Thursday July 6: Portland

It was the 4th of July Tuesday and I kept thinking it should be a holiday, right? Independence Day and all that.

Ironically, Canada's celebration of it's birthday is July 1st. Funny how close together the dates are.

Regardless, we headed out Tuesday late morning with Craig and Karen to see us off. They are staying another day but we are ready to go so we'll meet up tomorrow.



We traveled an amazing 2 1/2 miles through 2 locks and pulled in the for night at Poonamalie Lock before noon.

What a beautiful lock. So quiet with no roads other the the one the lock personnel use to drive here.

Shade much of the day and then again early evening so it was perfect.

Steve of course was both out walking and kayaking.

The grounds around this lock are very nicely kept with the old lockmaster house on the property.


And of course there were turtles to be seen :-)


There was a great find (sort of :-)  ) at the local Giant Tiger in Smiths Falls.

And I have to say Steve definitely needed a haircut. His last one was in Florida in May so it was time.

So there's now another thing I can do again - cut his hair! Truthfully, I was kind of liking that he was getting it cut at an actual hair place. But then there have been some bad experiences so I guess I'm back to cutting.

At least it always looks somewhat the same :-)

We planned on anchoring out the next night so Steve spent some time cleaning out the anchor locker. Apparently it was a mess ......

But now we're ready with the chain and line rinsed and dried off and the anchor locker itself all cleaned out.








It wasn't long Wednesday morning that we spotted Rahn de Vous in the lock - headed our way.

And it didn't take us long to unhook power and head out on this really nice weather day.






Steve was clearly enjoying the exceedingly calm ride to the park :-)






The destination was the Provincial Park at Murphy's Point. The nice thing about anchoring around one of the parks is there are typically no cottages along the shoreline.

We could anchor anyway (avoiding the marked underwater electric line) but it's much preferred to not have to do that. The first bay proved to be too deep so we ended up in the second small cove. Winds were from the south so the protection was great!

Once Rahn de Vous was settled, we followed - moving past them and closer to the end of the cove.

What a beautiful spot and day. Light breeze, cool temps. Couldn't ask for more ....



And yet another thing I can do: kayak!! The discoveries are never-ending :-)

Docktails on our aft deck and we called it a night.

The sky was clear so we were both hoping for a super starry night (with almost zero ambient lighting) but Steve spotted the getting-close to full moon :-(

No stars for us!

There was NO wind this morning. What a great night. The anchor alarm was set but definitely wasn't necessary. I sure sleep a lot better with it set though!

Steve took advantage of the calm to do some fishing. One perch. But there must be more on this lake - perhaps tomorrow!

Tonight we're docked at the public dock (with power - again unusual) in Portland.

Very small town which we'd not been to before. Glad we came - especially since we arrived around lunchtime and there is a restaurant right next to the public dock. And they have wifi that reaches the boat :-)

Tomorrow we'll head out to Westport to meet up with Craig and Karen (they went there today).

In the meantime, we'll enjoy the view from the flybridge!