August 8, 2011 Port Dalhousie

We had some storms and rain last night. I was only half aware of them, but they did stop me from sleeping well, that and thoughts of the upcoming Welland transit. I got up and 7:00 and checked the internet connection which was still not working. So by 8:00 I was out washing the boat. It was really dirty. I finished the job with Kerry’s help about 11:00. We then had a breakfast of cereal with blueberries.

I decided to haul my computer to the marina office to see if the connection was fixed. If not I decided I would bike to the Lakeport Laundry to post the blog update. To my great pleasure the connection was fixed. I guess someone had messed with the wires for some reason and knocked it offline. The post was done about 12:00. I spent some time reviewing e-mails then took the computer and bike back to the boat. We had planned to go to the grocery on our bikes but Gretchen suggested that we just go in Jennifer’s car when she arrived, and Kerry liked that plan better than bike riding.

I called Seaway Welland to tell them we were coming tomorrow and to see if I could get a time to arrive. There advice was just to call them in the morning when we arrive at the staging area. It appeared at the time that it might be a good day for us to transit, without a lot of freighter traffic.

Kip and Jennifer arrived about 2:30. We got the car unloaded and all their wares loaded on the boats. While Kip was storing his goods I walked to the marine store and bought a new hose. I used it to fill the water tanks to the brim. Excalibur carries 100 gallons of water in 2 tanks.

One of the motor boats on the dock had a box on board their bow that housed a bird’s nest. There were five baby birds in there. The mom worked really hard bringing food to them. It is a full time job for that bird.

Now it was time to go to the grocery. Jennifer wanted me to drive since I knew where it was located. I pointed out that it had been a long time since I drove a car but she still gave me the keys. We all went wild in the Metro grocery store, picking up items for a dinner then replacing them with another item. We finally decided to eat a rotisserie chicken on Excalibur while Gretchen decided to go out for dinner.

Cocktails were on Windchaser. It was nice to visit with everyone, and we all enjoyed the new dynamics of having Kip and Jennifer on board. After we hoisted Lew’s dingy up on his davits we returned to Excalibur for dinner and the Myers went to town. We agreed to shove off at 6:30 tomorrow. Lew had wanted to leave at 6:00 AM, but we all conspired to make it a later time, thankfully.