Two days before the mast*

Another glorious sunset, this one from the dock at Queen’s Cove Marina whilst playing cards.  Brent and Karen have mastered the game we taught them so it’s about time to find a different one.  Good times.

For something like the past four months, we’ve awakened every morning to the view through the hatch above our bed.  Sometimes we see blue sky, sometimes stars, sometimes gray and rain.  On Wednesday morning, we saw brown.  Oh that’s right, we parked in a garage.

We guess they forgot that we came here to step the mast.  There barely might’ve been 27-feet clearance inside, but the roof is pitched and we would be forced to just sit in there forever if we got taller.  Sort of like a ship in a bottle.

So on day 2 we moved to an outside slip.  St. John the Rigger graciously agreed to leave retirement just long enough to help install new boom lines and winch cable, which required him to drive half-way to Toronto for materials.  Raising the newly-outfitted mast on Thursday, however, required an extra day in Tay.  (There’s a limerick hiding in that sentence somewhere.)  Mini Pearl is happy that she soon can get back in the water, however, and we’re happy to get some topside space back.  And DirecTV, since football season almost is upon us.  Here’s one of those super fun spot-the-differences puzzles:

Tay is a place through which one can walk—even with recalcitrant dogs—quicker that it takes to say “Tay.”  This would be the proverbial one stoplight town if it had one more stop light.  Literally.

The egg salad sandwiches at the mercantile, however, were delicious.  So was the fresh blueberry pie.  Turns out right around the corner there’s an iconic museum aboard the S.S. Keewatin, which is the last existing ship sharing a design with R.M.S Titanic.  Tay also has a shrine to a bunch of Jesuit saints.  Of course, we discovered all of this only as we were pulling away.

Did we mention the endless hordes of geese in Canada?  And as a matter of simple physiology, where there are geese, there is geese poop.  Everywhere.  Except Queen’s Cove Marina in Tay.

These folks have devices—designed to do away with geese—which are available for purchase at the marina store as well as aptly-named AwayWithGeese.com**.

No geese here, except those smartly passing by overhead.

Thursday afternoon St. Robin the Harbormaster went through her Georgian Bay charts with Second Wave, Aurora, Adagio, and us.

She even lined us up with marina spots that otherwise might be unavailable during the month that all Canadians with boats are required to use them in close proximity to Misty Pearl.  We feel fairly ready.

Our last night at Queen’s Cove was quiz night at Queen’s Quay Pub.  Big crowd for quiz night.

Our team—Second Pearl—might’ve had a shot, but the MC was from Wales and we couldn’t understand a word he said.  We’d never heard of a Floofy Dook, for example, so no way we would know that it’s made with room.

Tomorrow off to explore Georgian Bay.

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*Apologies to Richard Dana.

**Misty Pearl unfortunately receives no compensation for its endorsements.  Only because nobody has offered any compensation, of course, but still.