July 4, 2011 Whitby

My phone rang at 6:20 this morning. It was Lew. He had the idea of going to Whitby today instead of hanging around Toronto one more day. The winds were right to travel east. It was a great idea and we agreed to leave at 7:30. Lew enjoyed getting me up to head out as that is usually the role I take. It was reversed this time. Leaving early will allow us to spend 2 days in Cobourg, where only one is planned.

It is 28 miles to Whitby. We arrived at 12:15. We mostly motored, but the winds kept coming up and then dying. I must have turned the engine on and off at least 3 times. It was a pleasant trip though. One of today’s pictures shows why Excalibur is always so clean – it’s thanks to Kerry!

When we arrived the marina had mixed up the port and starboard dock assignments, so we docked on the port side but had our fenders and lines set up for starboard and vice versa for Windchaser. As always, the strongest winds of the day came when we docked. There was some language and violence during the docking, but all marriages are still strong (now).

Kerry and I biked to town. Not too much to see. We stopped and had a Subway sandwich for lunch. We visited a LCBO (booze) store and bought dark run for us and Beefeater Gin for Lew. Dark rum, tonic water and lime – yum! Kerry picked wild flowers on the way back, and did laundry once we returned. Excalibur looked like a Chinese laundry.

When we got back to the boat we smelled something wrong in the cabin. It turned out to be diesel fuel in the bilge. I think it happened because I overfilled the fuel tank yesterday. I hope so anyway. I cleaned it up, and bought some towels that absorb diesel and oil but not water and stuffed them in the bilge. I ran the engine so see if I could detect a leak, but did not find one. When we get to Cobourg tomorrow I’ll pull them out and hope we have a sweet smelling bilge again. Always something.

Dinner was great. Gretchen made portabella mushroom ala Gerry, Kerry BBQ’d chicken tenders, and Lew while I drank martinis and wine on the patio. Life is good. We decided to leave for Cobourg at 8:00 AM.