Smellville then Belleville

Last evening at dusk we settled in to watch the Wednesday night fireworks show that Fort Henry launches.  We figured it was the 4th of July and all so we’d get a taste of home.  Two minutes.  Maybe.  Not even time to get the camera out, but at least it was something.

We awoke this morning to find the courtesy flag and the Looper burgee snapping in the wind.

The passage to Belleville is pretty sheltered, however, so we headed out for a long cruising day.  Chris Knight was asking the Lord to send him a boat until Dana wanted Jimmy Buffett instead.  Somethin’ ‘bout a boat.  Somethin’ ‘bout a dog.  Obviously we listen to lots of boat songs.  But we digress.

Pretty much everything is, was, and has been green, except for the Brother Islands just west of Kingston.   We passed down-wind and deduced that the apocalypse won’t be triggered by zombies but by bird poop and bird smell killing all vegetation.

The chart warnings about magnetic anomalies in the area proved correct—our magnetic compass and our GPS compass differed in spots by as much as 40°—but we found our way to Adolphous Reach, which took us out of big water up towards the Canadian interior.  Once there the sailboats started popping up.

At one point we met an armada pretending to be under sail so they could force us to dodge around them.  Not surprisingly they were American.  We think they might be the same guys who believe jet-skiers own Lake Powell.  We’re kinder and gentler while cruising, however, so Doug’s middle fingers remained holstered.

Just past the turn-off to Picton, we entered a narrow stretch where ferries criss-crossed in front of us.  With everybody traveling at about 7 knots, it was kind of like Frogger but with sloths.  We stopped for a bit until we could inch by.

Maybe the coolest part of the day was passing Mallory Bay and Shannonville in the span of about an hour.  What are the odds?  Maybe the least cool part of the day was the least cool part of the day.  When you travel at 7 knots and a 7-knot wind is with you, the air doesn’t move.  That’s  a bad thing when the temperature and the humidity percentage both are about 90.  Sweltering.

As we entered the harbor at Belleville, we had to slow for the lawnmower.

Not exactly a lawnmower, of course, but pretty damn close.  Water plants grow to the surface around here, and water plants at the surface aren’t great for boats.  So this guy drives around and mows them down.  We hope he comes by our slip before our air conditioning pump sucks up a bouquet.  Or maybe we should summon some of those pooping birds.