Day 346: Friday, August 16, 2013
Port to Port: Tie Island Killarney, Ontario
Underway: 7:13 am Motor Off: 12:05 pm Miles Traveled: 31/43 Stayed At: Marina
First Things First: First free marina; first marina with a sauna; first marina with a seaplane landing pad.
Mile 22 to Mile 65: Today was worth the wait. The wind died overnight and we awoke to blue skies, sunshine and calm seas. Time to head to Killarney. We headed out following Spiritus and Carina into Georgian Bay. Before we got past the last rock in the Bustard Islands, we had our main and jib up and full close hauled and heading straight for Killarney.
The morning kept getting better and better. The swells left over from yesterday die off, the wind shifted a little closer to a beam reach and we kept sailing. After a couple more hours, Georgian Bay was almost flat but we still had a nice shore breeze to keep up moving well above our normal motoring speed. For the last 2 hours we were “flying” along at a steady 6.7-6.8 mph. It was a joy to be on the water.
Before we knew it we had to slow down, take the sails down and enter the channel leading to Killarney. The marina we found space at was the Killarney Mountain Lodge – we happened to stay at this same marina in 2002. The girls loved it – they got to swim in the pool twice in the same day and even got to play billiards in their game room. It hasn’t really changed in all these years. I could even remember which dock we stayed at back then.
At first they didn’t have room for us but we could have stayed at a mooring ball. We stopped at the gas dock to figure out what to do as Spiritus and Carina got tied up and found out they had a cancellation so they had room. We decided to stay where we were but the best surprise was when we went to pay – boats under 25’ are free. I had to ask the guy three times if he was telling the truth. What an unexpected surprise. Another benefit of a small boat.
The next surprise was all the friends from Kingston that pulled in over the next couple of hours. We ended up having an amazing docktails with old and new friends including Irish Attitude (Mike and Gay), Journey (Rick and Margie), Harmony (Bob and Janet), Spiritus (Eddy and Linda), Sun Gypsy (Rick and Leila + Nora and David) Carina (Kent and Jane) and Free at Last (Steve and Meredith). It was like old home week.
A bunch of us wandered down to the Red Bus to try out the “famous” fish and chips and, since Eddy and Linda were with, we couldn’t pass up the nearby ice cream shop that was closing in 10 minutes. Of course, everyone else didn’t want them to enjoy their treat alone so we all had cones too. What an amazing day on the Great Loop.
