didn't need Japanese-style pushers to get us on board.









After a great supper of stir-fry and Pims (gotta have Pims!!) we turned in fairly early. This morning (Friday) both PetDoc and Noise have to work so we'll do some sightseeing on our own. We're thinking maybe today's plans will include a visit to Greenwich. We're meeting PetDoc at her clinic after work - we saw Noise's stomping ground yesterday; today we'll see how the other half works.

Tomorrow we're picking up our rented car, dropping Buggy at a sitter's, and heading off for a couple of nights at Cornwall. We have B & Bs booked and all we need now is sunny, warm weather.

That's all for now.

The Bluffcam

Earlier this summer we decided to save a few trips up and down the cliff to check on the boat. We bought a wireless camera and mounted it on a post at the top of the cliff, aimed at the dock. Even though it's stretching the limits of the wireless range, it transmits a clear enough image that we can check on the waterfront situation by turning on the TV. If I get up the energy to trim a few trees (between the camera and the dock and between the receiver and the camera) the image will be even clearer. All in all, it's a pretty effective outfit for <$30 on eBay. Better not skinny-dip off our dock or the video will be on YouTube.

Rainy but nice ...

We just got back in from a couple of weeks out - we spent the long weekend on the main dock in the bay at Beau Rivage; came in Monday to get ready for a charity cruise on Tuesday we had auctioned of at the Grace Church Budget Booster in May. We had probably the nicest weather we've had all summer on Tuesday and found an empty dock at Camelot. After lunch we cruised down around Mulcaster and up the inside channel. Wednesday morning we headed out again, this time down to the 1000 Islands Bridge. There's almost always space at the North docks on Georgina because boat traffic makes it quite rough there, but we had two great nights with m-in-law (though it rained a good bit of Thursday - bless the hard-top again!!). Friday morning we motored over to Ivy Lea and then made our way to Mulcaster for a night. By this morning our house batteries were dead (no generators allowed on Mulcaster) but we're home, plugged in, ready to go. Tomorrow (pray for good weather) we're out for the day with another family who bought a day's boating at another auction and then we'll pack it in for a couple of weeks as we get ready to travel to England to visit PetDoc and Noise (and Buggy).

btw - while we were at Beau Rivage last weekend I removed the stock swim ladder (a two-step job that swung up and fastened to the stern boarding ladder. We felt that this made climbing the ladder to the boat awkward and as a swim ladder two steps was not quite enough. We replaced it with an under-platform 3-step ladder and it's much more satisfactory. It also increases the amount of space on an already small swim platform.

We've been struggling with which kind of dinghy davits to buy and finally settled on the C-hoop style. We've seen a lot of weaver davits pull loose with the stress of leaving the outboard motor on the dinghy and we liked the idea of being able to offset the dinghy to one side or the other if necessary. We also sprung for the swivel motor bracket (scroll down a bit), allowing us to keep the outboard nearly vertical when carried on the swim platform. Lifting, securing and lowering is really quite easy and the system appears to provide an excellent method for carrying the Zodiac.

A lovely week out ...

This week we spent five days out and had a delightful week, even though there was quite a lot of hard rain. The hard top really makes a difference when you have to endure a steady hard rain - we really had nowhere on the vessel that was even damp except up on the flybridge where pounding rain eventually works its way through the canvas stitching and drips. One of the heaviest rains came up very suddenly and several other boaters (we were hooked on a mooring can at Camelot) were out in their dinghies with hatches and windows open on their boats. They had several hours of miserable dampness to deal with upon their return. We had never been on a mooring can before - we were relieved to discover how easy they are to hook and attach. There's something about floating free that is much more relaxing than being tied to a dock. There's less noise and, believe it or not, less worry - we slept the best we have yet at Camelot.

