It is a clear and beautiful morning - no smoke, no smell of burning cedar. I drop our paddleboard in the water and step on carefully then start to paddle. I first do a circuit around the marina then paddle to the next marina over, called the Toronto Hydroplane and Sailing club. The shallow and weedy areas close to the shoreline look like a perfect breeding ground for fish, but I don’t see even a minnow – just lots of ducks, swans, and geese.
Ana and I have a leisurely breakfast then push off the dock around 11am. We stop at the gas dock for a diesel fill, pump out, and bags of ice for the cooler. While we are there, one of the junior sailors in the dozen or so floating mini-bathtubs, faces a sailing emergency, loses control, and bonks his Styrofoam boat into the side of SeaLight. I look down at the six-year-old captain and the poor little guy is despondent, but I assure him he is the smallest of the boats that have run into us and has done no damage, expect perhaps to his ego and nautical reputation.
It is always a thrill sailing into Toronto and is again today. There is much less boat traffic in the inner harbour than usual, likely due to the health warnings that have been given, recommending people stay indoors. We sail through the bay with Toronto’s downtown to our right and the Toronto islands, then the Billy Bishop airport to our left. We round the corner and ease into our slip at National Yacht Club.
Today is the first of our reciprocal cruising weekend between our yacht club and National. The way this works is a bunch of Newport boats go to National and a bunch of National boats go to Newport, all for free. The tricky part is actually getting there, as boats simply cannot be trusted. Here’s the tally so far.
Grateful Two – lost an engine, hobbled in on one.
Hokule'a – couldn’t get engine to start, abandoned/postponed the trip.
Maria Magdalena – engine belts broke and ripped apart a bunch of their electrical wiring, had to get towed in and were cut off by a dumb-assed sailboater which caused them to crash into a steel bulkhead and decorate the side of the boat with scratches.
Summer Sled – being the nice guy that he is, Alex towed aforementioned boat and rammed his boat into the steel bulkhead, punching a hole through the hull.
The only good part about all this is we heard one of the National yachties crashed their boat into one of our docks. It takes months to repair all the damage from these weekends but damn is it fun.
Ana and I take a walk up to the Lobaws grocery store and provision for the weekend then hang out with our boat buddies until Magnus and Stella arrive around 7 pm. We have a welcome drink in SeaLight’s cockpit, get some food into them, then spend the evening chatting, laughing, and enjoying the noise and lights of the big city.
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