July 14, 2011 Kingston

We started our final day in Kingston by visiting the farmer’s market and the grocery store. It was a basic, no frills grocery. So no frills in fact, that they locked the grocery carts and charged a quarter to use one. Don’t tell Giant Eagle about this!

When we returned to the boat Kerry spent a lot of time reorganizing our fridge to accommodate all the great food we bought and plan to enjoy while anchored. I redid the tape marking the anchor chain so we can tell how many feet we have dropped. Kip called while I was doing this. We discussed him and Kevin Scheiferstein coming to help us transit the Welland. He did not know that Jim Karpinski was coming also, but said he will call Jim to explore options for transportation.

Lunch was at Gretchen’s favorite restaurant here, Chez Piggy. We watched some of the Buskars perform. This is the big Buskar (street entertainer) weekend in Kingston, which is why the marina is going to be full. As I look around though, I see open slips. You may recall we had a difficult time convincing the marina to book us for last night.

Gretch and Kerry did some shopping before returning to the boat. Lew and I went back. I spent the time reviewing the charts for our 1000 Island part of the voyage. A sailor from Toronto pointed out several good anchorages in the islands, and also some buoyed channels not marked in my Ports book. Later we spent about 45 minutes discussing American politics and economy. He was will informed about both. I think he was a liberal at heart. He did not like Bush, and ignored most of my comments about Obama. In his honor, I flew the Tea Party flag that Patty Grisez had given Kerry in Kingston Harbor.

We had a very nice dingy ride at about 4:30. Kerry sat under her small blue umbrella and tried to shield us both from the hot sun. When she returned she remembered that there was a large beach umbrella in the sail locker. I’ve already dug it out for her next ride.

Cocktails were on Windchaser. We ate on Excalibur while the Myers ate in town. We went to town later and watched some more Buskars perform before calling it a night.