After our three nights we took a swing by Leek (Thwartway) but, there being no cans free, came on over to check out Burnt and Beau Rivage. I should mention here that when I refer to an island name it is one of the park islands of the St. Lawrence Islands National Park. Our favourite little finger-dock was free so we decided to give it a try with our new bigger boat. We were about half-on, half-off but quite secure and in lots of water even with the stern in (more convenient for boarding). We were alone Thursday night but joined for Friday by two Quebec boats who rafted on the other side of the dock. They were courteous, quiet and turned in early so we had a nice night. I had dinghied over to pick up m-in-law and we had a scrumptious supper.

This morning we had a boating staple - bacon and eggs and then got underway. We were back to our dock by about 10:30 and very glad to see neighbour K waiting to help us dock. A couple of days home now for laundry and stocking up and we'll be back out again next week.

At last -

We spent two wonderful nights on Honeymoon Point on the northwest corner of Aubrey Island (Burnt Island to the locals). Had no mechanical issues whatsoever and we were able to relax and enjoy the outing. The second night we were wakened by the wind (unusual in the middle of the night) which forewarned us of an approaching thunderstorm. We just had time to close the hatches and zip the zippers before it began to rain. On Friday we came to town for a pump-out and picked up Newfoundland cousins and m-in-law and went back out for an onboard lunch. Can't make any assumptions about every anchoring situation but the claw anchor sure grabbed better than the Danforth ever did. I sneaked a peek at the GPS every once in a while and we sat in exactly the same spot the whole time we were hooked.

Pretty hard to find a sunrise prettier than this:

Don't want to jinx it, but ...

Well - for those of you who have been sympathizing with us in our 'non-boating' summer so far - we're back at our own dock, apparently fixed. A new distributor for the starboard engine seems to have done the trick. Actually, there's quite a lot more power now in the starboard engine than the port (Gordon's took the liberty of ordering us a second distributor in case we want to beef up the other engine too). We put 'Daydream Believer' through her paces tonight - slow, fast, reverse, forward, reverse and forward - and there was no stalling problem whatsoever. We were really glad because we had to pull our 'come across the end of the dock, lash the stern, and pull in the bow' landing manoeuvre and that requires complete control of both engines.

We did discover, however, that some of the barrels in the floating dock had become dislodged so that's a task for tomorrow. You won't find me posting on Tips and Tricks that barrels in a floating dock can be held in place by ratchet straps because they can't. However, galvanized strapping will be in place by this time tomorrow and I'm thinking of putting some extra wooden framing members in place as well for extra holding power. There's too much riding on this dock to go half way and I should have known that when I built it!

But, as of the moment, we're boaters again. Hopefully we can now start getting used to handling and caring for a boat bigger than we're used to and enjoying the lovely backyard that is our Saint Lawrence.

More delays

Well - Daydream Believer has been sitting at Gordon's for 12 days now with no progress on the stalling starboard engine. The mechanic decided to try new electronic ignition parts (the only thing left to try) and they were back-ordered for over a week and then eventually determined to be unavailable. So he has decided to order a new distributor and revert to the old points/condenser system. Problem is - they're only available from Wisconsin. Guess we should have bought a less exotic boat than a Carver with Crusader engines!

The story now is that Homeland Security is causing delays in getting their parts across the border and the earliest we can hope for delivery is next Tuesday. I'm inclined to think that 'Homeland Security' is being blamed these days for a lot of things we used to call 'bad service'.

The summer is scooting away and we've only had a few hours aboard our new boat. I guess there's no-one in particular to blame but I do get the impression that none of the people involved in the process of repair are boaters. What are chances your car would sit for 15 days in the shop with nothing being done? And if the 'carring' season was only a couple of months long you'd be on their case several times a day until they had it fixed.

We had months of pleasure on our Fairbanks and have had nothing but grief from the Carver. I'm still convinced that she's a good vessel - I placed a lot of faith in the survey and the mechanical inspection. But so far this season it's only been stress and worry and second-guessing about the wisdom of this purchase.