I am up at 5am rinsing the furry blanket of bugs off the boat and filling up the water tanks. Our time with the Holmes is sadly at an end, but as usual we leave here happy and exhausted. Good friends are hard to find.
At 6am Andrew waves us off from the dock and we are back on the lake, sailing west under a sunny sky and calm conditions. We pass Kingston and give a wave and a pelvic thrust to all those hard working folks driving into work.
After a few hours the wind kicks up – a strong westerly directly in our face, making sailing again unfeasible unless we want to spend 20 hours getting to Picton zig-zagging all over the channel. We do not, so we motor the entire 6.5 hours to Picton harbour and find a lovely anchorage on the west side of the bay, about a mile and a half from the town. Other than the massive concrete plant and freighter docked in front of it, a couple hundred metres from us, it is natural and pristine.
We anchor SeaLight in 20 feet of water then drop the dinghy and cruise into Picton. Upon arriving, we are shocked to discover they have a built a new municipal marina. It looks to have at least 75 slips and plenty of depth, plus everything is shiny and fresh. We speak with the dockmaster and he lets us tie up our dinghy for free for three hours.
Our primary mission when exploring a town on boat vacation is to find thrift stores. Perhaps more honestly, it is Ana’s mission, but I tag along and read old National Geographic magazines while she’s rooting through the rubbish. But this presented a problem in the first thrift store we found. And the problem was this: every piece of ratty furniture, from grandma’s fold up basement chairs, to the threadbare gold leaf chesterfields, to the wing back fabric chairs, still off-gassing decades of cigar smoke, each of these has a paper sign taped to it reading, PLEASE DO NOT SIT ON THE FURNITURE. FEEL FREE TO TRY ON THE UNDERWEAR OR TEST THE USED DEODORANT STICKS AND TOOTHBRUSHES, BUT DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE EVEN THINK OF SITTING ON THE FURNITURE. SIT ON THE FLOOR IF YOU LIKE…BUT NOT NEAR THE FURNITURE.
I am initially scared off and go to find a National Geographic. The one I grab has a feature article on Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine, that fills in a few gaps left from my previous research on this topic which was limited to the lyrics of the Boney M song. Halfway through the article I get really tired of standing, so I walk slowly towards the furniture section, whistling softly, then ease into a stiff wooden chair, well away from the fancy couches, and somewhat hidden from the staff. I hide there until Ana comes to collect me.
We wander Picton’s main street for a while, pop into a few shops, including the Giant Tiger where we score two amazing salads for 99 cents each, both expiring today, as well as some ingredients for a guacamole. Next, we find a fancy coffee shop, connected to a fancy bookstore. The coffee shop is cute and even has a quiet sitting area dedicated to Gord Downie and his reconciliation efforts. But sadly, the brewed coffee is served from a large self-serve dispenser that has not been refreshed for many hours, and it’s terrible. I opt for a bottled lemonade and the total bill is ten bucks. It confirms Ana’s theory that the reason why Tim Horton’s does so well is their coffee is drinkable and cheap despite the strip mall ambience, while fancy shops do offer a lovely space, but the coffee is always overpriced and rarely good…at least the brewed stuff.
The intense heat of the day is wearing us down so we walk back to the marina and dinghy to SeaLight, who has been waiting patiently for us and still floats alone in the anchorage. We relax in the cockpit for a while, then once the heat has subsided we take the dinghy to explore the shoreline. I shut down the motor and row for a while to get some exercise and see if we can sneak up on some wildlife. Sure enough, we come across a mama duck with eight little ducklings, all lined up perfectly on a log, watching us paddle by.
We finish the day with a large bowl of guacamole, tortilla chips, Mexican salad, a glass of wine then, for entertainment, a show on the laptop.
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